Timeline of historic inventions

The 15th-century invention of the printing press with movable type by the German Johannes Gutenberg is widely regarded as the most influential event of the modern era.

The timeline of historic inventions is a chronological list of particularly important or significant technological inventions and the people who created the inventions.

Note: Dates for inventions are often controversial. Inventions are often invented by several inventors around the same time, or may be invented in an impractical form many years before another inventor improves the invention into a more practical form. Where there is ambiguity, the date of the first known working version of the invention is used here.

History of technology
By technological eras
Neolithic Revolution Ancient Greek and Roman technology Medieval technology Renaissance technology Industrial Revolution Second Industrial Revolution Atomic Age Jet Age Space Age Digital Revolution Information Age
By historical regions
Ancient Egypt Ancient India Ancient China Ancient Greece Ancient Rome Maya civilization Byzantine Empire Medieval Europe Medieval Islamic world
By type of technology
History of agriculture History of biotechnology History of communication History of computer hardware History of electrical engineering History of materials science History of measurement History of medicine History of nuclear technology History of transport
Technology timelines
Timeline of historic inventions Complete list
Outlines
Outline of technology Outline of prehistoric technology

§Prehistoric

Further information: Outline of prehistoric technology

Note that the dates in the Paleolithic era are approximate and refer to the earliest discovered use of an invention, and are likely to change as more research is done and older sites are found. Similarly, the locations listed are for the site where the earliest example to date has been found, but in most cases there is little certainty how close that may be to where the invention actually first took place.

• 2.6 million years ago: Stone tools (Olduwan) in Ethiopia
• 1.8 million years ago: Fire and then cooking
• 500 thousand years ago (ka): Shelter construction in Japan
• 400 ka: Pigments in Zambia
• 400 ka: Spears in Germany
• 200 ka: Glue in Italy
• 110 ka: Beads in Israel
• 100 ka: Burial in Israel
• 77 ka: Bedding in South Africa
• 64 ka: Spearhead in South Africa, along with what may be an arrowhead.
• 61 ka: Sewing needle in South Africa
• 60 ka: Bow
• 40 - 20 ka: Cremation in Australia.
• 36 ka: Cloth woven from flax fiber in Georgia
• 35 ka: Flute in Germany
• 28 ka: Rope
• 16 ka: Pottery in China
• 10 - 7 ka: Mud walls and mudbricks between Syria and Pakistan (see Mureybet and Mehrgarh).
• 7 ka - 4 ka: Writing in Greece, Romania and Egypt (see Dispilio Tablet and Tărtăria tablets).
• 6 ka: Kiln in Mesopotamia
• 5000 - 4500 BC: Lacquer in China
• 5000 - 4500 BC: Rowing oars in China.
• 3630 BC: Silk garments (sericulture) in China
• 3500 BC: Wheels in Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.
• 3200 BC: Sailing in ancient Egypt
• 3000 BC: Cuneiform in Mesopotamia
• 3000 BC: Bronze in Mesopotamia
• 3000 BC: Papyrus in Egypt

§1st millennium BC

§7th century BC

• mid-7th century BC: Two-masted ships (foresail) by Etruscans in Italy

§6th century BC

With the Greco-Roman trispastos ("three-pulley-crane"), the simplest ancient crane, a single man tripled the weight he could lift than with his muscular strength alone.

• c. 515 BC: Crane in Ancient Greece

§5th century BC

• 5th century BC: Crank motion (rotary quern) in Celtiberian Spain
• 5th century BC: Cast iron in Ancient China: Confirmed by archaeological evidence, the earliest cast iron was developed in China by the early 5th century BC during the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC), the oldest specimens found in a tomb of Luhe County in Jiangsu province.
• 5th century BC: Crossbow in Ancient China and Ancient Greece: In Ancient China, the earliest evidence of bronze crossbow bolts dates as early as the mid-5th century BC in Yutaishan, Hubei. In Ancient Greece, the terminus ante quem of the gastraphetes is 421 BC.
• 5th - 4th century BC: Traction trebuchet in Ancient China between 5th - 4th century BC, appeared in the Mediterranean by the 6th century AD.
• Before 421 BC: Catapult in Ancient Greece (incl. Sicily)
• c. 480 BC: Spiral stairs (Temple A) in Selinunte, Sicily (see also List of ancient spiral stairs)

§3rd century BC

An illustration depicting the papermaking process in Han Dynasty China.

