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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

John Kay's flying shuttle.

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

First threshing machine.

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

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

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

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

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

Priestly isolates oxygen.

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

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.

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

William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.

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

Cartwright builds a power loom.

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

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

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

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

Edward Jenner develops smallpox vaccination process using cowpox vaccine.

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

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

Robert Trevithick demonstrates a steam locomotive.

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

Robert Fulton's "Clermont" first successful steamboat.

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

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

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

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

Brunel builds the first subaqueous tunnel, under the Thames.

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

Braille perfects his reading method for the blind.

Manchester–Liverpool railway begins first regular commercial rail service.

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

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

Colt revolver

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

Daguerre perfects the Daguerrotype.

Fox Talbot introduces photographic paper.

Whewell, Philosophy of Inductive Sciences.

Crawford Long uses ether in a minor operation.

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

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

Turret-lathe.

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

Boole, Mathematical Logic.

Monier develops reinforced concrete.

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

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

Bessemer invents steel converter.

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

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

Pasteur experiments with fermentation.

First Trans-Atlantic Cable completed. Cathode rays discovered.

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

Science degrees at University of London.

Universal milling machine invented. Machine gun.

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.

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

Mendeléev produces the Periodic Table.

Automatic lathe

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

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.

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

Microphone invented.

Edison invents the incandescent lamp.

Koch isolates tuberculosis bacillus.

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.

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.

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

R.H. Fitz identifies appendicitis.

Hertz produces radio waves.

Eiffel Tower.

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

Rudolf Diesel invents his namesake.

Lumière brothers develop Cinematograph. Roentgen discovers X-rays.

Marconi patents wireless telegraph. Becquerel discovers radioactivity in uranium.

Joseph Thomson discovers particles smaller than atoms.

Aspirin invented.

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

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

Wright brothers make first powered flight.

Einstein, Special Theory of Relativity.

Henry Ford mass-produces the Model T.

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

London to Paris air service begun.

James Smathers develops the first electric typewriter.

Radio broadcasting begins.

Robert Goddard experiments with liquid-fueled rockets.

Alexander Fleming isolates penicillin.

Empire State Building completed.

BBC begins regular television service.

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

Sputnik.

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

Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon.