Science and Technology Timeline
Cronologia della Scienza e della Tecnologia
Glenn Everett, Associate Professor of English, University of Tennessee at Martin (Translate this Page!)
1687 

Newton, Principia. Until Einstein, Newton's physics forms the foundation of modern science, provides the model for other sciences, and serves as the basic description of the natural laws governing the universe.

1692

Languedoc Canal connects the Mediterranean with the Bay of Biscay. 240 miles long, with 100 locks, 3 major aqueducts, 1 tunnel, and a summit reservoir.  The largest canal project between Roman times and the nineteenth century.

1708

Jethro Tull's mechanical (seed) sower permits large-scale planting in rows, for easier cultivation between the rows.

1709

Abraham Darby uses coke to smelt iron ore, replacing wood and charcoal as fuel.

1712

Thomas Newcomen builds first commercially successful steam engine. Able to keep deep coal mines clear of water. First significant power source other than wind and water.

1714

British Board of Longitude offers £20,000 prize for the first successful method of fixing longitude.

1733

John Kay's flying shuttle.

1741-42

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, returning from Turkey, introduces smallpox inoculation.

1758

First threshing machine.

1761

James Brindley's Bridgewater Canal opens. Barges carry coal from Worsley to Manchester.

1762

John Harrison's No. 4 chronometer wins the British Board of Longitude's prize (see 1714).

1765

James Hargreaves invents the spinning jenny, automating weaving the warp (in the weaving of cloth).

1769

Arkwright's "water" (powered) frame automates the weft.

1772

Bridgewater Canal extended to the Mersey, thus connecting with Liverpool. Its success kicks off extensive canal construction ("canal mania").

1774

Priestly isolates oxygen.

1775

Watt's first efficient steam engine, much more efficient than the Newcomen. 

1777

Grand Trunk Canal establishes a cross-England route connecting the Mersey to the Trent and connecting the industrial Midlands to the ports of Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull.

1779

First steam powered mills. Crompton's "mule" combines Hargreaves' and Arkwright's machines, fully automating the weaving process.

1781

William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.

1786

Arkwright puts a Watt engine in the Albion cotton mill, Blackfriars Bridge, London.

1787

Cartwright builds a power loom.

1789

Thames-Severn Canal links the Thames to the Bristol Channel.

1792

William Murdock (James Watt's assistant) lights his home with coal gas.

1793

Eli Whitney develops his cotton gin (a device to clean raw cotton).

1793-1803

Thomas Telford builds his two great iron aqueducts, over the Dee and the Cierog valleys.

1796

Edward Jenner develops smallpox vaccination process using cowpox vaccine.

1799

Humphry Davy discovers nitrous oxide (laughing gas), first effective anesthetic.

c. 1800

Oliver Evans (USA) invents conveyer belt; comstructed fully automatede flour mill.

1801

Robert Trevithick demonstrates a steam locomotive.

1803-22

Caledonian Ship Canal cuts clear across Scotland via the Great Glen.

1807

Robert Fulton's "Clermont" first successful steamboat.

1811-15 

Luddite riots: laborers attack factories and break up the machines they fear will replace them.

1812

Napoleon's surgeon, Baron Larrey, develops painless amputation.

1821

Faraday demonstrates electro-magnetic rotation, the principle of the electric motor.

1825

Marc Brunel invents a tunnelling shield, making subaqueous tunnelling possible.

1826-42

Brunel builds the first subaqueous tunnel, under the Thames.

1827

Berkeley Ship Canal connects Sharpness (on the Severn) to Gloucester.

1829

Braille perfects his reading method for the blind.

1830

Manchester–Liverpool railway begins first regular commercial rail service.

1831

Von Liebig discovers chloroform; Faraday discovers electro-magnetic current, making possible generators and electric engines.

1834

Charles Babbage develops his analytic engine--the forerunner of the computer.  Fox Talbot produces photographs.

1835

Colt revolver

1837

Morse develops the telegraph and Morse Code.  "Great Western"--first ocean-going steamship.

1838

Daguerre perfects the Daguerrotype.

1839

Fox Talbot introduces photographic paper.

1840

Whewell, Philosophy of Inductive Sciences.

1842

Crawford Long uses ether in a minor operation.

