Timeline Technology
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3.3Mil BC In 2015 scientists reported the discovery of stone tools in Kenya that dated back to about this time, pushing back the previous record by some 700,000 years. Makers of the tools were contemporary with a species called either Kenyanthropus platyops or Australopithecus platyops.
(SFC, 5/21/15, p.A6)(Econ, 5/23/15, p.68)
385k BC – 172k BC In 2018 it was reported that stone tools, found in India, were fashioned during this period by Neanderthals, Homo sapiens or an evolutionary cousin.
(SFC, 2/1/18, p.A4)
13.5k BC – 11.2k BC In 2011 archeologists reported the discovery of 56 stone tools found in central Texas dating to about this time. The dating prefigured the “Clovis culture" by about 2 thousand years.
(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A7)
5000 BC An international team of researchers in 2019 said they have discovered a 7,000-year-old-seawall along Israel's Mediterranean coast, providing evidence that coastal communities protected themselves against rising waters even in ancient times. The seawall, found about 120 meters (130 yards) off the coast, is the only structure of its kind found in Israel's coastal region. The Neolithic era village, called Tel Hreiz, was abandoned and eventually swallowed by the sea.
(AP, 12/19/19)
4000 BC The Chinese began working with silkworms about this time. They built their first silk machine about 2,000 BC.
(Econ, 9/12/15, SR p.15)
2500 BC The making of glass began about this time in Mesopotamia.
(Econ, 8/22/15, p.64)
1000 BC The world’s oldest known lens was ground about this time by an Assyrian maker.
(Econ, 12/1/12, TQ p.8)
236 BC Archimedes, according to the Roman architect Vitruvius, built his first elevator about this time.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
150BC-100BC In 1901 pieces of an ancient Greek calculating machine, called the Antikythera Mechanism, were discovered by sponge divers exploring the remains of a shipwreck off the tiny island of Antikythera. Radiocarbon dating suggested it was built around 65 BC, but in 2006 newly revealed lettering on the machine indicate a slightly older construction date of 150 to 100 BC. In 2008 researchers said the device, which originally contained 37 gears, included the cycle of the Greek Olympics.
(http://tinyurl.com/y255xr)(SFC, 7/31/08, p.A15)
c1-100 AD Steam engines--machines harnessing the heat energy of hot steam to perform work--date to the steam turbine invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD called the aeolipile. However, the aeolipile was regarded as a curiosity demonstrating a mechanical principle and was not developed into a practical engine.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
105 Ts'ai Lun (Cai Lun), a Chinese government official (eunuch), told Emperor He about making zhi, i.e. paper. He used bark from mulberry trees and plant fiber pounded into pulp, which were then dried and matted into sheets. By the end of the second century, the Chinese were printing books on rag paper using wooden type.
(NG, Feb, 04, p.9)(SSFC, 5/26/13, p.F5)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.87)
300-400 As long ago as the 4th century, an Egyptian scientist named Papp suggested there should be a science called heuristics to solve inventive problems.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
1329 In Korea a foundry was used to print books with metal type.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1377 In Korea Jikjisimgyeong, a Buddhist scripture, was printed with the world’s first movable metal type.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1421 The Republic of Florence passed a law giving Brunelleschi what is thought to be the first true patent of an invention. The first recorded patent was granted for a barge with hoisting gear used to transport marble.
(http://tinyurl.com/c3teab)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1441 In Korea King Sejong called for better water management in his agricultural based economy and Yeong-sil Jang responded with the first rain gauge.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1450 First book printed with movable metal type. Johannes Gutenberg printed a bible with movable type in Mainz. He perfected interchangeable type that could be cast in large quantities and invented a new type of press. [see 1452]
(NG, March 1990, p. 117)(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A21)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1452 Sep 30, The 1st book was published, Johannes Guttenberg's Bible. [see 1450]
(MC, 9/30/01)
1492 Oct 26, Lead pencils were 1st used.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1498 Jun 26, Toothbrush was invented. In China the first toothbrushes with hog bristles began to show up. Hog bristle brushes remained the best until the invention of nylon.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.E3)(MC, 6/26/02)
1590 The microscope was invented.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.E3)
1592 Nov 29, An admiral’s report said an English warship was lost off the coast of Alderney. A block of mineral was later found on the wreck. In 2013 scientists reported that the rock was likely a sunstone (Iceland spar), used to reveal the sun’s direction and thus assist in navigation.
(Econ, 3/9/13, p.80)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey, spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW, Spring ‘99, p.33)
1621 Dec 3, Galileo invented the telescope.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1624 Sep 12, The 1st submarine was tested in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1644 Jul 11(Jun 11), A Florentine scientist described the invention of barometer.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1646 Mar 6, Joseph Jenkes received the 1st colonial machine patent.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1647 Aug 22, Denis Papin, inventor of the pressure cooker, was born.
(HN, 8/22/00)
1675 Jan 20, Christian Huygens, Dutch scientist, transformed a theoretical insight on springs into a practical mechanism with the 1st sketch of a watch balance regulated by a coiled spring.
(www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/huygens/timelong/timelong.html)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.73)
1684 Apr 25, A patent was granted for the thimble.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1690 Jan 14, The clarinet was invented in Germany.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1696 Jacques Ozanam, a visionary Frenchman, 1st proposed a “self-moving vehicle."
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1698 English engineer Thomas Savery devised a way to pump water out of mines by the use of condensed steam.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1709 Jan 10, Abraham Darby (1678-1717) in Coalbrookdale, England, began using coke to provide carbon for making iron. This led to the end of the use of charcoal for making iron.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Darby_I)
1712 Englishman Thomas Newcomen created a piston system to separate the steam from the water.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1714 Jan 7, A typewriter was patented by Englishman Henry Mill. It was built years later.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1722 Oct 19, French C. Hopffer patented the fire extinguisher.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1733 John Kay, a British weaver, invented the flying shuttle, allowing the production of wider pieces of cloth.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.15)
1738 French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson built a mechanical duck that could quack, flap,, paddle, drink, eat and “digest" grain.
(SFC, 1/23/15, p.A10)
1738 Jacques de Vaucanson exhibited a mechanical flute player that actually breathed.
(WSJ, 8/23/02, p.W8)
1738 Apr 15, The bottle opener was invented.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1741 Dec 25, Astronomer Anders Celcius introduced the Centigrade temperature scale.
(MC, 12/25/01)
1742 Jul 11(Jun 11), Benjamin Franklin invented his Franklin stove.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1743 In France Louis XV commissioned an elevator installed at Versailles to link his apartment to that of his mistress.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
1744 Feb 15, John Hadley, inventor (sextant), died.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1745 Oct 11, The Leyden jar, capable of storing static electricity, was invented by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist. Also about this time Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden (Leyden) independently came up with the same idea.
(ON, 2/12, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyden_jar)
1750 Benjamin Franklin drew up plans for a “sentry box," designed to prove his theory that lightning as an electrical phenomenon.
(ON, 2/12, p.11)
1752 May, Dutch botanist Thomas Francois Dalibard (1709-1799) successfully performed Benjamin Franklin’s “sentry box" experiment proving that lightning is an electrical phenomenon.
(ON, 2/12, p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Fran%C3%A7ois_Dalibard)
1752 Jun 15, Benjamin Franklin and his son tested the relationship between electricity and lightning by flying a kite in a thunder storm. Some sources date this to June 10.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin)
1753 Jul 26, New style date is Aug 6. Georg Richmann (b.1711), German physicist, died of electrocution in St. Petersburg, Russia, during an attempt to duplicate Benjamin Franklin’s “sentry box" experiment. Reportedly, ball lightning traveled along the apparatus and was the cause of his death, apparently the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.104)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Richmann)(ON, 2/12, p.12)
1753 Sep 9, The 1st steam engine arrived in US colonies.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1754 Thomas Mudge (1715-1794), English horologist, invented the lever escapement, which became used in watches ever since.
(Econ, 11/19/11, p.p.106)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mudge_%28horologist%29)
1755 Mar 12, The 1st steam engine in America was installed to pump water from a mine.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1761 Benjamin Franklin invented his glass armonica.
(WSJ, 1/15/04, p.D8)
1762 The Harrison chronometer was invented. It allowed voyagers to calculate longitudinal distance.
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.A1)
1765 Nov 14, Robert Fulton, inventor, was born. His steamboat, the Clermont, made its 1st voyage on Aug 17, 1807.
(HN, 11/14/98)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1765 Scotsman James Watt (1736-1819) further refined Thomas Newcomen’s piston system steam engine innovation by adding a separate condenser. Watt took out a patent on his improved engine in 1769.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)(ON, 6/10, p.4)
1765 Eberhard put erasers on pencils. [see 1794]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1766 Apr 8, The 1st fire escape was patented: a wicker basket on a pulley and chain.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1766 Henry Cavendish isolated hydrogen during experiments with H2O in England.
(NH, 7/02, p.32)
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen of Hungary invented the Automoton Chess Player. It was 1st demonstrated to the Austrian court in 1770. In 2001 the deception was analyzed by James W. Cook in his book "The Arts of Deception." In 2002 Tom Standage authored "The Turk," an examination of the 18th century fascination with automatons.
(WSJ, 7/12/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 4/12/02, p.W12)
1769 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French military engineer, invented an ungainly, steam-powered tricycle and practical steam locomotives and steamboats appeared early in the next century, eventually superceded by the internal combustion engine.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1771 Apr 13, Richard Trevithick, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in Cornwall, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.4)
1773 John Harrison (1693-1776) received a monetary award in the amount of £8,750 from the British Parliament for his achievements regarding the invention of the marine chronometer solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea. He never received the official award, proclaimed in 1714, which was never awarded to anyone.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.80)(www.surveyhistory.org/john_harrison%27s_timepiece1.htm)
1774 Feb 10, Andrew Becker demonstrated a diving suit.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1774 Aug 1, British scientist Joseph Priestley succeeded in isolating oxygen from air in Calne, England. He called his new gas "dephlogisticated air."
(ON, 10/05, p.2)(AP, 8/1/07)
1778 Apr 22, James Hargreaves, inventor (spinning jenny), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1779 Jan 18, Peter Roget, thesaurus fame, inventor (slide rule, pocket chessboard), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1779 Apr 24, Mr. H. Sykes, an English optician living in Paris, wrote to Ben Franklin and explained a delay in sending an order for special spectacles, complaining that he was having difficulty making them. Franklin is believed to have ordered his first pair of bifocals from Sykes.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1779 Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright's water frame and James Hargreaves' spinning jenny in the same way that mule is the product of crossbreeding a female horse with a male donkey.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_mule)
1781 Jun 9, George Stephenson, English engineer, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in Newcastle, England.
(HN, 6/9/01)(MC, 6/9/02)
1783 Aug 27, 1st hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned); reached 900 m altitude.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1783 Oct 6, Benjamin Hanks patented a self-winding clock.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1783 Oliver Evans (1755-1819), American inventor, designed an automated gristmill.
(WSJ, 6/4/08, p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Evans)
1785 May 23, Benjamin Franklin in Paris spoke of his invention of bifocals in a letter to friend and philanthropist George Whatley.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1787 Aug 22, Inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat, the Perseverance, on the Delaware River to delegates of the Continental Congress. In 2004 Andrea Sutcliffe authored “Steam: The Untold Story of America’s First Great Invention."
(AP, 8/22/99)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1788 Feb 1, Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patented the steamboat on this day.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1789 Mar 16, George S. Ohm (d.1854), German scientist, was born. He gave his name to the ohm unit of electrical resistance. [WUD says Mar 16, 1787]
(HN, 3/16/99)(WUD, 1994 p.1001)
1789 Uranium was discovered and named after the planet Uranus.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)
1790 Mar 27, The shoelace was invented.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1790 Apr 10, President George Washington signed into law the first United States Patent Act. The Patent Board was made up of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War and the Attorney General and was responsible for granting patents on "useful and important" inventions. In the first three years, 47 patents were granted. Until 1888 miniature models of the device to be patented were required. [see July 31] The US Patent and Trademark Office’s subject grouping scheme includes a major component called a class and a minor one called a subclass. A class distinguishes one technology from another. Subclasses of the USPTO delineate processes, structural features and functional features of the technology in that particular class. By 2015 there were 474 classes and over 160,000 codes.
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 8/6/99)(AP, 4/10/07)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.73)
1790 Jul 31, The first US patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process". This patent was signed by then President George Washington. The first 10,280 patents, issued between 1790 and 1836, were destroyed by a fire. The legal basis for the United States patent system (USPTO) is Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution wherein the powers of Congress are defined.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Patent_and_Trademark_Office)
1790 The "Philadelphia Spelling Book" was the first US work to be copyrighted.
(WSJ, 6/14/00, p.A1)
1791 Mar 10, John Stone of Concord, Mass, patented a pile driver.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1791 Mar 11, Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia was the 1st to obtain more than 1 US patent.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1791 Aug 2, Samuel Briggs and his son patented a nail-making machine.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1791 Aug 26, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rival inventors, were both granted a US patent for a working steamboat.
(MC, 8/26/02)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1792 May 12, A toilet that flushed itself at regular intervals was patented.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1793 Jun 20, Eli Whitney petitioned for a cotton gin patent in Philadelphia.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h1517t.html)
1793 Oct 28, Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the cotton gin, a machine which cleaned the tight-clinging seeds from short-staple cotton easily and effectively--a job which was previously done by hand. The patent was granted the following March. [see Mar 13, Jun 20, 1793, Mar 14, 1794]
(AP, 10/28/97)(HN, 10/28/98)
1794 Feb 14, 1st US textile machinery patent was granted, to James Davenport in Phila.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1794 Mar 14, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America's cotton industry. He paid substantial royalties to Catherine T. Greene and this makes his claim to the invention suspect.
(AP, 3/14/97)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E3)
1794 Mar 23, Josiah Pierson patented a "cold-header" (rivet) machine.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1794 A French inventor mixed ground graphite with clay and water and fired it to make strong pencil leads. [see 1765]
(WSJ, 11/24/00, p.A1)
1799 Jan 25, Eliakim Spooner of Vermont received the 1st US patent for a seeding machine.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1800 William Herschel (1738-1822), German-born English astronomer, detected what later became known as infra-red red light in experiments with glass prisms and thermometers.
(NH, 11/1/04, p.54)
1800 Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Italian physicist, first demonstrated the electric pile or battery.
(V.D.-H.K.p.269)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.22)
1801 Dec 24, Richard Trevithick, inventor of the steam locomotive, completed a road test of his 1st "traveling engine" in Camborne, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Feb 8, Simon Willard patented a banjo clock.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1802 Mar 24, Richard Trevithick was granted a patent in London for his steam locomotive.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Jul 9, Thomas Davenport, invented 1st commercial electric motor, was born.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1803 May 17, John Hawkins and Richard French patented a reaping machine.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1803 Sep 8, A high pressure steam boiler, made by Richard Trevithick, exploded at a corn mill in Greenwich, England, and 3 men were killed. A worker had left a heavy wrench on the safety valve and gone fishing.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1803 The steel ink pen was developed in Birmingham, England.
(SFC, 12/13/06, p.E3)
1804 Feb 21, The 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, ran for 1st time in Wales.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1804 Feb 6, Joseph Priestley (b.1733), English-born US writer, philosopher and chemist, died in Pennsylvania. He became best known for having discovered oxygen. Priestley also figured out how to manufacture carbonated water and is sometimes called “the father of the soft-drink industry." In 2008 Steven Johnson authored “The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America."