• Early 3rd century BC: Canal lock (possibly pound lock) in Ancient Suez Canal under Ptolemy II (283–246 BC) in Hellenistic Egypt
• 3rd century BC: Valve Tower Sluice in Sri Lanka
• 3rd century BC: Water wheel in Hellenistic kingdoms described by Philo of Byzantium (c. 280 – 220 BC)
• 3rd - 2nd century BC: Blast furnace in Ancient China: The earliest discovered blast furnaces in China date to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, although most sites are from the later Han Dynasty.

§2nd century BC

The earliest fore-and-aft rigs, spritsails, appeared in the 2nd century BC in the Aegean Sea on small Greek craft. Here a spritsail used on a Roman merchant ship (3rd century AD).

• 2nd century BC: Finery forge in Han Dynasty China, finery forges were used to make wrought iron at least by the 2nd century BC in ancient China, based on the archaeological findings of cast and pig iron fined into wrought iron and steel found at the early Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) site at Tieshengguo.
• 2nd century BC: Paper in Han Dynasty China: Although it is recorded that the Han Dynasty (202 BC – AD 220) court eunuch Cai Lun (born c. 50 – AD 121) invented the pulp papermaking process and established the use of new raw materials used in making paper, ancient padding and wrapping paper artifacts dating to the 2nd century BC have been found in China, the oldest example of pulp papermaking being a map from Fangmatan, Gansu.

§1st century BC

• 1st century BC: Segmental arch bridge (e.g. Pont-Saint-Martin or Ponte San Lorenzo) in Italy, Roman Republic
• 1st century BC: Arch dam (Glanum Dam) in Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Republic (see also List of Roman dams)
• 150 BC Astrolabe invented in the Hellenistic world.
• Before 71 BC (possibly 3rd century BC): Watermill (grain mill) by Greek engineers in Eastern Mediterranean (see also List of ancient watermills)

§1st millennium AD

§1st century

• 1st century: Buttress dam in Roman Empire

§2nd century

• 118 AD: Wheelbarrow was found in a tomb at Chengdu, Sichuan province during Han Dynasty China
• 132: Seismometer in Han Dynasty China, built by Zhang Heng. It was a large metal urn-shaped instrument which employed either a suspended pendulum or inverted pendulum acting on inertia, like the ground tremors from earthquakes, to dislodge a metal ball by a lever trip device.
• 2nd century: Crankshaft in Augusta Raurica, Roman Empire
• 2nd century (or 1st century BC): Lateen sail in Roman Empire
• 2nd–3rd century: Arch-gravity dam (e.g. Puy Foradado Dam or Kasserine Dam) in Roman Empire

§3rd century

Schematic of the Roman Hierapolis sawmill. Dated to the 3rd century AD, it is the earliest known machine to incorporate a crank and connecting rod mechanism.

• Early 3rd century: Woodblock printing was invented in Han Dynasty China at sometime before 220 AD. This made China become the world first print culture.
• 3rd century: Celadon in Six Dynasties China, said to have been a widely used ceramic by the Three Kingdoms era (220–265), although shards have been recovered from Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220) excavations in Zhejiang and some historians argue that true celadon was not invented until the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127).
• Late 3rd century: Crank and connecting rod (Hierapolis sawmill) in Asia Minor, Roman Empire
• Late 3rd–early 4th century: Turbine in Africa (province), Roman Empire

§4th century

• 4th century: Field mill in Ancient China, first mentioned in the Yezhongji, or 'Record of Affairs at the Capital Ye of the Later Zhao Dynasty' written by Lu Hui in the 4th century, describing a field mill built by two engineers, Xie Fei and Wei Mengbian.
• 4th century: Fishing reel in Ancient China, in literary records, the earliest evidence of the fishing reel comes from a 4th-century AD work entitled Lives of Famous Immortals'.
• 4th–5th century: Paddle wheel boat (in De rebus bellicis) in Roman Empire

§5th century

• 5th century: Horse collar in Southern and Northern Dynasties China: The horse collar as a fully developed collar harness was developed in Southern and Northern Dynasties China during the 5th century AD. The earliest depiction of it is a Dunhuang cave mural from the Chinese Northern Wei Dynasty, the painting dated to 477–499.
• 5th/6th century: Pointed arch bridge (Karamagara Bridge) in Cappadocia, Eastern Roman Empire

§6th century

• 563: Pendentive dome (Hagia Sophia) in Constantinople, Eastern Roman Empire
• 589: Toilet paper in Sui Dynasty China, first mentioned by the official Yan Zhitui (531–591), with full evidence of continual use in subsequent dynasties.

§7th century

• 672: Greek fire in Constantinople, Byzantine Empire: Greek fire, an incendiary weapon likely based on petroleum or naphtha, was invented by Kallinikos, a Greek refugee to Constantinople, as described by Theophanes. However, the historicity and exact chronology of this account is dubious, and it could be that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version of an established weapon.

• 7th century: Banknote in Tang Dynasty China: The banknote was first developed in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), as merchants and wholesalers desired to avoid the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions.

• 7th century: Porcelain in Tang Dynasty China: True porcelain was manufactured in northern China from roughly the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century, while true porcelain was not manufactured in southern China until about 300 years later, during the early 10th century.

§9th century

A Mongol bomb thrown against a charging Japanese samurai during the Mongol invasions of Japan after founding the Yuan Dynasty, 1281.

• 9th century: Gunpowder in Tang Dynasty China: Gunpowder was, according to prevailing academic consensus, discovered in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality. Evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (618–907). The earliest known recorded recipes for gunpowder were written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the Wujing Zongyao, a military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song Dynasty (960–1279).

• 9th century: Playing cards in Tang Dynasty China: The first reference to the card game in world history dates no later than the 9th century, when the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by Su E described players enjoying the "leaf game" in 868.

• 9th century: Numerical zero in Ancient India: The concept of zero as a number, and not merely a symbol for separation is attributed to India. In India, practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated like any other number by the 9th century, even in case of division.

§10th century

• 10th century: Fire lance in Song Dynasty China, developed in the 10th century with a tube of first bamboo and later on metal that shot a weak gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel, its earliest depiction is a painting found at Dunhuang.
• 10th century: Fireworks in Song Dynasty China: Fireworks first appeared in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), in the early age of gunpowder. Fireworks could be purchased from market vendors; these were made of sticks of bamboo packed with gunpowder.

§2nd millennium

§11th century

• 1088: Movable type in Song Dynasty China: The first record of a movable type system is in the Dream Pool Essays written in 1088, which attributed the invention of the movable type to Bi Sheng. In 13th century, Koreans invented a metal type movable printing. In the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg invented the modern movable type system in Europe.
• 11th century: Fuel coke in Song Dynasty China: By the 11th century, to avoid excessive deforestation, the Song Chinese began using coke made from bituminous coal as fuel for their metallurgic furnaces instead of charcoal derived from wood.

§12th century

• 1119: Mariner's compass (wet compass) in Song Dynasty China: The earliest recorded use of magnetized needle for navigational purposes at sea is found in Zhu Yu's book Pingzhou Table Talks of 1119 (written from 1111 to 1117). The typical Chinese navigational compass was in the form of a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water. The familiar mariner's dry compass which used a pivoting needle suspended above a compass-card in a glass box was invented in medieval Europe no later than 1300.

§13th century

• 1277: Land mine in Song Dynasty China: Textual evidence suggests that the first use of a land mine in history was by a Song Dynasty brigadier general known as Lou Qianxia, who used an 'enormous bomb' (huo pao) to kill Mongol soldiers invading Guangxi in 1277.
• 1286: Eyeglasses in Italy
• 13th century: Dominoes in Yuan Dynasty China: The earliest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the Former Events in Wulin written during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). Dominoes first appeared in Italy during the 18th century, and although it is unknown how Chinese dominoes developed into the modern game, it is speculated that Italian missionaries in China may have brought the game to Europe.
• 13th century: Explosive bomb in Jin Dynasty Manchuria: Explosive bombs were used in 1221 by the Jin Dynasty against a Song Dynasty city. The first accounts of bombs made of cast iron shells packed with explosive gunpowder are documented in the 13th century in China and were called "thunder-crash bombs," coined during a Jin Dynasty naval battle in 1231.
• 13th century: Hand cannon in Yuan Dynasty China: The earliest hand cannon dates to the 13th century based on archaeological evidence from a Heilongjiang excavation. There is also written evidence in the Yuanshi (1370) on Li Tang, an ethnic Jurchen commander under the Yuan Dynasty who in 1288 suppressed the rebellion of the Christian prince Nayan with his "gun-soldiers" or chongzu, this being the earliest known event where this phrase was used.