1843

"Great Britain"--first large, iron, screw-propelled steamship. Typewriter invented.

1844

Commercial use of Morse's telegraph (Baltimore to Washington).

c. 1845

Turret-lathe.

1846

Pneumatic tire patented. First telegraph cable laid under the Channel.  Ether used in a major operation. Elias Howe invents sewing machine.

1847

Boole, Mathematical Logic.

1849

Monier develops reinforced concrete.

1850

Petrol (gasoline) refining first used. 
Isaac Singer commercializes sewing machine
Natural Science Honours School established at Oxford.

1851

Singer invents first practical sewing machine. 
Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge.

1854

Bessemer invents steel converter.

1855

Regius Chair of Technology founded at Edinburgh.  Yale lock invented. H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology.

1856

Bessemer's converter enables mass production of steel. W.H. Perkin produces aniline dyes, permitting brightly colored cottons.

1857

Pasteur experiments with fermentation.

1858

First Trans-Atlantic Cable completed. Cathode rays discovered.

1859

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species.  Edwin Drake strikes oil in Pennsylvania. Etienne Lenoir demonstrates the first successful gasoline engine.

1860

Science degrees at University of London.

1861

Universal milling machine invented. Machine gun.

1863

Siemens-Martin open hearth process (along with the Bessemer converter) makes steel available in bulk. Steel begins to replace iron in building: steel framing and reinforced concrete make possible "curtain-wall" architecture--i.e., the skyscraper.

1867

Lister demonstrates the use of carbolic antiseptic. 
Alfred Nobel produces dynamite, the first high explosive which can be safely handled.

1869

Mendeléev produces the Periodic Table.

c. 1870

Automatic lathe

1873

Christopher Sholes invents the Remington typewriter. James Clerk Maxwell states the laws of electro-magnetic radiation

1876

Bell invents the telephone. Robert Koch discovers the anthrax-causing micro-organism, demonstrates its life cycle and explains how it causes disease after long dormancy.

1877

Edison invents the phonograph. Gilchrist-Thomas basic process permits using wider range of ores for manufacturing steel

1878

Microphone invented.

1879

Edison invents the incandescent lamp.

1882

Koch isolates tuberculosis bacillus.

1883

First skyscraper (ten stories) in Chicago. 
The Brooklyn Bridge opens. This large suspension bridge, built by the Roeblings (father and son), is a triumph of engineering.

1884

Maxim invents the machine gun, making possible mass slaughter and beginning the mechanization of warfare. 
Carl Kohler uses cocaine as a local anesthetic. Koch isolates the cholera bacillus.

1885

Benz develops first automobile to run on internal- combustion engine. Pasteur develops hydrophobia vaccine.

1886

R.H. Fitz identifies appendicitis.

1888

Hertz produces radio waves.

1889

Eiffel Tower.

1890

William James, Principles of Psychology. Koch develops tuberculin, which can be used to test for tuberculosis.

1892

Rudolf Diesel invents his namesake.

1895

Lumière brothers develop Cinematograph. Roentgen discovers X-rays.

1896

Marconi patents wireless telegraph. Becquerel discovers radioactivity in uranium.

1897

Joseph Thomson discovers particles smaller than atoms.

1899

Aspirin invented.

1900

Planck develops quantum theory.  First Zeppelin built.  Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.

1901

Marconi transmits first trans-Atlantic radio message (from Cape Cod).

1903

Wright brothers make first powered flight.

1905 

Einstein, Special Theory of Relativity.

1908

Henry Ford mass-produces the Model T.

1910

Paul Ehrlich develops Salvarsan, the first drug devised to overwhelm a micro-organism (syphilis) without offending the host.

1919

London to Paris air service begun.

1920

James Smathers develops the first electric typewriter.

1922

Radio broadcasting begins.

1926

Robert Goddard experiments with liquid-fueled rockets.

1928

Alexander Fleming isolates penicillin.

1932

Empire State Building completed.

1936

BBC begins regular television service.

1945

The atomic bomb: first New Mexico, then Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Scientists can never again close their eyes to the social effects of their discoveries.

1957

Sputnik.

1961

The USSR puts the first man (Yuri Gagarin) in space.

1969

Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon.

Fisika & Psichica