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9061366)(ON, 10/05, p.1)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.E3)
1805 The Philadelphia harbor was dredged with a high-pressure steam engine invented by Oliver Evans. He was unable to get a proper patent for it.
(WSJ, 6/4/08, p.A19)
1806 Oct 7, Carbon paper was patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1807 Aug 17, Robert Fulton’s "North River Steam Boat" (popularly known as the "Clermont") began heading up New York’s Hudson River on its successful round-trip to Albany. He named the boat Katherine of Clermont after his wife. It was 125 feet (142-feet) long and 20 feet wide with side paddle wheels and a sheet iron boiler. He averaged 5 mph for the 300-mile round trip.
(AP, 8/17/97)(SFC, 6/20/98, p.F4)(WSJ, 9/21/01, p.A22)
1808 Apr 30, Italian Pellegrini Turri built the 1st practical typewriter for the blind Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizono, the world's first typist.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(MC, 4/30/02)
1808 Jul 9, A leather-splitting machine was patented by Samuel Parker of Billerica, MA.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1809 Feb 15, Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor (Mechanical reaper), was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1809 Nov 22, Peregrine Williamson of Baltimore patented a steel pen.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1809 Humphry Davy (1778-1809), an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp.
(http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/first_electric_light_bulb.htm)
1809 Nicholas Appert won a French prize of 12,000 francs for his method of keeping food in glass bottles. Napoleon had offered the prize with military needs in mind.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1812 Dec 4, Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pa., patented a horse-drawn mower.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1813 Apr 29, Rubber was patented.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1815 Oct 31, Sir Humphrey Davy of London patented miner's safety lamp.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1816 Aug 24, Daniel Gooch, laid 1st successful transatlantic cables, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1816 Robert Stirling, British clergyman, proposed a sealed heated air engine to compete with the ubiquitous steam engine. His Stirling engine converted heat into mechanical energy by compressing and expanding a fixed quantity of gas.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.72)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.24)
1816 In France Dr. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec invented the stethoscope.
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1817 Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun of Germany invented the draisienne, the first 2-wheeled, rider-propelled machine and exhibited it in Paris in 1818. The vehicle came to be known as the “velocipede," a 2-wheeled running machine without pedals.
(www.cycle-info.bpaj.or.jp/english/learn/bcc02.html)(Wired, 2/98, p.172)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1819 May 21, The 1st bicycles (swift walkers) in US were introduced in NYC.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1819 May 26, The first steam-propelled vessel to attempt a trans-Atlantic crossing, the 350-ton Savannah, departed from Savannah, Ga., May 26 and arrived in Liverpool, England, Jun 20. [HNQ set May 24 for the departure]
(AP, 5/22/97)(HNQ, 3/18/02)
1819 Jun 26, The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York City. [see May 21]
(MC, 6/26/02)
1819 Aug 25, Scotsman James Watt (b.1736), Scottish inventor, died. His 1775 improved steam engine advanced coal mining and made the Industrial Revolution possible.
(ON, 6/10, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt)
1819 Sep 6, Thomas Blanchard (b.1788) patented the lathe.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1821 English economist David Ricardo noted that the influence of machinery is frequently detrimental to the interest of the working class.
(Econ, 6/25/16, SR p.3)
1822 Mar 9, The first patent for false teeth was requested by C. Graham of NY. [see 1882]
(HN, 3/9/98)(MC, 3/9/02)
1822 Jun 14, Charles Babbage (1792-1871), a young Cambridge mathematician, announced the invention of a machine capable of performing simple arithmetic calculations in a paper to the Astronomical Society. His 1st Difference Engine could perform up to 60 error-free calculation in 5 minutes. Babbage and engineer John Clement completed the calculator portion of a new engine in 1832, but the project lost funding and remained unfinished.
(I&I, Penzias, p.94)(ON, 5/05, p.5)
1823 Apr 22, R.J. Tyers patented roller skates.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1824 Jun 8, A washing machine was patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1824 Oct 21, Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement in Yorkshire, England.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1824 Oct 23, The 1st steam locomotive was introduced.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1824 The first company to come out with the paper milk carton was the Toronto East India Company, which developed it in 1824 due to a glass shortage.
(www.milk.com/experiments/exper17.html)
1825 Sep 27, The Stockton and Darlington rail line opened in England. The first locomotive to haul a passenger train was operated by George Stephenson in England. The British engineers Richard Trevithick and George Stevenson were the first innovators of the technology.
(AP, 9/27/97)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAstephensonG.htm)
1825 The element aluminum was discovered.
(NH, 7/02, p.35)
1826 Apr 1, Samuel Mory patented the internal combustion engine.
(OTD)
1826 Scotsman Robert Stein invented the continuous still. It was later refined by Aeneas Coffey as the Coffey still.
(Hem, 11/02, p.36)
1827 Apr 2, Joseph Dixon began manufacturing lead pencils.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1827 Apr 7, English chemist John Walker invented wooden matches.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1827 Jul 14, Augustin-Jean Fresnel (b.1788), French engineer, died. He contributed significantly to the establishment of the theory of wave optics. Fresnel studied the behavior of light both theoretically and experimentally. He worked out a way to focus light using diffraction and was the first to construct a special type of lens, now called a Fresnel lens, as a substitute for mirrors in lighthouses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin-Jean_Fresnel)(Econ, 6/9/12, p.85)
1829 Jul 23, William Austin Burt of Mount Vernon, Mich., received a patent for his "typographer," a forerunner of the typewriter.
(AP, 7/23/99)
1829 Aug 9, The locomotive "Stourbridge Lion" went into service.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1829 Robert Stephenson built the Rocket, one of the world’s first steam locomotives, in Newcastle, England.
(Econ, 6/6/15, p.46)
1830 May 3, The 1st regular steam train passenger service started.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1830 May 18, Edwin Beard Budding of England signed an agreement for the manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower. He adopted the rotary blade in the cloth industry to grass.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.118)
1830 May 20, Dr. Hyde patented a fountain pen.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1831 May 16, David Edward Hughes, inventor (microphone, teleprinter), was born.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1831 Aug 9, 1st US steam engine train run was from Albany to Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1831 Aug 29, Michael Faraday, British physicist, demonstrated the 1st electric transformer. Faraday had discovered that a changing magnetic field produces an electric current in a wire, a phenomenon known as electromagnetic induction.
(www.acmi.net.au/AIC/FARADAY_BIO.html)(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.R6)
1831 US copyright protections were expanded to cover musical compositions.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1831 The lawn mower was invented in England.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1833 Apr 22, Richard Trevithick (62), inventor (steam locomotive), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1835 Aug 2, Elisha Grey, inventor (Telephone), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1835 Nov 23, Henry Burden invented the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. He then made most of the horseshoes for the Union Cavalry in the Civil War. Burden patented a horseshoe manufacturing machine in Troy, NY.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.E3)(MC, 11/23/01)
1835 Dec 7, The Adler, a steam engine built in Newcastle by British father and son George and Robert Stephenson, began running between Nuremberg and Furth, marking the birth of the German railway system.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.77)
1836 Feb 25, Samuel Colt patented the first revolving barrel multi-shot firearm.
(HN, 2/25/98)(AP, 2/25/98)
1836 Mar 23, Coin Press was invented by Franklin Beale.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1836 Oct 24, A. Phillips patented the match.
(HN, 10/24/98)(MC, 10/24/01)
1837 Dec 29, A threshing machine powered by a single horse treadmill was patented in Winthrop, Maine, by twins Hiram A. and John A. Pitts.
(DM, 8/5/03)
1837 Samuel F.B. Morse incorporated the discoveries of Sturgeon and Henry in the first practical telegraph, separating the magnet from the switch by some five hundred yards of wire. [see 1838, 1844]
(I&I, Penzias, p.96)
1837 English plumber Thomas Crapper came out with a flush model, valve controlled, water closet. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow installed one in his home in 1840 and sparked public attention. Thomas Crapper, popularly credited with inventing the water closet, held three patents, although he may simply have bought the siphon discharge system patent from Albert Giblin and marketed it himself. In 1969 Wallace Reyburn authored “Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper."
(HNQ, 11/25/00)(http://tinyurl.com/2ws5w)
1838 Jan 6, Samuel Morse (1791-1872) first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown, N.J. In 2003 David Paul Nickles authored "Under the Wire," a history of the telegraph and its impact on the world. [see Jan 8]
(AP, 1/6/98)(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.D10)
1838 Jan 8, 1st telegraph message using dots & dashes was sent in NJ. [see Jan 6]
(MC, 1/8/02)
1839 Jan 2, French photographic pioneer Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre took the first photograph of the moon. Soon after his first photograph of people was a shoeshine scene on a Paris boulevard.
(HN, 1/2/99)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.2)(ON, 4/00, p.10)
1839 Jan 9, The Daguerreotype photo process was announced at the French Academy of Science. Louis Daguerre had the influential astronomer Dominique-Francois-Argo make an announcement at the Academy of Sciences in Paris of the daguerreotype, a photographic process using fumes of iodine to sensitize a silver plate, vapor of mercury to bring out the image, and common salt to fix the image. [See 1765-1833, Nicephore Niepce, French lithographer, and 1816].
(http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/Louis_Daguerre)(http://tinyurl.com/arl5k5)(WSJ, 9/14/95, p.A-16)(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1839 Jan 28, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), English inventor, presented his discoveries and methods of photography to the Royal Society of London. His callotype, a negative to positive process, allowed multiple reproductions of a single image for the 1st time. Talbot suggested a daguerreotype camera with extra parts to hold mercury.
(ON, 4/00, p.10)(SFC, 6/12/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 12/26/02, p.E9)
1839 Feb 24, A steam shovel was patented by William Otis, Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1839 Aug 19, At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris a new photographic process was unveiled by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre. He "was able to capture images directly onto small, silvered plates; and in England where William Henry Fox invented what he called "photogenic drawing." This process produced a negative image on paper from which positive images could be made... but it took more than an hour to take a picture and the fuzzy prints were difficult to see. The daguerreotype enabled the photographer to create a highly detailed image. The process consisted of polishing a copper plate, using iodine to sensitize it, and developing it over mercury after exposing it to light in a camera. Daguerreotypes became so popular in the United States that New York City boasted more than 70 daguerreotype studios by 1850.
(Smith., 5/95, p.72)(HNQ, 10/28/98)
1839 Sep 9, John Herschel (1792-1871), English astronomer, took the 1st glass plate photograph.
(www.getty.edu)
1839 Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) found the right formula for making rubber impervious to temperature, a combination of chemicals and heat that became know as vulcanization.
(WSJ, 7/31/02, p.D10)(ON, 6/07, p.11)
1839 Erastus Bigelow invented the 1st power loom. It doubled carpet production within a year.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1839 The photovoltaic effect, where light produces a current, was 1st noticed.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.E1)
1839 The basic idea for electrocombustion, the combination of oxygen and hydrogen to generate electricity and water, was discovered. This later provided the basis for fuel cell technology.
(Wired, 10/96, p.128)(SFC, 9/28/01, p.B9)
1840 Jan 18, "Electro-Magnetic Intelligencer", 1st US electrical journal, appeared.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1840 May 8, Alexander Wolcott patented a photographic process.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1840 Jun 20, Samuel F.B. Morse, a popular artist, patented his telegraph.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1841 Aug 21, John Hampson of New Orleans patented the Venetian blind.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1841 Sep 30, Samuel Slocum patented the stapler.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1842 Feb 21, 1st known sewing machine was patented in US by John Greenough in Wash, DC. [see 1830,1833]
(MC, 2/21/02)
1842 Aug 31, Micah Rugg patented a nuts & bolts machine.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1843 Mar 3, US Congress appropriated $30,000 "to test the practicability of establishing a system of electro-magnetic telegraphs."
(SC, 3/3/02)
1843 Aug 26, Charles Thurber patented a typewriter.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1843 Dec 4, Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894) received US patent # 3,237 for a double-effect evaporator, while overseeing the building of the device for plantation owner Theodore Packwood.
(www.answers.com/topic/norbert-rillieux)
1843 Alexander Bain, Scottish inventor, received a British patent for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs." His fax machine evolved from the telegraph technology.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfax.htm)
1844 May 1, Samuel Morse (1791-1872) sent the 1st telegraphic message as a demonstration between Washington, DC, and Baltimore [see Jan 6, 1838]. The line officially opened on May 24, 1844.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse)
1844 May 24, Samuel F.B. Morse, before a crowd of dignitaries in the chambers of the Supreme Court, tapped out the message, "What hath God wrought?" to his partner in Baltimore, Alfred Vail. Congress had appropriated $30,000 for the experimental line built by Ezra Cornell between Washington and Baltimore. American portrait artist Samuel F.B. Morse developed the technology for electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the first instantaneous form of communication. Using a key to hold open an electrical circuit for longer or shorter periods, an operator would tap out a message in a code composed of dots and dashes. Public demonstrations of the equipment were made in February 1838, but it was necessary for Morse to secure financial backing to build the first telegraph line to carry the signal over distance. In 1843, Congress appropriated the funds for a 37-mile line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. After underground telegraph wires proved unsuccessful, Morse switched to pole wires.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(HNPD, 2/6/99)(HNQ, 5/27/00)
1844 May 25, The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appeared in the Baltimore "Patriot."
(AP, 5/25/97)
1844 Jun 15, Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) received patent #3633 for the vulcanization of rubber, his process to strengthen rubber. He had perfected the process in 1839 and never took out a European patent.
(AP, 6/15/97)(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)(ON, 6/07, p.11)
1845 Mar 17, The rubber band was patented by Stephen Perry of London. [see May 17]
(MC, 3/17/02)
1845 May 17, The rubber band was patented. [see Mar 17]
(MC, 5/17/02)
1846 Nov 4, Benjamin F. Palmer of Meredith N.H. received a patent on an artificial human leg.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 11/4/01)
1846 Dec 10, Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894), African-American engineer, received a patent for the Rillieux Process for refining sugar. He won several patents for a way to refine sugar in a process that later came to be called multiple-effect distillation.
(Econ, 6/7/08, p.24)(www.aalbc.com/books/black7.htm)
1847 Oct, The German company Siemens was founded in a Berlin courtyard. Johann Georg Halske and Werner von Siemens formed their own company, Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske to develop a new design for the Wheatstone telegraph.
(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/26xq4a)(Econ, 12/3/16, p.54)
1848 Aug 15, M. Waldo Hanchett patented a dental chair.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1949 Feb 24, A V-2 WAC-Corporal was the 1st rocket to outer space. It was fired at White Sands, NM, and reached 400 km.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1849 Mar 27, Joseph Couch patented a steam-powered percussion rock drill.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1849 May 29, A patent for lifting vessels was granted to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, & some of the people some of time, but you can't fool all of the people all of time"
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)
1849 Apr 10, Walter Hunt (1796-1859), a mechanic, patented the safety pin in NYC. He sold rights for $400 to pay off a $15 debt. Hunt’s other inventions included a new stove, paper collar, ice-breaking boat, fountain pen and nail-making machine. In 2016 the safety pin gained prominence in Britain as a sign of solidarity with immigrant and minority populations facing a reported surge in hate crimes after the Brexit vote. The symbolism of the pin extended to the US following the election of Donald Trump.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_pin)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)(SFC, 4/1/00, p.B4)(AFP, 11/13/16)
1849 Dec 28, M. Jolly-Bellin discovered dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset a lamp containing turpentine and oil on his filthy clothing and saw a cleaning effect.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1850 Jul 14, The 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration took place. James Harrison of Australia designed an ice-making machine. It was an improvement on one invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834.