§14th century

• 14th century: Naval mine in Ming Dynasty China: Mentioned in the Huolongjing military manuscript written by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Ji (1311–1375), describing naval mines used at sea or on rivers and lakes, made of wrought iron and enclosed in an ox bladder. A later model is documented in Song Yingxing's encyclopedia written in 1637.

§15th century

The oldest known parachute is depicted in this anonymous Italian manuscript dated to the 1470s.

• 1411:
• 1420s: Brace in Flandres, Holy Roman Empire
• 1439: Printing press in Mainz, Germany: The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw presses. The first confirmed record of a press appeared in a 1439 lawsuit against Gutenberg.
• 1470s: Parachute (with frame) in Renaissance Italy
• 1480s: Mariner's astrolabe on Portuguese circumnavigation of Africa
• 1494: Double-entry bookkeeping system codified by Luca Pacioli

§16th century

• 1560 Floating dock in Venice, Venetian Republic
• 1569 Mercator Projection map created by Gerardus Mercator

§17th century

A 1609 title page of the German Relation, the world's first newspaper (first published in 1605)

• 1605: Newspaper (Relation): Johann Carolus in Strassburg, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (see also List of the oldest newspapers)
• 1642: Blaise Pascal built first mechanical calculator: the Pascaline.

§18th century

• c. 1700: Bartolomeo Cristofori crafts the first piano
• 1709: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the alcohol thermometer .
• 1712: Thomas Newcomen builds the first steam engine to pump water out of mines. Newcomen's engine, unlike Thomas Savery's, used a piston.
• 1733: Stephen Hales takes measurements of blood pressure. John Kay enabled one person to operate a loom with the flying shuttle
• 1742: Anders Celsius develops the Centigrade temperature scale.
• 1745: Musschenbroek and Kleist independently developed Leyden jar, an early form of capacitor.
• 1764: James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny.
• 1765: James Watt invents the improved steam engine utilizing a separate condenser.
• 1769: Richard Arkwright makes it possible to spin stronger threads with the water frames.
• 1793: Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin.

§19th century

§1800s

• 1800: Voltaic pile: an early form of battery by Alessandro Volta in Italy, based on previous works by Luigi Galvani.
• 1802: Arc lamp: Humphry Davy (exact date unclear; not practical as a light source until generators)
• 1803: John Dalton's developement of the Atomic Theory.
• 1804: Morphine in Paderborn, Germany: Morphine was discovered as the first active alkaloid extracted from the opium poppy plant in December 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner.
• 1804: Railway steam locomotive: Richard Trevithick
• 1807: François Isaac de Rivaz designed the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine fuelled by hydrogen.
• 1807: Robert Fulton expanded water transportation and trade with the workable steamboat.

§1820s

• 1822: The pattern-tracing lathe (actually more like a shaper) is completed by Thomas Blanchard for the U.S. Ordnance Dept. The lathe could copy symmetrical shapes and was used for making gun stocks, and later, ax handles. The lathe's patent was in force for 42 years, the record for any U.S. patent.
• 1825: George Stephenson invented the railroad locomotive.
• 1826: The friction Match is invented by John Walker

§1830s

• 1831: Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry independently of each other invented methods of Electromagnetic induction.
• 1837: Charles Babbage designed the first general purpose Computer named Analytical Engine(which was actually only partially built).
• 1838: Samuel Morse invents Morse Code.
• 1839: James Nasmyth invents the steam hammer.

§1850s

• 1856: Refrigeration: Using the principle of vapour compression, James Harrison produced the world's first practical ice making machine and refrigerator in Geelong, Australia.

§1870s

• 1873: Crookes radiometer: Invented by the chemist Sir William Crookes as the by-product of some chemical research.
• 1876: Telephone: A patent for the telephone is granted to Alexander Graham Bell. However, others inventors before Bell had worked on the development of the telephone and the invention had several pioneers.
• 1877: The first working phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison.
• 1878: Rebreather: Henry Fleuss was granted a patent for the first practical rebreather
• 1879 Thomas Edison produced the first practical bulb and was granted a U.S. patent.