(MC, 7/14/02)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1850 Aug 28, The English Channel telegraph cable was laid between Dover and Cap Gris Nez.
(HTnet, 8/28/99)
1850 The US Supreme Court opined that an invention had to be something more than the work of a skilled mechanic to qualify for a patent.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.78)
1851 May 6, Dr. John Gorrie patented a "refrigeration machine."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 6, Linus Yale patented his Yale lock.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 18, The Amsterdam-Nieuwediep telegraph connection linked.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1851 Aug 12, Isaac Merritt Singer was granted a patent on his lockstitch sewing machine. He formed I.M. Singer & Co. in New York City and soon began selling machines for $100 each. In 4 years he expanded to Scotland becoming the first American int’l. company.
(AP, 8/12/97)(SSFC, 11/7/10, p.N1)
1851 Nov 11, Alvan Clark patented a telescope.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1852 Elisha Graves Otis invented a safety elevator in Yonkers, NY. Otis invented the safety elevator to brake the car to a halt if the supporting cable broke. Otis Steam Elevator Works made its 1st sale in 1854 to P.T. Barnum for display at the New York’s World Fair. In 1889 (the same year Eiffel built his Tower) the elevator met electricity. United Technologies acquired Otis in 1976. In 2001 Jason Goodwin authored "Otis, Giving Rise to the Modern City."
(HT, 5/97, p.23)(HNQ, 4/21/01)(WSJ, 10/9/01, p.A20)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1852 English mathematician and physicist George Gabriel Stokes (1819–1903) finally named and explained the phenomena of fluorescence (he named it after fluorite, a strongly fluorescent mineral). Fluorescent lighting only became commercially available in 1938.
(www.scienceclarified.com/Ex-Ga/Fluorescent-Light.html)(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
1854 Feb 11, Major streets were lit by coal gas for 1st time.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1854 Mar 7, Charles Miller patented the 1st US sewing machine to stitch buttonholes.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1854 May 30, Vermont native Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) unveiled his invention, the safety elevator at the New York World's Fair. Audiences gasped as Otis, riding on the hoist's platform, dramatically ordered the lifting rope cut. Instead of falling, the car locked safely into the elevator shaft. Prior to the 1850s there was no existing market for passenger elevators because there was no safety mechanism in the event of a cable break. In 1852 Otis was a master mechanic working at a bedstead factory in Yonkers, N.Y., when he built a hoisting machine with two sets of metal teeth at the car's sides. If the lifting rope broke, the teeth would lock into place, preventing the car from falling. Otis never realized the potential of his invention. His sons built the Otis Elevator Company, enabling the skylines of cities throughout the world to be transformed with skyscrapers.
(HNPD, 5/30/99)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1854 Aug 29, Daniel Halladay patented a self-governing windmill.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1854 The first lighthouse on Fastnet rock off of southwest Ireland was completed. Work on a replacement began in 1896. In 2004 James Morrissey authored “A History of the Fastnet Lighthouse."
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.100)
1855 Mar 27, Abraham Gesner patented kerosene.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1855 Oct 9, Isaac Singer patented sewing machine motor.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 9, Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass., patented the 1st calliope.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1856 Oct 7, Cyrus Chambers Jr. patented a folding machine that folded books and newspapers.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1856 William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, discovered the property of magneto-resistance. The change in some materials of electrical resistance under a magnetic field was later used in data storage systems.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.89)
1857 Jan 6, Patent for reducing zinc ore was granted to Samuel Wetherill in Penn.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1857 Mar 23, Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in the 5-story Haughwout and Co. building at 488 Broadway in New York City.
(www.theelevatormuseum.org/h/h-2.htm)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1857 Jun 2, James Gibbs, Va., patented a chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Sep 15, Timothy Alden of NYC patented a typesetting machine.
(www.todayinsci.com/)
1858 Feb 21, Edwin T. Holmes installed the 1st electric burglar alarm in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1858 Mar 2, Frederick Cook, New Orleans, patented a cotton-bale metallic tie.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1858 Jul 6, Lyman Blake patented a shoe manufacturing machine.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1858 Aug 5, Cyrus W. Field completed the first transatlantic cable. It linked Newfoundland to Ireland. The line went completely dead in October. William Thompson oversaw the operation at sea aboard the HMS Agamemnon, which laid half the cable. The other half was laid by the USS Niagara. The cables had been spliced at a central meeting point on June 26. A new attempt to lay newly designed cable failed in 1865. another attempt in 1866 succeeded.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)(AP, 8/5/08)(ON, 10/10, p.2)
1858 Oct 26, Hamilton Smith patented rotary washing machine.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1859 Jul 12, William Goodale patented a paper bag manufacturing machine in Mass.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1859 Sep 1, The 1st Pullman sleeping car went into service. George M. Pullman began outfitting railroad cars. His company was incorporated in 1867.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)(MC, 9/1/02)
1859 Sep 20, George Simpson patented the electric range.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1859 Gaston Plante, French physicist, invented the first lead-acid rechargeable battery.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.4)
1860 Mar 27, M.L. Byrn patented a "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew).
(MC, 3/27/02)
1860 Jul 1, Charles Goodyear (b.1800), inventor or the vulcanization process for rubber, died. In 2002 Charles Slack authored "Noble Obsession" an account of his quest to develop a form of rubber impervious to high temperatures.
(WSJ, 7/31/02, p.D10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear)
1860 Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville captured 10-second clip of a woman singing "Au Clair de la Lune," using a phonautograph, a device that created visual recordings of sound waves.
(AP, 3/28/08)
1860s Ernest Michaux, a Parisian blacksmith, invented the “velocipede," a 2-wheeled machine with pedals to drive the front wheel. It used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the boneshaker."
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)
1861 Jan 15, Elisha Otis received patent # 31,128 for his steam elevator.
(www.sterlingelevatorcons.com/history.htm)
1861 Feb 5, The kinematoscope was patented by Coleman Sellers in Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1861 Apr 8, Elisha Graves Otis (50), US elevator builder (Otis), died.
(www.famousamericans.net/elishagravesotis/)
1861 Dec 5, Gatling gun was patented. [see Oct 30, 1862, Nov 3, 1862]
(MC, 12/5/01)
1861 Felix Nadar invented a battery operated flash lamp and began exploring the sewers and catacombs of Paris.
(Econ, 12/8/12, IL p.15)
1862 Apr 8, John D. Lynde patented an aerosol dispenser.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1862 Oct 30, Dr. Richard Gatling patented a machine gun. [see Dec 5, 1861, Nov 3, 1862]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1862 Nov 3, Dr. Richard Gatling patented machine gun in Indianapolis. [see Dec 5, 1861, Oct 30, 1862]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1862 Dec 29, The bowling ball was invented.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1862 The first crude desalination plant was installed in Key West, Florida, to support military personnel at Fort Zachary Taylor.
(SFC, 5/7/15, p.D3)
1863 Jan 10, London's Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway, opened to the public. The first stretch of rail had opened the day before. It was nationalized in 1948. In 2004 Christian Wolmar authored “The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was Built and How it Changed the City Forever."
(AP, 1/10/98)(HN, 1/10/99)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.81)(AP, 1/9/13)
1863 Jan 13, Thomas Crapper pioneered a one-piece pedestal flushing toilet.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1863 Feb 9, A fire extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1863 Apr 14, William Bullock patented a continuous-roll printing press.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1863 Nov 23, A patent was granted for a process of making color photographs.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1863 Pierre Lallemont, French mechanic, created a bicycle driven by foot pedals attached to the front wheel. In 1865 he moved to the US and applied for a patent, which was granted in Nov. 1866.
(ON, 2/10, p.1)
1864 Mar 1, Louis Ducos du Hauron patented a movie machine that was never built.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1865 Aug 2, A trans Atlantic Cable being laid by SS Great Eastern snapped and was lost.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1865 Henry Bessemer, English mechanical engineer, filed a patent to cast strips of steel directly, rather than as large ingots to be reheated and shaped.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.65)
1866 Mar 27, Andrew Rankin patented the urinal.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1866 Jul 27, Cyrus W. Field finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe. A previous cable in 1858 burned out after only a few weeks of use.
(AP, 7/27/08)
1866 Oct 2, J. Osterhoudt patented a tin can with key opener.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1866 Nov 20, Pierre Lallemont, French mechanic, was granted a US patent for his velocipede, a rotary crank bicycle.
(http://www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm)(ON, 2/10, p.1)
1867 Jul 16, D.R. Averill patented a ready-mixed paint.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1867 Jul 16, Joseph Monier patented reinforced concrete.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1867 Oct 11, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule applied for a patent on their new direct action typewriter. Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890), Carlos Glidden (1834-1877) and Samuel Soule had invented the typewriter in the 1860s. Charles E. Weller coined the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" to check out the first typewriter built in Milwaukee.
(ON, 12/10, p.7)(SFC, 1/29/97, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 3/22/98, Z1 p.8)
1867 Nov 25, Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1867 Edward Calahan of American Telegraph Company developed the first stock ticker.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A8)
1867 Ernest Michaux, a Parisian blacksmith, added pedals and brakes to an iron “velocipede," a 2-wheeled machine that used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the boneshaker."
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1868 Jan 16, The refrigerated railroad car was patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1868 Mar 5, A stapler was patented in England by C.H. Gould.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1868 Jul 14, Alvin J. Fellows patented a tape measure.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1868 The world’s first traffic light was installed outside Britain’s House of Parliament. The gaslit signal controlled the flow of London’s carriages.
(Econ, 8/5/17, p.45)
1869 Oct 16, A hotel in Boston became the 1st to have indoor plumbing.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1868 Oct 11, Thomas Edison patented his 1st invention, an electric voice machine.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1868 Nov 23, Louis Ducos du Hauron patented trichrome color photo process.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1869 Feb 2, James Oliver invented the removable tempered steel plow blade.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1869 Apr 6, John and Isaiah Hyatt applied for a new patent using collodion to manufacture billiard balls. They later named their product celluloid. It was similar to that made by English inventor Alexander Parkes, who patented the process in England in 1855. The new plastic could be molded and mass produced, but was very flammable and exploded when struck with excessive force. [see Jun 15]
(HNQ, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(MC, 4/6/02)(PCh, 1992, p.467)(ON, 11/03, p.3)
1869 Apr 13, Steam power brake was patented by George Westinghouse.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1869 Aug 10, O.B. Brown patented a moving picture projector.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1869 Jun 8, Ives W. McGaffey of Chicago patented the 1st vacuum cleaner.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1869 Dec 28, William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patented chewing gum.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1869 Frenchman Eugene Meyer invented wire wheels with individually adjusted spokes.
(www.everybicycletire.com/Encyclopedia/History.aspx)(ON, 2/10, p.2)
1870 A Rhode Island company began making the Howell torpedo, the first to follow a track without leaving a wake. It made 50 by 1889 when a rival company copied and surpassed the design.
(SSFC, 5/19/13, p.A7)
1871 Jan 17, The 1st cable car patented by Andrew S. Hallidie. It began service in 1873.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1871 Dec 19, Albert L. Jones patented corrugated paper in NYC.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1871 Fr. Joseph Neri, SJ, demonstrated the 1st electric light in SF from a window of St. Ignatius on San Francisco’s Market St. He used a large electro-magnetic device, the Alliance Machine, that had been used in the 2nd Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War for lighting defensive work.
(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1871 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev developed the periodic classification system of the elements, presenting a periodic table listing the elements in 1871. Born in Siberia, the last of 17 children, Mendeleyev eventually found success in academia. While writing a basic textbook on chemistry in the 1860s, he attempted to find a way to classify the elements. His periodic system gained acceptance over time. His periodic table left gaps for elements as yet undiscovered, but he correctly predicted the properties of three of those elements. The table and his concepts of periodic law gained more acceptance with the approach of the 20th century, forming the basis for modern chemistry.
(HNQ, 1/4/01)
1872 Feb 20, A hydraulic electric elevator was patented by Cyrus Baldwin.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Feb 20, Luther Crowell patented a machine for manufacturing paper bags.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Feb 20, Silas Noble and JP Cooley patented a toothpick manufacturing machine.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Mar 5, George Westinghouse Jr. patented triple air brake for trains.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1872 Mar 26, Thomas J. Martin patented a fire extinguisher.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1872 Apr 2, George B. Brayton patented a gasoline powered engine.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1872 Jul 20, Mahlon Loomis patented a wireless radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1872 Aug 1, The first long-distance gas pipeline in the U.S. was completed. Designed for natural gas, the two-inch pipe ran five miles from Newton Wells to Titusville, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1872 Oct 29, J.S. Risdon patented a metal windmill.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1873 Mar 1, E. Remington and Sons (1816–1896), a firearms manufacturer founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, started manufacturing the first commercial typewriter. James Densmore and George Yost contracted Remington to build 1,000 machines designed by Christopher Latham Sholes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons)(ON, 12/10, p.8)
1873 Aug 3, Inventor Andrew S. Hallidie successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco. Hallidie made the first cable car trip aboard his Nob Hill Line traveling down Clay St. from Knob Hill to Kearney and then back up.
(www.sfmuseum.org/bio/hallidie.html)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A16)(AP, 8/2/06)(SFC, 5/30/15, p.C2)
1873 Aug 26, Lee De Forest (d.1961), inventor of the audion vacuum tube, was born in Council bluffs, Iowa. He is considered the father of radio.
(WUD, 1994 p.379)( http://www.britannica.com)
1873 Nov 4, Dentist John Beers of SF patented the gold crown.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1873 Ernst Abbe (1840-1905), German physicist, noted that a microscope cannot properly see any object smaller than half the wavelength of the light it uses.
(Econ, 10/11/14, p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Abbe)
1874 Aug 11, Harry S. Parmelee patented a sprinkler head.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1874 Jul 24, James Woodward and a colleague by the name of Mathew Evans, described in the patent as a "Gentleman" but in reality a hotel keeper, filed a patent for the Woodward and Evan's Light.
(http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/first_electric_light_bulb.htm)
1875 Jan 26, Electric dental drill was patented by George F. Green.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1875 Feb 4, Ludwig Prandtl, physicist (father of aerodynamics), was born in Germany.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1875 Alexander Graham Bell traveled to Washington and filed patent applications for the multiple telegraph and the autograph telegraph.
(ON, 1/03, p.2)
1875 Jun 2, Alexander Graham Bell made his 1st complex sound transmission.
(ON, 1/03, p.2)
1875 Nov 16, William Bonwill patented dental mallet to impact gold into cavities.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1876 Feb 19, Gardiner Hubbard submitted Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for a telephone.
(ON, 1/03, p.4)
1876 Mar 7, Patent #174,465 was issued to Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) for his telephone. In 2008 Seth Shulman authored “The Telephone Gambit," the story behind Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone patent #174,465. Shulman made a case that Bell stole the critical technology for making the telephone work from Elisha Gray, who had filed his own papers just hours after Bell.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(HN, 3/7/98)(AP, 3/7/98)(WSJ, 1/16/08, p.D10)
1876 Mar 10, Alexander Graham Bell made what was, in effect, the first telephone call. He found a way of converting words into electrical current and back again and sent his first message using his new variable-liquid resistance transmitter. Bell's telephone caused the current to vary smoothly in proportion to the pressure created on a microphone by human speech and got a patent. His assistant, in an adjoining room in Boston, heard Bell say over the experimental device: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." On a page from his notebook, dated March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell described the first successful experiment with the telephone. Bell wrote: "I then shouted into M (the mouthpiece) the following sentence: ‘Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.’ To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said."
(I&I, Penzias, p.97)(CFA, '96, p.42)(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)(HNPD, 3/10/99)
1876 Jun 25, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brazil's Emperor Dom Pedro was among the witnesses.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1876 Jul 4, Fr. Joseph Neri, SJ, introduced electric lights on Market Street in SF.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1876 Dec 5, Daniel Stillson (Mass) patented the 1st practical pipe wrench.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 Halcyon Skinner, American inventor, perfected the Axminster loom.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1876 The high-wheel bicycle was introduced in the US at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
(ON, 2/10, p.3)
1877 Feb 12, The 1st news dispatch by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1877 Jul 18, Thomas Edison recorded the human voice for the first time. He shouted “Haloo" into a mouthpiece and played back a moving tape.
(HN, 7/18/01)(ON, 2/07, p.11)
1877 Nov 21, Inventor Thomas A. Edison announced the invention of his phonograph.
(V.D.-H.K.p.270)(AP, 11/21/97)
1877 Dec 6, Thomas A. Edison made the first sound-recording when he recited "Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 Dec 24, Thomas A. Edison filed a patent application for his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 The Bell Telephone Co. was formed.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1877 Erastus Bigelow introduced a machine-made broadloom carpet in the US.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1877 William Voss and his brothers Fred and John Voss established the Voss Bros. Manufacturing Co. in Davenport, Iowa. Voss had invented one of the first washing machines with early models operated by a hand crank or foot pedal. Voss motor-driven machines were introduced in 1905. during the Depression Voss washing machines sold for $39.95.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1878 Jan 28, The 1st telephone exchange was established at New Haven, Conn.
(AP, 1/28/04)
1878 Feb 19, Thomas Edison received a U.S. patent for "an improvement in phonograph or speaking machines."
(AP, 2/19/07)
1878 Feb 21, The first telephone directory was issued, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven (New Harbor), Conn. It contained the names of its 50 subscribers. As of 2007 regulators began granting telecommunications companies the go-ahead to stop mass-printing residential phone books.
(AP, 2/21/98)(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W7)(AP, 11/11/10)
1878 Oct 18, Edison made electricity available for household usage.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1878 Dec 26, The 1st US store to install electric lights was in Philadelphia.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1878 Lyman C. Byce, Petaluma poultry pioneer, began experimenting with an incubator to hatch baby chicks.
(Ind, 4/26/03, p.5A)
1878 The 1st electric street lights were deployed alongside Holburn Viaduct in London, England.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.79)
1878 In Italy the world’s first spectacles factory was built at Belluno.
(Econ, 4/16/11, p.70)
1879 Feb 5, Joseph Swan demonstrated a light bulb using carbon glow.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1879 May 31, 1st electric railway opened at the Berlin Trades Exposition.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1879 Sep 23, Richard Rhodes invented a hearing aid called the Audiophone.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1879 Oct 21, Thomas Edison perfected his carbonized cotton filament light bulb after 14 months of testing at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was the first incandescent electric lamp. The bulb burned for about 13 ½ hours.
(AP, 10/21/97)(HN, 10/21/02)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1879 Dec 31, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1879 James Ritty (1836-1918) and his brother invented the 1st cash register. It was to combat stealing by bartenders in his Dayton, Ohio, saloon. The first model looked like a clock, but instead of the hands indicating hours and minutes, they indicated dollars and cents. Behind the dial two adding discs accumulated the total of the amounts recorded. Known as "the incorruptible cashier," with no cash drawer, it would show anyone within sight how much had been recorded. They received a patent Jan 30, 1883.
(www.inventors.about.com)(www.uspto.gov/go/kids/kidjan.htm)
1879 Photogravure was invented. It involved the transfer of photographic images onto a copper plate by acid-etching. The plate is then inked and pressed by hand onto artist's paper for a print of exceptional detail.
(WSJ, 1/28/99, p.A1)
1879 George Eastman of Rochester, New York, devised a ready-to-use dry plate for photography. Eastman sought to improve the chemistry and the processes of photography that had, for 40 years, required subjects to remain perfectly still for exposure times of up to a minute.
(HN, 7/12/99)
1879 A cylindrical lump of platinum-iridium alloy was cast in Hatton Garden, England, and then dispatched to the Int’l. Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Sevres, France, as the standard measure for one kilogram. An ingot for the meter was deposited in 1889.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.79)
1880 Jan 21, 1st US sewage disposal system, separate from storm drains, was established in Memphis.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1880 Jan 27, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
(AP, 1/27/98)
1880 Mar 23, John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patented the grain crushing mill. This mill allowed flour production to increase by 70 percent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1880 Mar 31, Wabash, Ind., became the first town completely illuminated by electrical lighting.
(AP, 3/31/97)(HN, 3/31/98)
1880 Jul 23, 1st commercial hydroelectric power planet began in Grand Rapids, Mich.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1880 Aug 24, Joshua L. Cowen, inventor of the electric train, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1880 Oct 5, The first ball-point pen was patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.
(HN, 10/5/00)
1880 James Albert Bonsack (1859-1924) invented the first cigarette rolling machine. He received 2 patents for it in 1881. Bonsack's machine was able to produce 120,000 cigarettes in ten hours, revolutionizing the cigarette industry. In 2007 Allan M. Brandt authored “The Cigarette Century: The Rise and Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Albert_Bonsack)
1881 May 16, World's 1st electric tram went into service in Lichterfelder near Berlin.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1881 Aug, John Dolbeer, a founding partner of the Dolbeer and Carson Lumber Company in Eureka, California, invented the "steam donkey" logging engine. The patent (number: 256553) was issued April 18, 1882. The steam-powered winch, or logging engine, widely used in past logging operations, though not limited to logging, were also found in the mining, maritime, and nearly any other industry that needed a powered winch.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_donkey)
1881 Sep 13, Lewis Latimer invented and patented an electric lamp with a carbon filament.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1881 Oct 11, David Houston patented roll film for cameras.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1882 Mar 9, False teeth were patented. [see 1822]
(MC, 3/9/02)
1882 Apr 3, Wood block alarm was invented. When alarm rang it dropped 20 wood blocks.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1882 Sep 4, Thomas Edison displayed the first practical electrical lighting system. He successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York City with the world’s 1st electricity generating plant.
(MC, 9/4/01)(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.R6)
1882 Edison Electric installed a power grid in Manhattan that wrecked telephone reception.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.13)
1883 Feb 8, Louis Waterman began experiments to invent fountain pen.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1883 Feb 27, Oscar Hammerstein patented the 1st cigar-rolling machine.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1883 Mar 19, Jan Matzeliger invented the 1st machine to manufacture entire shoes.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 24, Long-distance telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York. [see Mar 27, 1884]
(AP, 3/23/97)
1884 Mar 27, The first long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York City. [see Mar 24, 1883]
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1884 May 29, 1st steam cable trams started in Highgate.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1884 Oct 14, Transparent paper-strip photographic film was patented by George Eastman. He had invented a flexible paper-backed film that could be wound on rollers. To encourage amateur photography and film sales, Eastman developed a simple black box camera that cost $25 and came already loaded with a 100-exposure roll of film. When the roll was used up, the entire No. 1 Kodak camera was shipped back to Eastman's factory for developing and reloading, at a cost of only $10. Eastman's photographic improvements proved successful, with 13,000 cameras sold in 1888. The roll holder was designed by William Hall Walker. Eastman renamed his corporation the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.
(HN, 7/12/99)(HN, 10/14/00)(ON, 3/05, p.11)
1884 Herman Hollerith, a German-American, found a way to store information through holes on cards.
(WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A20)
1885 Mar 20, John Matzeliger of Suriname patented a shoe lacing machine.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1885 Mar 26, The Eastman Film Co. of Rochester, N.Y., manufactured the first commercial motion picture film. George Eastman had perfected a method for bonding photographic emulsion onto thin strips of celluloid.
(AP, 3/25/98)(HN, 3/25/98)(ON, 11/03, p.5)
1885 Aug 29, Gottlieb Daimler received a German patent for a motorcycle.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1885 In England John Starley introduced the safety bicycle. It had 2 wheels of the same size and pedals attached to a chain to the rear wheel.
(Hem, 8/96, p.34)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.70)
1886 Jan 26, Karl Benz patented the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1886 Jan 29, 1st successful gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe. [see Jan 26]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1886 Feb 23, An aluminum manufacturing process was developed.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1886 Mar 6, The 1st US alternating current power plant started in Great Barrington, MA.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1886 Sep 14, George K. Anderson of Memphis, Tennessee, patented typewriter ribbon.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltypewriter.htm)
1886 Nov 30, 1st commercially successful AC electric power plant opened in Buffalo.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1886 LaVerne Noyes (1849-1919) invented his akromotor, a device that converted wind to electricity and proved to be immensely useful to American farmers.
(http://eos.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/donors2.html#d)
1887 Mar 8, Everett Horton of Connecticut patented a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1887 May 2, Hannibal W. Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1887 Aug 2, Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1887 Aug 31, Inventor Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his Kinetoscope," a device which produced moving pictures. [see Apr 14, 1894]
(AP, 8/31/97)
1887 Oct 11, A. Miles patented the elevator.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1887 Nov 8, Emile Berliner, a German immigrant working in Washington D.C., patented his gramophone, a successful system of sound recording. Berliner was the first inventor to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat disks or records.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gramophone.htm)
1887 Frank Brownell, the maker of George Eastman’s roll holder, created for Eastman a simple box camera. Eastman named it “Kodak" and patented the name with the camera. [see 1888]
(ON, 3/05, p.12)
1888 Apr 24, Eastman Kodak was formed. The company produced the Kodak Camera: “You press the button – we do the rest."
(HN, 4/24/98)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/2/06, p.B10)
1888 May 7, George Eastman patented his Kodak box camera.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1888 Jul, Harold P. Brown, on behalf of Thomas Edison, zapped dogs at Columbia College to demonstrate the supposed danger of alternating current, a mode of power favored by Edison’s rival George Westinghouse. The NY state legislature had recently designated electrocution as the official means for capital punishment.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A26)(ON, 10/04, p.7)
1888 Aug 7, The revolving door, the brainchild of Philadelphia inventor Theophilus Van Kannel (1841-1919), was patented. In 1889 he founded the Van Kannel Revolving Door Company.
(http://tinyurl.com/mdqrqxs)
1888 Aug 13, John Logie Baird, inventor (father of TV), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1888 Sep 7, An incubator was used for the first time on a premature infant.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1888 Oct 30, John J. Loud patented a ballpoint pen.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1888 Dec 7, John Boyd Dunlop (1840-1921), Scotland-born inventor, patented a pneumatic tire. Two years after he was granted the patent Dunlop was officially informed that it was invalid as Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson (1822–1873), had patented the idea in France in 1846 and in the US in 1847. Dunlop's patent was later declared invalid on the basis of Thomson's prior art.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_Dunlop)
1888 Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), Serbian-American inventor, patented his rugged alternating current induction motor.
(Econ, 6/4/11, TQ p.13)
1889 Jan 8, Dr. Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), statistician for the US Census Bureau, received the 1st US patent for a tabulating machine. It resembled Charles Babagge’s Analytical Engine, but used electromagnetic relays instead of metal gears.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)(ON, 5/05, p.7)
1889 Mar 8, Jens/John Ericsson (85), Swedish-US, engineer (fire extinguisher), died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1889 Apr 1, The first dishwashing machine was marketed (in Chicago).
(OTD)
1889 Apr 6, George Eastman placed the Kodak Camera on sale for 1st time.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1889 Aug 10, Dan Rylands patented a screw cap.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1889 Aug 13, The first coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Conn. A foreman had refused to let Gray call his sick wife from the company phone.
(SFEC, 10/22/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 8/13/08)
1889 Aug 23, The 1st ship-to-shore wireless message was received in US in SF.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1889 Dec 24, Daniel Stover and William Hance patented a bicycle with back pedal brake.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1890 Nov 11, D. McCree patented a portable fire escape.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1890 Aug 6, Convicted murderer William Kemmler became the 1st person to be executed in the electric chair. He was put to death at Auburn State Prison in New York for murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. In 2003 Jill Jonnes authored "Empires of Light," and account of how Edison, Tesla and Westinghouse brought electric power to public use. In 2003 Mark Essig authored "Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death."
(AP, 8/6/97)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC, 8/6/02)(WSJ, 8/19/03, p.D5)(Econ, 9/20/03, p.81)
1891 Apr 1, The London-Paris telephone connection opened.
(OTD)
1891 Aug 24, Thomas Edison filed a patent for the motion picture camera.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1891 Nov 10, Granville T. Woods patented an electric railway.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1891 Dec 29, Edison patented the "transmission of signals electrically" (radio).
(MC, 12/29/01)
1891 The Thomas Houston Electric Co., the Thomas Houston International Electric Co., and Edison General Electric merged. Houston had made its fortune selling AC powered arc lights for city streets. In 1892 the new company was incorporated as General Electric.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1892 Jan 5, The 1st successful auroral photograph made.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1892 Feb 2, Bottle cap with cork seal was patented by William Painter in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1892 Mar 15, Jesse W. Reno, inventor, patented the 1st escalator in NYC.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1892 Apr 12, George C. Blickensderfer received the first US patent for a portable typewriter.
(www.todayinsci.com/4/4_12.htm)
1892 May 19, Charles Brady King of Detroit invented the pneumatic hammer. [see Jan 30, 1894]
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1892 May 20, George Sampson patented a clothes dryer.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1892 May 22, Dr. Washington Sheffield invented toothpaste tube.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1892 Jul 5, Andrew Beard was issued a patent for the rotary engine.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1892 Aug 2, Charles A. Wheeler patented a prototype of the escalator. [see Mar 15]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1892 Sep 26, The Diamond Match Co. patented book matches. [see Sep 27]
(MC, 9/26/01)
1892 Sep 27, Book matches were patented by Diamond Match Company. [see Sep 26]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1892 Oct 18, The first long-distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was formally opened. It could only handle one call at a time.
(AP, 10/18/07)
1892 Dec 20, Pneumatic automobile tire was patented in Syracuse, NY.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1892 The 1st electrical hearing aid was invented. It weighed several pounds.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, Par p.4)
1893 Feb 28, Edward Acheson of Pennsylvania, patented an abrasive he named "carborundum."
(MC, 2/28/02)
1893 Mar 27, The American Bell telephone Company made its first long distance telephone call to its branch office in New York.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1893 Aug 1, A machine for making shredded wheat breakfast cereal was patented.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1893 Aug 29, The “clasp locker," a clumsy slide fastener and forerunner to the zipper was first patented by Whitcomb L. Judson. He demonstrated it at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He invented an improved C-Curity fastener in 1902.