§1880s

• 1886: Process for economically producing Aluminum invented by Charles Martin Hall and independently by Paul Héroult in 1886.
• 1886 Frank Julian Sprague invents the first practical DC electric motor. In 1887 he uses it to build the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, the first successful (and widely copied) large electric street trolley (tram) system.
• 1886 Karl Benz invents the first petrol or gasoline powered auto-mobile (car).
• 1888: Wind turbines for grid electricity invented by Charles F. Brush in 1888.

§20th century

• 1900: Human voice transmitted wirelessly (by radio) for the first time by Roberto Landell de Moura. The first AM radio factory was opened in 1912.
• 1903: First manually controlled, fixed wing, motorized aircraft takes place in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina by Orville and Wilbur Wright. First modern fixed wing aircraft. 1901: Gustave Weisskopf (Whitehead), a German-American immigrant, is credited with motorized aircraft flight in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Flights were witnessed by citizens and other associates, were recorded in the Bridgeport Herald, a local newspaper, and were the subject of a 1904 article in Scientific American. In 2013 Jane's All The World's Aircraft recognized Whitehead as first to make a manned, powered, controlled flight.

§1910s

• 1915: The tank was invented by Ernest Swinton, although the British Royal Commission on Awards recognised a South Australian named Lance de Mole who had submitted a proposal to the British War Office, for a 'chain-rail vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground and trenches' complete with extensive drawings in 1912

§1920s

• 1928: Penicillin was first observed to exude antibiotic substances by Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming. Development of medicinal penicillin is attributed to a team of medics and scientists including Howard Walter Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley.

§1930s

• 1933: FM radio was patented by inventor Edwin H. Armstrong.
• 1938: Z1 built by Konrad Zuse was the first freely programmable computer in the world.

• 1938, December: Nuclear fission discovered in experiment by Otto Hahn (Nazi Germany), coined by Lise Meitner (fled to Sweden from Nazi-occupied Austria) and Fritz Strassman (Sweden). The Manhattan Project, and consequently the Soviet atomic bomb project were begun based on this research, as well as the German nuclear energy project, although the latter one declined as its physicists were drafted into Germany's war effort.

§1940s

• 1942: The V-2 rocket, the world's first long range ballistic missile, developed in Nazi Germany during World War II.

• July 1945: The atomic bomb was first successfully developed by the United States, Britain and Canada as a part of the Manhattan Project and swiftly deployed in August 1945 in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively causing the end of World War II.

• December 1947: The Transistor, used in almost all modern electronic products was invented in December 1947 by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain under the supervision of William Shockley. Subsequent transistors became steadily smaller, faster, more reliable, and cheaper to manufacture, leading to a revolution in computers, controls, and communication.

• 1947 Floyd Farris and J.B. Clark (Stanolind Oil and Gas Corporation) invented hydraulic fracturing technology.

§1950s-1960s

• December 20, 1951: First use of nuclear power to produce electricity for households in Arco, Idaho
• 1954: Invention of Solar Battery by Bell Telephone scientists, Calvin Souther Fuller, Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson capturing the sun's power. First practical means of collecting energy from the sun and turning it into a current of electricity.
• 1955: The intermodal container was developed by Malcom McLean.
• 1957: The first PC used by one person and controlled by a keyboard, the IBM 610 was invented in 1957 by IBM.
• 1958-59: Co-creation of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce.
• 1958-60: The LASER.
• 1969: ARPANET first deployed via UCLA, SRI, UCSB, and The University of Utah.

§1970s

• 1972: The first video game console, used primarily for playing video games on a TV, is the Magnavox Odyssey.
• 1973: The first commercial graphical user interface was introduced in 1973 on the Xerox Alto. The modern GUI was later popularized by the Xerox Star and Apple Lisa.
• 1975: Altair 8800 was the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution.
• 1973-75: The Internet protocol suite was developed by Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) ARPANET, creating the basis for the modern Internet.

§1980s

• 1982: A CD-ROM contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 Yellow Book standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.

§1990s

• 1990:The World Wide Web was first introduced to the public by English engineer and computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
• 1993: MOSAIC, the first popular web browser is introduced
• 1995: DVD is an optical disc storage format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.

§See also

• Timeline of electrical and electronic engineering
• Accelerating change
• List of emerging technologies
• List of inventors
• Outline of prehistoric technology

§References

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§External links

• U.S. National Academy of Engineering's Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century Timeline