(Wired, Dec., ‘95, p.138)(SFEC, 6/6/99, Z1 p.10)(ON, 7/04, p.3)
1893 Dec 5, 1st electric car was built in Toronto. It could go 15 miles between charges.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1893 Dec 24, Henry Ford completed his 1st useful gas motor.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1893 The first electric bread toasters were made in England about this time.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.G4)
1894 Jan 30, Pneumatic hammer was patented by Charles King of Detroit. [see May 19, 1892]
(MC, 1/30/02)
1894 Mar 24, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent product safety certification organization, conducted its first test on non-combustible insulation material after founder William Henry Merrill opened the Electrical Bureau of the National Board of fire Underwriters.
(www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/corporate/aboutul/history/)
1894 Apr 14, Thomas Edison made his first public showing of the kinetoscope. The first Kinetoscope Parlor opened in New York City where you could view moving film through a magnifying lens. Thomas Edison invented the Kinetograph in 1889, a cinema camera that utilized celluloid roll film that had been developed by George Eastman in 1888. The Kinetoscope, developed by Edison in 1891, was a peephole viewer in which the developed film moved continuously under a magnifying glass. The Cinematographe and Vitascope were later machines that actually projected images onto a screen. The Stroboscope and Phenakistoscope were devices developed in 1832, pre-dating photography, that attempted to show apparent motion from a series of drawings on a revolving disc.
(HN, 4/14/98)(HNQ, 2/17/00)
1894 Sep, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian engineer, built his first radio equipment. By the end of this month he could flit a switch and make a bell ring at the other end of his attic workspace. Originally, radio or radiotelegraphy was called 'wireless telegraphy', which was shortened to 'wireless'. The prefix radio- in the sense of wireless transmission was first recorded in the word radioconductor, coined by the French physicist Edouard Branly in 1897.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(ON, 11/99, p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio)
1894 Oct 30, Daniel Cooper patented a time clock.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1895 Feb 13, A moving picture projector was patented.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1895 Feb 26, Michael Owens of Toledo, OH., patented a glass-blowing machine.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1895 Apr 11, Anaheim, Ca., completed its new electric light system.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1895 Nov 5, George B. Selden of Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for a gasoline-driven automobile.
(AP, 11/5/97)(MC, 11/5/01)
1895 Nov 8, Wilhelm Konrad von Röntgen (50), German physicist, discovered X-rays.
(ON, 11/04, p.6)(www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/25/2/25-2-assmus.pdf)
1896 Jan 12, The 1st X-ray photo on record in the US was made by Dr. Henry Louis Smith at Davidson, NC. Dr. Henry Smith shot a bullet into the hand of a dead human body and made a 15 minute x-ray exposure to reveal the bullet.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 1/12/02)
1896 Jun 30, W.S. Hadaway patented an electric stove.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1896 Aug 11, Harvey Hubbell patented an electric light bulb socket with a pull chain.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1896 Aug 20, Dial telephone was patented.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1897 May 14, Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph.
(HN, 5/14/98)
1897 Aug 31, Thomas Edison patented his movie camera (Kinetograph).
(MC, 8/31/01)
1897 Nov 15, The electricity plant at Niagara Falls opened sending AC power 26 miles to Buffalo, NY. It contained AC generators built by Westinghouse Electric and transformers built by General Electric under license from Westinghouse Electric.
(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1897 Nov 23, A pencil sharpener was patented by J.L. Love.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1897 Dec 16, The 1st submarine with an internal combustion engine was demonstrated.
(MC, 12/16/01)
1897 Adolphe Chaillet, French inventor and US immigrant, developed a coiled filament carbon lamp that burned brighter than existing models. He met John C. Fish of Shelby, Ohio and began an association that was to be the start of the Shelby Electric Company. In 1901 a Shelby bulb was installed in a Livermore, Ca., firehouse. Though it was moved a few times, as of 2011 it was still working.
(www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohscogs/shelbymuseum/ShelbyMuseum3.html)(SSFC, 2/6/11, p.C1)
1898 Feb 8, John Ames Sherman patented the 1st envelope folding & gumming machine in Mass.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1898 Jul 13, Guglielmo Marconi patented his radio.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1898 Aug 16, Edwin Prescott patented a roller coaster.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1898 Sep 13, Hannibal Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1898 Charles Fey built the 3-reeled Card Bell, the first machine to dispense coins as prizes.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.10)
1898 Otis Steam Elevator Works merged with 14 other elevator makers to form the Otis Elevator Company. It later became a subsidiary of United Technologies.
(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1899 Jan 24, The rubber heel was patented by Humphrey O'Sullivan.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1899 Mar 27, The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1899 May 9, A lawn mower was patented.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1899 Oct 3, J.S. Thurman patented a motor-driven vacuum cleaner.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1899 Oct 10, I.R. Johnson patented the bicycle frame.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1900 Apr 11, US Navy's 1st submarine made its debut.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1900 Nov 30, A German engineer patented front-wheel drive for automobiles.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1900 Nickel-cadmium battery cells were developed about this time.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1900 Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian living in Germany, invented the paper clip.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1901 Aug 30, Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner. [see 1869]
(MC, 8/30/01)
1901 Dec 11, Marconi sent his 1st transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall, England to Newfoundland, Canada. The first transmission failed, but another the next day succeeded.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/1701461.stm)
1901 Dec 12, Italian scientist and engineer Guglielmo Marconi received the first long-distance radio transmission in St. John's, Newfoundland. Electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming transmitted the Morse code signal for "s" from across the Atlantic Ocean in England and Marconi heard it--three short clicks--through a radio speaker. Marconi had begun experimenting with radiotelegraphy around 1895, and he realized that messages could be transmitted over much greater distances by using grounded antennae on the radio transmitter and receiver. A few years after the successful transmission with Fleming, Marconi opened the first commercial wireless telegraph service.
(HNPD, 12/12/98)
1901 The Victor Talking Machine Co. was founded in Camden, NJ. It introduced the Victrola with an internal horn, rather than an external one, in 1906. The company was sold to RCA in 1929.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1902 Mar 25, Irving W. Colburn patented a sheet glass drawing machine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1903 Mar 10, Harry Gammeter of Cleveland patented a multigraph duplicating machine.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1903 Mar 29, A regular news service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1903 Nov 24, Clyde Coleman of NYC patented an automobile electric starter.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the 605-pound plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The momentous events of that day received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American Experience." In 2015 David McCullough authored “the Wright Brothers."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD, 12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.78)
1903 M. H. Kuhn founded The M.H. Kuhn Company in Rochester, NY, in 1903. In 1906 it became the Haloid Company (later Xerox) with George C. Seager as President.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8ebt9gx)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made his 1st airplane flight.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1904 Nov 9, 1st airplane flight to last more than 5 minutes.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1904 Nov 15, King C. Gillette patented his Gillette razor blade.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1904 Glenn Curtiss, a motorcycle builder in Hammondsport, NY, began making gasoline-burning aircraft engines for dirigibles that Tom Baldwin was building in California.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Einstein presented his theory of relativity declaring that the very measurement of time intervals is affected by the motion of the observer. He proposed that light is itself quantized, or particle-like, to explain how electrons were emitted when light hit certain metals. He presented four papers, the first on Brownian motion, the second was on the composition of light, the third proposed the Special Theory of Relativity, and the fourth established the equivalence of mass and energy.
(NG, March 1990, J. Boslough p. 118), (NG, May 1985, J. Boslough, p. 642), (V.D.-H.K.p.325-326)
1906 Jan, Lee De Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, a two-electrode device for detecting electromagnetic waves, a variant of the Fleming valve invented two years earlier. A year later, he filed a patent for a 3-electrode device that was a much more sensitive detector of electromagnetic waves. It was granted US Patent 879,532 in February 1908 and paved the way for the radio and television industry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest)(SSFC, 6/26/11, p.42)
1906 Apr 11, Einstein introduced his Theory of Relativity. [see 1905]
(MC, 4/11/02)
1906 Aug 22, The 1st Victor Victrola was manufactured.
(MC, 8/22/02)(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1906 Oct 25, US inventor Lee de Forest patented the "Audion," a 3-diode amplification valve which proved a pioneering development in radio and broadcasting.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1906 The Haloid Co. was founded in Rochester, New York (home of Kodak). It was a photographic paper supplier and later became the Xerox Corp.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox)(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)
1906 Charles F. Kettering designed the first cash register powered by an electric motor.
(www.ncr.com/history/history.htm)
1907 Jan 15, 3-element vacuum tube was patented by Dr. Lee De Forest.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1907 Jun 4, Automatic washer and dryer was introduced.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1907 Jul 15, The London Electrobus Company began picking up passengers in the world’s biggest trials of battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in 1909. It suffered from an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny, a Canadian music-hall artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a worthless patent that caused investors to demand the return of some 80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1907 Leo Baekeland of Yonkers, NY, invented Bakelite, a hard plastic. [see 1909]
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1907 Whiting & Davis Co. of Plainville, Mass., established in 1896, developed a chain mail mesh machine about this time and became the world’s largest manufacturer of mesh products.
(SFC, 7/11/07, p.G4)(http://bagladyemporium.com/BLU/index.php?n=Main.WhitingDavisCo)
1907 The phenomenon of electroluminescence was first observed in a piece of Silicon Carbide (SiC) by Henry Joseph Round (1881-1966), an English electronics engineer.
(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.26)(www.wavicle.biz/led_history.html)
1907 In France the physicist Georges Claude discovered that high voltage electricity shot through certain gases radiated color. He patented a neon tube in 1909.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T6)
1908 Jan 12, A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1908 Mar 2, Gabriel Lippman introduced the new three-dimensional color photography at the Academy of Sciences.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1908 May 12, Wireless Radio Broadcasting was patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1908 May 21, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) launched their 2nd airplane, called White Wing, equipped with aelerons, a mechanism proposed by Alexander Graham Bell, to steer the craft. Pilot Glenn Curtiss flew over 1000 feet and landed safely.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Dec 29, A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake in Clintonville, Wisc.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1908 The US Supreme Court ruled that player-piano rolls based on copyrighted music are not a copyright violation but a piece of machinery.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1908 Gideon Sundback, Swedish-born engineer working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey, designed a new fastener, the “Plako," for use in the placket of a woman’s skirt.
(ON, 7/04, p.5)
1909 Jan 23, The 1st radio rescue at sea took place.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1909 Feb 16, 1st subway car with side doors went into service in NYC.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1909 Mar 18, Einar Dessau of Denmark used a short-wave transmitter to converse with a government radio post about six miles away in what is believed to have been the first broadcast by a "ham" operator.
(AP, 3/18/97)
1909 Dec 7, Dr. Leo H. Baekeland patented Bakelite, the 1st completely synthetic plastic thermosetting plastic. [see 1907]
(HNQ, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(MC, 12/7/01)
1909 A US federal copyright law was passed that allowed composers and music publishers to demand royalty payments for any public performance of copyrighted material. Protection was extended to player-piano rolls and the phonograph.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1909-1910 German chemists Fritz Haber (1868-1934) and Carl Bosch (1874-1940) developed the Haber process (Haber-Bosch process), an artificial nitrogen fixation process that became the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process)
1910 Apr 2, Karl Harris perfected the process for the artificial synthesis of rubber.
(HN, 4/2/98)
1910 Aug 27, Thomas Edison demonstrated the first "talking" pictures using a phonograph in his New Jersey laboratory.
(HN, 8/27/01)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of a twin-engined airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1910 The US federal regulator for rail took on the regulation of telephony.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.86)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Oct 4, The 1st public elevator began service at London's Earl's Court Metro Station.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1912 Apr 6, Cadillac adopted an electric self-starter. Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958), as president of Delco, introduced the electric-starter on the 1912 Cadillac.
(www.todayinsci.com/4/4_06.htm)(http://local.aaca.org/bntc/mileposts/1912.htm)
1912 Feb 14, The 1st US submarines with diesel engines were commissioned at Groton, Ct.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1912 Apr 10, The first wireless transmission was received on an airplane.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1912 Jul 16, A Naval torpedo, launched from an airplane, was patented by B.A. Fiske.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1912 Harry C. Heath (d.1962) invented a new siren capable of an instant blast. It was referred to as the 1st-ever electric siren. A Heath-designed siren was used in the SF Ferry Building from 1918-1972.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A22)
1913 Franz Schneider patented a gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great Britain. In 1915 it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire bullets through an airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913 Frank Shuman, American inventor, created the first large solar pumping station in Meadi, Egypt.
(Econ, 6/6/09, TQ p.23)
1913 Germany-based BASF discovered how to use the Haber-Bosch process" to mass produce fertilizer.
(Econ, 9/17/16, p.63)
1913 Italy built the world’s first geothermal power station at Larderello, Tuscany. By 2015 geothermal energy met 27% of the region’s needs.
(Econ, 9/19/15, p.49)
1914 Apr 14, Stacy G. Carkhuff patented a non-skid tire pattern.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1914 Apr 28, W.H. Carrier was issued a patent for a method of “dew point control," crucial to the development of automatic air cooling systems. In 1923 he invented an air-conditioning system powerful enough for installation at movie theaters.
(http://dealscape.thedealblogs.com/2006/04/this_date_in_deal_history_firs.php)(ON, 8/07, p.11)
1914 Jul 29, Transcontinental telephone service began with the first phone conversation between New York and San Francisco.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1914 Oct 13, Garrett Morgan invented and patented the gas mask.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1915 Jan 19, The neon tube sign was patented by George Claude.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1915 Jan 25, The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated transcontinental telephone service in the United States. Bell placed the first ceremonial cross-continental call from New York to his old colleague Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)(AP, 1/25/98)(HN, 1/25/99)
1915 Feb 7, 1st wireless message sent from a moving train to a station was received.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 26, The 1st flame-thrower was used by the Germans at Malancourt, Argonnen.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1915 May 24, Thomas Edison invented the telescribe to record telephone conversations.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1915 Oct 19, The US Patent Office granted John Van Wormer a patent for his "paper bottle." His patent was later acquired by the American Paper Bottle Company. The first paper milk carton was introduced in 1933.
(www.planetark.org/cartons/carthist.html)
1915 Oct 21, The 1st transatlantic radio-telephone message was transmitted from Arlington, Va., to Paris.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1915 In Japan Tokuji Hayakawa developed an improved mechanical pencil. His company became known as the Sharp Corp.
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/4thh7ke)
1916 May 11, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was presented.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1916 Jul 9, The 1st cargo submarine to cross Atlantic arrived in US from Germany.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1917 Mar 20, Gideon Sundback, Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber galoshes. In 1994 Robert Friedel authored “Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty."
(ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)
1918 May 20, The 1st electrically propelled warship (New Mexico).
(MC, 5/20/02)
1918 Nov 7, Goddard demonstrated tube-launched solid propellant rockets.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1919 May 29, Charles P. Strite of Minnesota filed for a patent for a pop-up toaster. His US patent: 1,394,450 was issued October 18, 1921.
(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/toaster.htm)
1919 The 1st rotary-dial telephones were installed in Norfolk, Va.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1919 French inventor Andre Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplee filed a patent application for an “Electric Apparatus for Propelling Projectiles.
(Econ, 5/9/15, p.73)
1920 Jan 13, A NY Times editorial reported that rockets can never fly.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1920 Jul 7, A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1920s Harvey Fletcher built the Western electric Model 2A hearing aid at the Research Division of Bell.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1921 The polygraph (lie detector), used to measure physiologic phenomena, was invented.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1922 Feb 15, Marconi began regular broadcasting transmissions from Essex.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1922 Mar 28, The 1st microfilm device was introduced.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1922 Aug 2, Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-US physicist (telephone), died in Nova Scotia. He and Gardiner Hubbard, his father-in-law, were the founders of the National Geographic Society.
(MC, 8/2/02)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1922 William Ogburn (1886-1959), American sociologist, offered a theory of social change suggesting that technology is the primary engine of progress, but tempered by social responses to it. He coined the term “cultural lag" to describe the mismatch between the material conditions of life and behavior and attitudes.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_lag)(Econ, 8/22/15, p.36)
1922 The 1st arc-welded structure in the US was a 245-step, freestanding, steel staircase into the Moaning Caverns of Calaveras, Ca.
(SSFC, 12/16/01, p.C5)
1923 Apr 15, American inventor Lee De Forest (1873-1961) premiered 18 short films made in Phonofilm at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. Phonofilm recorded sound directly onto film.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest)
1923 Apr 24, Colonel Jacob Schick patented Schick razors.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1923 Oct 16, John Harwood patented a self-winding watch in Switzerland.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1923 Nov 6, Col. Jacob Schick patented the 1st electric shaver.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1923 Nov 20, Garrett Morgan invented and patented a traffic signal.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1923 Economics Laboratory (later Ecolab) was founded in St. Paul, Minnesota, by Merrit Osborn, a former traveling salesman. Its first product was Absorbit, an instant carpet cleaner. In 2012 its revenues reached $12 billion.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.70)
1924 Nov 30, 1st photo facsimile transmitted across Atlantic by radio from London to NYC.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1924 Otis Elevator Co. installed its first automatic elevator requiring no attendants in a residential apartment building. Automatic elevators in skyscrapers arrived 30 years later.
(WSJ, 11/14/06, p.A18)
1924 Oct, Anton Flettner (1885-1961), German aerospace engineer, demonstrated his Flettner rotor, a rotating cylinder placed on a ship to extract energy from the wind using the Magnus effect.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship) (Econ, 4/9/15, p.80)
1925 AT&T founded Bell Labs as its research and development subsidiary at 463 West Street, New York. By this year the company had achieved a virtual monopoly on local telephone service. Frank B. Jewett was the first president of Bell Labs and continued to 1940. In 2012 Jon Gertner authored “The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation."
(www.flickr.com/photos/businesshistory/907685155/)(Econ, 4/21/12, p.97)
1926 Mar 7, The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York City and London.
(AP, 3/7/98)
1926 Mar 16, The first liquid-fuel rocket was launched by physicist Robert H. Goddard. It went 184' (56 meters).
(HN, 3/16/98)(MC, 3/16/02)
1926 Apr 3, Robert Goddard launched his 2nd flight of a liquid-fueled rocket.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1926 Jul 16, National Geographic took the 1st natural-color undersea photos.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1926 Oct 8, Physicist Julius Lilienfield filed a US patent application titled "Method and Apparatus for Controlling Electric Currents." This proposed the use of semiconductors for switching and amplification purposes. He was awarded US patent 1,745,175 on Jan 28, 1930.
(Econ, 8/20/11, p.72)(www.jmargolin.com/history/1745175.pdf)
1926 Oct 19, John C. Garand patented a semi-automatic rifle.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1926 Dec 7, A gas refrigerator was patented.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1927 Feb 23, President Coolidge signed the Radio Act, a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover established the Federal Radio Commission to prevent interference among radio signals by allocating broadcast spectrum.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A20)(AP, 2/23/98)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.61)
1927 Apr 7, Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a working prototype of a TV. AT&T Bell Labs scientists invented long-distance TV transmission. An audience in New York saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. His first tele-electronic image was transmitted on a glass slide in his SF lab at 202 Green St.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(AP, 4/7/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1927 Sep 7, American television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, 21, succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector. When Philo T. Farnsworth was 13, he envisioned a contraption that would receive an image transmitted from a remote location—the television. Farnsworth submitted a patent in January 1927, when he was 19, and began building and testing his invention that summer. He used an "image dissector" (the first television camera tube) to convert the image into a current, and an "image oscillite" (picture tube) to receive it. On this day his tests bore fruit. When the simple image of a straight line was placed between the image dissector and a carbon arc lamp, it showed up clearly on the receiver in another room. The New York World’s Fair showcased the television in April 1939, and soon afterward, the first televisions went on sale to the public.
(AP, 9/7/97)(HNPD, 9/7/98)
1928 Jan 31, Scotch tape was 1st marketed by 3-M Company.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1928 Feb 8, 1st transatlantic TV image was received at Hartsdale, NY.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Feb 25, Bell Labs introduced a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1928 Apr 8, The 1st Karastan rug, a machine-made product woven through the back, came off the loom in Leaksville, NC.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.10)
1928 Apr 24, The fathometer, used to measure underwater depth, was patented.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1928 May 29, Fritz von Opel reached 200 kph in an experimental rocket car. [see Sep 30, 1929]
(SC, 5/29/02)
1928 Sep 2, SF inventor Philo T. Farnsworth announced two major advances in television technology. He reportedly eliminated all moving parts and shortened the wave band length to keep broadcasts from interfering with each other. His work was funded by local capitalists headed by W.W. Crocker and Roy N. Bishop.
(SSFC, 9/6/15, p.F3)
1928 Dec 19, The 1st autogiro flight was made in the US. It was a predecessor of the helicopter.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1928 Jean-Leon Reutter, a Swiss engineer, developed the Atmos clock, which was powered by changes in the atmosphere. LeCoultre & Cie bought the patent in 1935 and began making the clock a year later. In 1937 the Swiss company became Jaeger-LeCoultre.
(SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)
1929 Mar 2, US Congress created Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1929 Jul 3, Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories made foam rubber.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned rocket plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1929 Stuart Chase authored “Men and Machines," in which he examined how machines were replacing human workers.
(Econ, 11/13/04, Survey p.14)
1929 William Green developed the first automatic pilot used on an airliner.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)(www.spaceday.org/index.php/History-of-Flight-Timeline.html)
1930 Feb 26, Manhattan, NYC, installed the 1st red and green traffic lights.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1930 Mar 27, 1st US radio broadcast from a ship at sea.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1930 Apr 10, The first synthetic rubber was produced.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1930 Apr 29, Telephone connection England-Australia went into service.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1930 May 27, Richard Drew invented masking tape.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1930 Jun 24, The 1st radar detection of planes was made at Anacostia, DC.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1930 Sep 21, Johann Ostermeyer patented the flashbulb.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1930 Dr. Thomas Midgley, Jr. (1889-1944), employed by General Motors, discovered dichlorodifluoromethane, a chlorinated fluorocarbon (CFC), that he named Freon. It proved ideal as a refrigerant and opened the way for smaller and less expensive air conditioning units.
(ON, 8/07, p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley)
1930 Adam Goettl invented the air cooler. The Goettl brothers began their adventure in 1926 in Mansfield, Ohio. Several years later, the brothers Adam, John, and Bill moved out west to Phoenix, Arizona, to seek opportunities during the Great Depression. Hence, the Phoenix-based Goettl Air Conditioning was founded and went on to become an internationally known pioneer in the mass production of evaporative coolers and a variety of other innovations in heating and cooling technology.
(Econ, 1/31/15, p.55)(/www.goettlshdm.com/history.html)
1930 The Germany Stihl company, founded in 1926 by Andreas Stihl, introduced a portable gasoline chain saw.
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C5)
1930-1945 Leo Szilard, scientist on the Manhattan Project, later published selected recollections and correspondence from this period in the book: "Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts."
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1931 Nov 1, Dupont introduced synthetic rubber. [see Nov 3]
(MC, 11/1/01)
1931 Nov 3, The 1st commercially produced synthetic rubber was manufactured. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1931 Nov 20, AT&T began commercial teletype service.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1931 Dec 8, Coaxial cable was patented.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1931 Dec 29, The identification of heavy water was publicly announced by H.C. Urey.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1931 The Bosch Semaphore was introduced. It was an orange arm that drivers could pop out the window to signal turns.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1931 Ernst Ruska, a student at Berlin’s Technical Univ., found that a magnetic coil could focus a beam of electrons in much the same way that a glass lens focuses light. This later led to his use of a pair of magnetic lenses and a detector to produce the first electron microscope. Rheinhold Ruedenberg (1883-1961) patented the principle of electron-microscope imaging for Siemens and Halske.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-ru.htm)(www.timelinescience.org/years/1950.htm) (I&I, Penzias, p.204)
1932 Feb 16, The 1st patent for a tree was issued to James Markham for a peach tree.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1932 Feb 21, Camera exposure meter was patented by WN Goodwin.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1932 Aug 14, Philips made its 1 millionth radio.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1932 Nov 22, A pump was patented that computed quantity and price delivered.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1933 Feb 25, The 1st genuine aircraft carrier was christened: USS Ranger.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1933 Mar 27, Polythene was discovered by Reginald Gibson and Eric William Fawcett.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1933 May 15, 1st voice amplification system was used in US Senate.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1933 The first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was the radio-controlled “Fairey Queen" biplane. It was catapulted into the air and survived 2 hours of live fire from a British warship. In 1934 Britain’s Air Ministry ordered 420 such aircraft, known as the Queen Bee, which gave rise to the word drone to describe such aircraft.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1934 Mar 20, Test of practical radar apparatus was made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Germany.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1934 May 23, Wallace Carothers manufactured the 1st nylon, polymer 66.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1934 The Readphone was produced for putting literature and music on long-playing disks.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1934 Britain’s Flying Scotsman became the first locomotive to be officially clocked at 100 miles (160 km) per hour. It was built in 1923 in the northern town of Doncaster for the London and North Eastern Railway.
(AP, 1/8/16)
1935 Jan 8, AC Hardy patented the spectrophotometer.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1935 Feb 2, A lie detector, invented in 1921, was 1st used in court at Portage, Wisc.
(MC, 2/2/02)(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1935 Feb 26, Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR) was 1st demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1935 Feb 28, Nylon was discovered by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1935 Mar 28, Goddard used gyroscopes to control a rocket.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1935 Apr 1, The first radio tube to be made of metal was announced in Schenectady, NY.
(OTD)
1935 Apr 2, Sir Watson-Watt patented RADAR.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1935 Germany-based BASF discovered how to make recording tape.
(Econ, 9/17/16, p.63)
1936 Jan 2, The 1st electron tube to enable night vision was described in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1936 Feb 4, 1st radioactive substance, radium E, was produced synthetically.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1936 Mar 26, A 200" telescope lens was shipped by the Corning Glass Works from New York to Cal Tech.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1936 May 5, Edward Ravenscroft patented screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1936 Nov 2, The first high-definition public television transmissions began from Alexandra Palace in north London.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1936 Dec 1, Bell Labs tested coaxial cable for TV use.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1936 Dec 1, EW Brundin & FF Lyon obtained patents on the soil-less culture of plants.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1936 H.W. Dudley, a scientist for Bell Labs, invented the "voice coder" or "voder," 1st electronic speech synthesizer.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1936 Germany’s Reichspost launched the world’s first public videophone service. It was developed by Dr. Georg Schubert and opened using square displays of 8 inches (20 cm), but which quickly closed in 1940 due to the WWII.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.91)(http://tinyurl.com/2ceklpr)
1937 Jul 20, Guglielmo Marconi (b.1874), Italian engineer, inventor of wireless telegraphy, marquis (radio, Nobel 1909), died in Rome.
(ON, 11/99, p.10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1937 Dr. Gerhard Fisher patented a metal detector. Alexander Graham Bell had developed a primitive forerunner in 1881 to try to remove an assassin’s bullet from Pres. Garfield.
(ON, 5/02, p.9)
1937 “Bill" Griffith P. Taylor, an Australian-Canadian, built his automatic block setting crane: the "Meccano Robot Gargantua." An article describing the crane was published in the March 1938 issue of Meccano Magazine.
(http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=7929)
1938 Jan 19, GM began mass production of diesel engines.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1938 Feb 17, The first color television was demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London. [see Dec 20]
(HN, 2/17/01)
1938 Feb 26, The 1st passenger ship was equipped with radar.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1938 Oct 22, Chester Carlson and Otto Kornei performed the 1st successful test of their photocopier at Astoria, Queens, NYC. They used powdered ink and an electrical charge to create the first photocopy. The reproduced page said: "10-28-38 Astoria." Carlson tried to sell the machine to IBM, RCA, Kodak and others, but they were not impressed.
(HN, 10/22/00)(ON, 11/04, p.7)
1938 Dec 20, First electronic television system was patented. [see Feb 17]
(HN, 12/20/98)
1938 Apr 6, Roy Plunkett, a DuPont researcher in New Jersey, discovered the polymer, polytetrafluoroethylene, later known as teflon. He patented the substance in 1941.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, Par p.12)(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1938 William Hewlett and David Packard began their Hewlett Packard Co. in a one-car garage at 767 Addison in Palo Alto with $538. As a student at Stanford, Hewlett built a prototype for an audio oscillator. In 1939 it became their first product to be sold. Walt Disney used it in making the film "Fantasia." In 2007 Michael S. Malone authored Bill & Dave."
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.C3)(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.T7)(WSJ, 6/6/07, p.D7)
1939 Jan 22, The uranium atom was 1st split at Columbia University.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1939 Feb 15, SF officials attended IBM’s preview of an electric typewriter and a punch card method of electric accounting at the Palace of Electricity and Communications on Treasure Island.
(SSFC, 2/9/14, DB p.42)
1939 Jul 18, Edwin H. Armstrong (1890-1954), US radio engineer, started the 1st FM (frequency modulation) radio station in Alpine, NJ.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1939 Aug 1, Synthetic vitamin K was produced for the first time.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1939 Nov 1, The 1st animal, a rabbit, conceived by artificial insemination was displayed.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 1, 1st jet plane, a Heinkel He 178, was demonstrated to German Air Ministry.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 4, The 1st air conditioned automobile, the Packard, was exhibited, Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1940 Apr 20, RCA publicly demonstrated its new and powerful electron microscope in Philadelphia, Pa.
(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)(MC, 4/20/02)
1940 May 20, Igor Sikorsky unveiled his helicopter invention.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1940 Jun 4, A synthetic rubber tire was unveiled.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1940 Aug 20, Radar was used for the first time, by the British during the Battle of Britain.
(HN, 8/20/00)
1940 Martin Kamen (d.2002 at 89) discovered carbon-14. Kamen was fired in 1944 from his position at UC Berkeley due to suspicions arising from a dinner with 2 officials from the Russian consulate.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A19)
1940 Neptunium was discovered and named after the planet Neptune.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)
1941 Aug 13, A prototype of the GEE or AMES Type 7000 British radio navigation system was lost on a raid over Hanover, Germany. GEE was devised by Robert Dippy and developed at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Swanage. Dippy later went to the United States where he worked on the development of the LORAN system. Loran, long-range navigation, later fell out of favor with the development of satellite-based navigation systems.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEE_%28navigation%29)(Econ, 3/12/11, TQ p.21)
1942 Four engineers at Standard Oil, including Donald L. Campbell (d.2002 at 98), invented a process called fluid catalytic cracking, which became essential to increasing the yield of high-octane gasoline from crude oil.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A25)
1943 May 22, The 1st jet fighter was tested.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1944 Jan 2, The first Atlantic convoy that used the new antisubmarine helicopter patrol capability sailed from New York to Liverpool, UK, with three HNS-1 helicopters.
(www.gerlecreek.com/coolplaces/pamphlettrial1c.pdf)
1944 The "Prospectus on Nucleonics," also known as the Jeffries Report, from the Chicago Metallurgical Lab addressed the "dilemma of technological progress in a static world order" and warned that "technological advances without moral development are catastrophic."
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1945 Feb 11, The 1st gas turbine propeller-driven airplane was flight tested, at Downey, Ca.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1945 May 25, Arthur C. Clark proposed relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1945 Jun, James Franck, head of a group of scientists in the study of the social and political implications of nuclear weapons, delivered the report to Washington directed to Sec. of War Henry L. Stimson.
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1945 Jul, Vannevar Bush published his report to Pres. Roosevelt: "Science—The Endless Frontier," a vision for government-funded science and engineering. His essay in the Atlantic Monthly described how adding structured code words to microfilm pages in his imaginary “Memex" information retrieval system would help researchers.
(WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A20)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.74)(www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm)
1945 Dec 7, The microwave oven was patented. Percy LeBaron Spencer accidentally discovered that microwaves would also heat food. Spencer, an eighth-grade dropout and electronic wizard, worked for the Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation of Massachusetts developing a radar machine using microwave radiation.
(HN, 9/5/01)(Econ, 10/29/11, p.100)
1946 Jan 10, US Army established the 1st radar contact with Moon from Belmar, NJ.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1946 Feb 16, The 1st commercially designed helicopter was tested at Bridgeport, Ct.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1946 Apr 27, 1st radar installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1946 May 26, A patent was filed in U.S. for H-bomb.
(HN, 5/26/98)
1946 Jun 17, SW Bell inaugurated mobile telephone commercial service in St Louis.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1946 Sep 11, The 1st mobile long-distance car-to-car telephone conversation.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1947 Jan, Chester Carlson, patent attorney and kitchen inventor, signed a licensing agreement with Haloid Corp. of Rochester, NY, to develop a copy machine. This marked the beginning of Xerox’s copy business. 12 years later, the company launched a practical dry copier. Entrepreneur Joe Wilson propelled Xerox to success. In 2006 Charles D. Ellis authored Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox."
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)(ON, 11/04, p.8)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.86)
1947 Feb 21, Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera in NYC. It could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds. Polaroid Corp. was co-founded by Land and George W. Wheelwright III (d.2001 at 97).
(AP, 2/21/98)(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A22)(MC, 2/21/02)
1947 Apr 16, A lens that provided zoom effects was demonstrated in New York City.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1947 May 1, Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1947 May 22, The 1st US ballistic missile was fired.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1947 Sep 15, The 1st 4 engine, jet propelled fighter plane was tested at Columbus, Ohio.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1947 Oct 3, The 1st telescope lens 200" (508 cm) in diameter completed.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1947 Dec 23, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, unveiled what was soon to be called the transistor, short for the electrical property known as trans-resistance, which paved the way to a new era of miniaturized electronics. The device was improved by William Schockley as a junction transistor. All 3 received a Nobel Prize in 1956. The events are described in the 1997 book by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson: "Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age."
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(AP, 12/23/97)
1947 Bell Labs invented cellular phone technology.
(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)
1947 Raytheon introduced its 1st microwave oven, the Radarange.
(AH, 10/01, p.36)
c1947 Lawrence MacKenzie (d.2002), doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, was one of 3 men who discovered astatine, element 85, the 1st element to be synthetically manufactured. It was formed by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. He also helped build the 1st cyclotron.
(SFC, 7/22/02, p.B5)
1948 Jan 27, The 1st tape recorder sold.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1948 Apr 21, The 1st Polaroid camera was sold in US.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1948 Jun 19, The first successfully produced microgroove 33 1/3 rpm, long-playing, records were unveiled by Dr. Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records. Plans to phase out 78's followed. Unlike the average record which held 8 minutes of music, this new record could hold 45 minutes.
(Hartford Courant, 6/21/48, p.7)
1948 Jun 30, Bell Labs introduced the point-contact transistor in the New York Times on p.46 as a replacement for the vacuum tube. Bell Labs had kept it secret for six months. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated their invention, the transistor, for the first time. John Pierce (d.2002) proposed the name. Transistors, much smaller than vacuum tubes, allowed the creation of smaller electronic devices and became a key component of the integrated circuit, which are found in everything from radios to computers to any of a number of automated systems. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for the invention in 1956. William Schockley, co-developer of the transistor, founded Schockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Palo Alto. Two of his hires, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, later went on to start Intel Corp. Tim Jackson in 1998 published "Inside Intel." [see Dec 23, 1947]
(SFE, 10/1/95, p.D-5)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/13/98, p.A13)(HNQ, 12/23/99)(HN, 6/30/01)(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A18)
1948 Nov 23, Dr. Frank G. Back in NYC patented a lens to provide zoom effects.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1948 Albert Baez (1912-2007), Mexican-American physicist, and Paul Kirkpatrick co-invented the X-ray reflection microscope for the study of living cells.
(SSFC, 3/25/07, p.B3)
1948 Richard Bolt and Leo Beranek, professors at MIT, established a small acoustics consulting firm and soon added a former student of Bolt’s, Robert Newman. In 1949 BBN won its first major consulting contract, designing the acoustics for the UN General Assembly Hall. In 2008 Leo Beranek authored “Riding the Waves: A Life in Sound, Science and Industry."
(www.bbn.com/about/timeline/)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A13)
1948 George de Mestral (1907-1990), a Swiss inventor, began studying the burdock plant because of the plant’s ability to attach its seed to his clothes and dog’s fur. His analysis of the hook and loop system of plant led to the development of velcro, patented in 1955.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.18)(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091297.htm)
1949 Jan 10, RCA introduced the 45 RPM record.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1949 Feb 1, The 200" (5.08-m) Hale telescope was 1st used.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1949 Jun 16, A gas turbine, electric locomotive was demonstrated in Erie, Pa.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1949-1951 The Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown under the Atomic Energy Commission was the home of the only nuclear assembly plant in the US. Worker health was not monitored. Nuclear operations were moved to Texas in the 1970s.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A3)
1950 Sep 11, The 1st typesetting machine to dispense with metal type was exhibited.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1950 Mar 17, Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, which they named "californium."
(AP, 3/17/97)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr. John Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1951 Feb 1, The 1st X-ray moving picture process demonstrated.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1951 Apr 22, There was a ticker-tape parade for General MacArthur in NYC.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1951 Jul 5, Dr. William Shockley invented junction transistor at Murray Hill, NJ.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1951 Aug 18, The 1st transcontinental wireless phone call was made from SF to NYC by Mark Sullivan, president of PT&T, and H.T. Killingworth of AT&T.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.WB6)
1951 Dec 31, The 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical was announced.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1951 Dr. Charles Townes, head of Columbia Univ. Radiation laboratory, came up with a process for focusing packets of light energy, an idea 1st postulated by Einstein in 1917. This led to the 1953 development of the maser, microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, a forerunner to the laser. 2 Soviet scientists managed a maser with continuous output.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.25)
1952 Oct 3, The 1st video recording on magnetic tape was made in LA, Ca.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1952 Oct 7, The first patent for a bar code type product (US Patent #2,612,994) was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm)
1952 Oct 31, The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. [see Nov 1]
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(HN, 10/31/98)
1952 Nov 1, The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, in a test at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. The element einsteinium was discovered in the debris of the 1st hydrogen bomb test. [see Oct 31]
(AP, 11/1/97)(NH, 7/02, p.35)
1952 Dec 11, Stanford scientist demonstrated the new $1,750,000 linear electron accelerator. Its 200-foot barrel fired electrons at 99.99% the speed of light.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.E16)
1952 Researchers at Bell labs developed the 1st system to recognize numbers spoken over a telephone.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.30)
1953 Oct 13, A burglar alarm using ultrasonic or radio waves was patented by Samuel Bagno.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1953 WD-40 was created by three technicians at the San Diego Rocket Chemical Company. The company sold the product to coat missiles and prevent rust. Consumers later discovered its use as a lubricant. In 1969 John Barry (1925-2000) became head of the company and soon renamed the firm after the product.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.8)(SFC, 7/22/09, p.D5)
1953 Dr. Daniel Fox, a chemist at GE, invented Lexan polycarbonate resin, a hard plastic.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.B2)
1954 Jan 31, Edwin H. Armstrong (b.1890), US radio inventor of frequency modulation (1933), committed suicide.
(www.britannica.com)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1954 Feb 26, 1st typesetting machine (photo engraving) used at Quincy, MA.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Apr 18, The US held a nationwide test of its disaster radio system known as Conelrad. In SF a simulated 10-megaton bomb, exploding over Hunters Point, was estimated to kill 500,000 Bay Area citizens.
(SSFC, 4/12/09, DB p.43)
1954 Apr 25, Bell Labs in NYC announced the 1st solar battery.
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.E1)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL (Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Marc Gregoire, a French engineer, bonded aluminum with polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) and created the 1st nonstick pan.
(AARP, 5-6/04)
1955 Jan 31, RCA demonstrated the 1st music synthesizer.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1955 Mar 24, The 1st seagoing oil drill rig was placed in service.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1955 Jul 18, 1st electric power generated from atomic energy was sold commercially.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1955 Oct 25, Tappan sold its 1st home microwave oven for $1,295. It was in 1947 that the first commercial microwave oven hit the market. Amana introduced the Radarange, the first countertop, domestic oven in 1957. It was a 100-volt microwave oven, which cost just under $500 and was smaller, safer and more reliable than previous models.
(http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html)
1955 Dec 12, 1st prototype of hovercraft patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1955 Frederick Sanger sequenced the 1st protein, human insulin. He later developed methods for sequencing DNA.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1956 Apr 14, Ampex Corporation demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder.
(AP, 4/14/00)
1956 George Devol and Joseph Engelberger met and formed a partnership to develop robots.
(Hem., 2/96, p.91)
1957 Jan 3, The Hamilton Watch Company was the first to introduce an electric watch in Lancaster, Pa.
(http://rondeau.net/history.html)
1957 Feb 12, Researchers announced the development of Borazan, a substance harder than diamonds.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1957 Apr 25, The 1st experimental sodium nuclear reactor operated.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1957 Apr 29, The 1st military nuclear power plant was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Va.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1957 Nov, Gordon Gould (d.2005), a Columbia Univ. doctoral student under Dr. Townes, came up with a process for concentrating visible light as opposed to microwaves of a maser. He was the 1st to use the term laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1957 Hoover produced its best selling model, the Convertible (Model 65), an upright vacuum cleaner that could be converted with a hose for above the floor cleaning.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.F2)
1957 PG&E teamed with General Electric to establish the Vallecitos atomic energy plant, the world’s 1st privately owned and operated nuclear facility.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A5)
1958 Jan 24, After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms were bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1958 Mar 27, CBS Labs announced new stereophonic records.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1958 Jul 24, Jack Kilby (1923-2005) of Texas Instruments came up with the idea for creating the 1st integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. By September 12 he made a working prototype.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A5)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
1958 The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was formed in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik.
(SFC, 5/26/03, p.B1)
1958 An anti-trust court case forced AT&T to license its non-telephone related technology to anyone who asked.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.38)
1958 Haloid Corp. changed its name to Haloid-Xerox and produced a prototype of the 914 copy machine.
(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1958 The first incarnation of Super Glue, called Eastman 910, hit the market. Harry Wesley Coover Jr. (1917-2011) first happened upon the super-sticky adhesive, more formally known as cyanoacrylates, by accident when he was experimenting with acrylates for use in clear plastic gun-sights during World War II. An experimental accident in 1951 brought it back to his attention. Kodak was not able to capitalize commercially on Dr. Coover’s discovery and sold the business to National Starch in 1980.
(www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/business/28coover.html?_r=1)(SFC, 3/28/11, p.A4)
1958 Arnold Neustadter began marketing Rolodex, a rotary card filing system, invented by his employee Hildaur L. Neilsen. Neustadter had patented the system in 1956.
(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W7)
1958 Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes developed their laser, light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, while working at Bell labs. They received a patent in 1960.
(www1.bell-labs.com/history/laser/)(www.ipmall.info/about/user11.asp)
1958 The Goldstar electronics firm was founded in South Korea. It later became known as LG Electronics.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.70)
1959 Feb 1, Texas Instruments requested a patent for the IC (Integrated Circuit).
(MC, 2/1/02)
1959 Robert Noyce (1927-1990) of Fairchild Semiconductor constructed an integrated circuit. Both Texas Instruments and Fairchild claimed independent discovery of the IC. Noyce went on to found Intel Corp. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments had made a working prototype in 1958.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.B3)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)
1959 Pres. Eisenhower demonstrated the invention by Jerome Morse (d.2001 at 80) of the 1st miniaturized, portable nuclear power generator, used for space vehicles.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A25)
1959 Edward G. Zubler (d.2004), GE research chemist, developed the halogen lamp.
(SFC, 3/24/04, p.B7)
1959 Devol and Engelberger [see 1956] created Unimate, the world’s first industrial robot.
(Hem., 2/96, p.93)
1960 Jan 23, The Bathyscaphe "Trieste" reached bottom of Pacific at 10,900 m. Jacques Piccard (1922-2008) and US Navy Lt. Don Walsh descended for 20 minutes in the Trieste into the Mariana Trench, a 1,500 mile gash in the Earth’s crust east of the Philippines with a depth of 37,000 feet below sea level, nearly 7 miles.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A11)(SFEC, 11/17/96, BR p.4)(AP, 11/1/08)
1960 Mar 22, The 1st patent for lasers was granted to Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes. Schawlow and Townes developed their laser, light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, while working at Bell labs in 1958.
(www1.bell-labs.com/history/laser/)(www.ipmall.info/about/user11.asp)
1960 Mar, The Xerox model 914 plain-paper copier made its debut. It was invented by Chester Carlson and had been nursed along by Batelle research institute of Ohio and Haloid, a NY manufacturer of photographic paper. In 1961 Haloid became Xerox.
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.W8)(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1960 Apr 14, The 1st underwater launching of Polaris missile.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1960 Apr 27, The 1st atomic powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1960 Jun 27, Chlorophyll "A" was synthesized at Cambridge, Mass.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1960 Jul 20, The submarine George Washington became the 1st submerged sub to fire a Polaris missile.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1960 Aug 13, The first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1, a balloon satellite.
(HN 8/13/97)
1960 Sep 27, Europe's 1st "moving pavement," (travelator), opened at Bank station.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1960 George Kozmetsky (d.2003 at 85) and Henry Singleton of Litton Industries formed Teledyne Corp. Kozmetsky and his wife Ronya formed the RGK Foundation in 1966.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
1960 Theodore Maiman, a physicist at the Hughes Research Labs in California, produced the 1st working laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1960 Stanford R. Ovshinsky and his wife Iris founded Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In the 1980s the company introduced a nickel-metal hydride battery (NiMH) for consumer use and made it available for automobiles in the early 1990s. The technology made hybrid vehicles possible. By 2006 sales for the solar division, United Solar Ovonic, reached $90 Million.
(WSJ, 10/13/04, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/27/06, p.A1)(Econ, 12/2/06, TQ p.33)
1960-1970 Genrich S. Altshuller (b.1926), Soviet engineer, developed his Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, or TRIZ.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
1961 Apr 25, Robert Noyce patented the integrated circuit.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1961 Jun 1, FM multiplex stereo broadcasting was 1st heard. (MC, 6/1/02)
1961 Jun 30, Lee de Forest (87), inventor of the 3-element vacuum tube (1906), died.
(SSFC, 6/26/11, DB p.42)
1961 Robert Rempel (1925-2005) co-founded Spectra-Physics, which became the 1st company to make lasers.
(SFC, 6/6/05, p.B3)
1962 Mar 28, The U.S. Air Force announced research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1962 Jun 22, The Hovercraft was 1st tested.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1962 Jul 10, The communications satellite Telstar, developed by Bell Labs, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, beaming live television from Europe to the United States.
(AP, 7/10/97)(HN, 7/10/98)(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)
1962 Ground was broken for the new Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca. Atom smashing began in 1966. [see Dec 11, 1952]
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)
1962 Corning Inc. invented an ultra-strong glass. In 1964 it developed a method called “fusion draw" to manufacture what it called “Gorilla glass." It only found strong commercial use with the development of LCDs for laptop computers and TVs.
(SFC, 8/2/10, p.D3)
1962 Nick Holonyak Jr., an engineer for General Electric, built the first light-emitting diode (LED). GE patented the discovery.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.B6)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.26)
1963 Feb 9, 1st flight of Boeing 727 jet.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1963 Jun 24, 1st demonstration of home video recorder was at the BBC Studios in London.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1963 Nov 16, Touch-tone telephone was introduced.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1963 Profs. Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks, engineers at the Univ. of Michigan, created the 1st working hologram. Pieter van Heerden of Polaroid Research Labs pioneered the holographic principle.
(MT, Summer/04, p.8)(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.28)
1963 Ray Dolby, while working in India, conceived of separating recorded sound into 2 channels as a means to strip away unwanted tape recording noise. His 1st prototype was completed in London in 1966.
(SFC, 3/29/04, p.D1)
1964 May 12, The reverse osmosis process for turning seawater and waste-water into potable stuff was patented in San Diego.
(Econ, 3/31/12, p.42)(www.google.com/patents/US4062782)
1964 May 21, The 1st nuclear-powered lighthouse began operations in the Chesapeake Bay.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1964 Jul 31, The American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted pictures of the moon's surface.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1964 Oct 1, Japan’s Bullet Train began operation between Tokyo and Osaka.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D_Shinkansen)(SFEC, 10/1/00, p.T5)
1964 Oct 14, Philips began experimenting with color TV.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1964 The US navy began its SeaLab experiments. SeaLab I was lowered off the coast of Bermuda to see if divers could be sustained on a helium-oxygen mix. The trial ended after 11 days. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1964 Robert Weitbrecht, a deaf person, invented the teletypewriter (TTY). It enabled deaf people to call each other and type conversations.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, Par p.4)
1964 General Electric began marketing a new hard plastic called Noryl.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.B2)
1964-1968 In India’s "green revolution" the wheat crop increased from 10 million to 17 million tons following the use of dwarfing genes and fertilizer to increase the grains on each stalk. Chidambaram Subramaniam, minister of agriculture, convinced Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to use new seeds, developed by Norman Borlaug in Mexico, for wheat production.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A26)
1965 Apr 27, RC Duncan patented "Pampers," a disposable diaper.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1965 C.P. Snow authored "The Two Cultures," on the chasm between the arts and sciences.
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)
1965 The US navy lowered SeaLab II was lowered off the coast of San Diego to see if divers could be sustained on a helium-oxygen mix. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1965 Kevlar was invented by Stephanie Kwolek, a chemist for DuPont, while experimenting with polymers for new ways to reinforce car tires. In 1970 Herbert Blades of DuPont developed a process for mass production. Marketing began in 1971. Soon after that Lester Shubin (1925-2001), a US Justice Dept. researcher, began developing Kevlar, into body armor for police and soldiers.
(SFC, 4/7/03, p.E2)(SFC, 11/28/09, p.C4)
1966 May 21, The new $114 million Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca., began smashing atoms.
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)(SFC, 9/26/07, p.B7)
1966 The bar code, a method of automatic identification and data collection, was first used commercially. It was soon realized that there would have to be some sort of industry standard set. By 1970 the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code or UGPIC was written by a company called Logicon Inc.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm)
1966 Hewlett-Packard introduced its first computer, the HP 2116A. The 9,000 person company had sales of around $200 million.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1966 Hewlett-Packard developed the first commercially available light-emitting diode (LED).
(SFC, 8/31/09, p.D1)
1966 Texas Instruments introduced its 1st hand-held calculator based on the integrated circuit developed by Jack Kilby in 1958.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
1966 John Linville (1919-2011), a Stanford engineering professor, patented his first version of the Optacon, a device to help blind people read. In 1970 he co-founded Telesensory Systems Inc., to manufacture and distribute the device worldwide.
(SFC, 3/12/11, p.C4)
1967 Jul 19, The 1st air conditioned NYC subway car was R-38 on the F line.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF the computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui), display editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and 2-way video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry Bardini authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing."
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC, 12/8/08, p.A1)
1968 James Watson, Nobel Prize winner, published "The Double Helix."
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the world’s 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) used for displays and traffic lights.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1968 Chester Carlson (62), inventor of the photocopy machine (1960), died. In 2004 David Owen authored “Copies In seconds."
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A8)
1969 Feb 9, World's largest airplane, Boeing 747, made its 1st commercial flight.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1969 Sep 2, The first Internet message was a packet switch delivered to UCLA from BBN Corp. (Bolt Beranek and Newman). The 1st 2 machines of ARPANET were connected at Prof. Len Kleinrock's lab at UCLA. The US Dept. of Defense’s Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a self-healing computer network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). By the early 1980’s the military component became a separate network and the true birth of today’s Internet is marked. By 2007 some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap the Internet and start over.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_hi_te/rebuilding_the_internet_8)(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.3)(SFC, 8/30/99, p.C10)(SFC, 9/3/99, p.C1)
1969 Oct 29, Researchers sent the first inter-node message between two sites on ARPAnet. The first e-mail message crossed the Arpanet as a team under Professor Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA communicated with a team under Douglas Englebart at Stanford. The US Dept. of Defense’s Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a self-healing computer network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) [see Sep 2].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET)(http://tinyurl.com/lpq766)(WSJ, 1/14/99, p.A1)
1969 The US navy lowered SeaLab III was lowered off San Clemente Island to see if divers could exit a submarine and walk on the sea floor. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1969 J. Robert Beyster (1924-2014), a physicist in southern California, founded Science Applications Inc. He retired in 2004 as the company numbered some 43,000 employees and annual revenue of over $6 billion. In 2007 he authored “The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company." In 2013 Science Applications Int’l. Corp. (SAIC) split in two.
(SFC, 12/24/14, p.E2)
1970 Jan 12, The Boeing 747 made its maiden voyage.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100 made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat 400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B5)(MC, 1/21/02)
1970 The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) of Xerox opened on the outskirts of Palo Alto. George Pake (1924-2004) ran the center until 1978. It was founded by Dr. Jacob Goldman (1921-2011).
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)(SFC, 3/11/04, p.C5)(SFC, 12/28/11, p.C5)
1970-1979 CAT Scan (Computer Assisted Tomography) technology was developed.
(MT, 10/94, p.9)
1971 Jan, Intel Corp. created the first microprocessor. The 4004, the world's first microprocessor, is signed with the initials F.F., for Federico Faggin, its designer. The 4004 was released in 16-pin CERDIP packaging on November 15, 1971.
(www.intel4004.com/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004)
1971 Jul 31, Apollo 15 astronauts took a drive on the moon in their land rover.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1971 The 1st laser printer was made at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, Ca.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1971 AT&T Bell Labs conducted its first cellular phone test in Chicago.
(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1972 Feb 1, Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, for $395.
(www.hp-collection.org/calculators/35a.html)(SFC, 8/31/09, p.D1)
1972 Apr 4, The 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage began operating.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1972 Hewlett-Packard introduced the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the slide-rule obsolete.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/index.html)
1972 The compact disc (CD) was introduced.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1973 Apr 3, In NYC Martin Cooper, a general manager for Motorola, called rival AT&T making the first cell phone call using a cell phone the size of a brick.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.C1)
1973 May 22, Robert Metcalf (b.1946), at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), circulated a memo about his Ethernet ideas to PARC colleagues. He later fixed this day as the birthdate of Ethernet. Metcalf had combined packet switching from the Arpanet and single wire broadcasting to lay the foundations for computer networks. Bob Metcalf described ethernet for the 1st time in a patent memo.
(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.23)(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A16)
1973 Aug 23, The Intelsat communications satellite was launched.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1973 The U.P.C. or Uniform Product Code, an update of the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code (UGPIC, bar code) was invented by George J. Laurer.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm)
1974 Jun 26, At the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, Sharon Buchanon became the 1st cashier to scan a Universal Product Code (UPC) code. The 59 black and white bar code was used on a 67 cent 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The scanner was a Spectra-Physics Model A. Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver (d.1962) had patented the 1st bar code scanner in 1952. In 1977 an int’l. version was created.
(SFC, 7/5/04, p.E3)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.B5)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.C3)
1974 Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf published a paper that outlined the protocols of the Internet. Their Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was updated in 1978. In 2004 they received the A.M. Turing Award for their work.
(SFC, 6/11/05, p.C1)
1975 By the end of the Vietnam war, Vietnamese SA-2 missile effectiveness had been reduced to a kill-ratio of less than 2 percent. Elint: Electronic Intelligence collected information on and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of all forms of hostile electronic transmissions. Focusing on the "Fan Song" radar system that acquired targets for and then guided the dreaded SA-2 SAM, Elint was able to identify four key weakness that pilots could use to defeat the missile.
(HNQ, 11/23/01)
1976 Jan, In SF Robert Swanson (28), a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, first met with Herb Boyer, a molecular biologist and co-discoverer of recombinant DNA. The 10 minute appointment extended to a few hours and the 2 men proceeded to found Genentech.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 12/14/99, p.A22)
1976 Apr 7, Robert A. Swanson (d.1999 at 52), a venture capitalist, and Herb Boyer, a UCSF molecular biologist and co-discoverer of gene-splicing in 1973, incorporated Genentech Inc. They planned to use gene splicing to create a genre of medicines.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.B1)
1976 The U. S. Copyright Act of 1976 declared unpublished materials to be in the public domain when the records are 100 years old or when the creator of the records has been dead for fifty years, whichever date comes first. The act also declared that records created before January 1, 1978 enter the public domain in 2002, provided that they are over 100 years old or the creator of the records has been dead 50 years.
(SAA, 4/19/99)
1976 H. Taylor Howard (d.2002 at 70) built a homemade satellite dish to capture TV signals. HBO refused to accept payment for his interceptions. He went on to found Chaparral Communications Inc. in San Jose.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A23)
1976 Positron Emission Tomography (PET), a body scanning technology, first came on the market. Dr. Michel Ter-Pogossian of St. Louis led a group that built the first successful prototypes between 1972-1974. In 1998 PET technology was combined with computed tomography (CT scans). PET/CT scanners hit the market in 2001.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.23)
1976 The first compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) hit the market.
(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
1977 Feb 26, The 1st flight of Space Shuttle atop a Boeing 747 took place.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1977 AT&T installed the 1st fiber optic cable.
(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.A12)
1978 Feb 14, G. W. Boone and M.J. Cochran of Texas Instruments received a patent for their Variable Function Programmed Calculator.
(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)
1978 Feb 16, The 1st Computer Bulletin Board System was Ward & Randy's CBBS in Chicago.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1978 May, The Bahrain Telephone Company began operating a commercial cellular telephone system. It probably marks the first time in the world that individuals started using what we think of as traditional, mobile cellular radio.
(http://tinyurl.com/36e848)
1978 Jun 11, Texas Instruments announced the first single-chip speech synthesizer.
(www.datamath.org/Speech_IC.htm)
1978 Jul, Advanced Mobile Phone Service started operating in North America. AMPS was operational in the Chicago, Illinois, area.
(http://tinyurl.com/36e848)
1978 A paper by Leonard Adleman, Ron Rivest, and Adi Shamir was published titled A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. It is widely known today by the group's initials RSA.
(Wired, 8/95, p.117)
1978 AT&T scientists conducted FCC-authorized cell-phone field trials in Chicago and Newark, NJ.
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/mobilephone.htm)
1978 Hewlett-Packard began development of the inkjet printer, which eventually became a commercials success.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1979 Jun, Robert Metcalf of Xerox Corp. started 3Com Corp., consulting company, and soon began producing Ethernet hardware. The company specialized in connecting computers using the Ethernet system, which he helped develop. The early Ethernet adapters sold for $5000. In 1994 they sold for $100.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.24)
1978 Intel Corp. introduced the 8086 microprocessor. It was a 16-bit microprocessor with 29,000 transistors.
(TAR, 1996, p.22)
1980 Apr 6, 3-M introduced Post-It Notes. In 2010 inventors, 3M scientists Arthur Fry and Spencer Silver, were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
(http://bookworm.typepad.com/blog/favorite_things/index.html)(AFP, 4/25/10)
1980 Luz International was founded in Israel. It became the first company to implement solar thermal technology on a commercial scale. Luz began building solar-thermal power stations in California’s Mojave desert in the mid 1980s.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.23)
1981 Jul 7, The 1st solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel flying 163 miles from Paris to Canterbury. It was created by Dupont and Paul MacCready.
(www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-054-DFRC.html)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
1981 Bill Rutter founded Chiron Corp., a biotech operation in Emeryville, Ca.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.B1)
1981 Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer and Christoph Gerber of IBM developed the scanning-tunneling microscope. It laid the groundwork for nanotechnology.
(Econ, 9/18/04, TQ p.17)
1982 Sep, 3Com under Robert Metcalf started shipping EtherLink adaptor cards for IBM’s new personal computer.
(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.24)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings, introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Apr 22, Walter Slezak (80), actor (Bedtime For Bonzo), committed suicide in NY.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1983 Apr 3, Martin Cooper, Motorola project manager, demonstrated the 1st mobile phone, the DynaTAC 8000x. It was designed by Rudy Krolopp. The 2½ pound cell phone was soon made available for $3,995.
(SFC, 4/12/00, p.D3)(SFC, 4/3/03, p.B1)(NW, 3/17/03, p.14)(SFC, 8/17/11, p.D1)
1983 Pres. Ronald Reagan made America’s military satellite navigation system, GPS, available to the world. President Ronald Reagan declassified the GPS system in response to a tragedy involving a civilian airplane. Korean Airline flight 007 got lost over Soviet territory and was shot down by Soviet fighters.
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.73)(www.maps-gps-info.com/gps-history.html)
1983 Louis Brus (b.1943) of Bell Labs published work that led to the development of new lighting based on quantum dots. He discovered the colloidal semi-conductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots.
(Econ, 3/6/10, TQ p.18)(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547879/)
1983 The General Conference on Weights and Measures defined the speed of light in a vacuum at 299,792,458 meters per second. This set the value of the meter as the path traveled by light in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
(NH, 2/05, p.24)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.79)
1983 Chuck Hull (b.1939) first came up with the for stereolithography when he was using UV light to harden tabletop coatings. His patent for “Three-Dimensional Objects by Stereolithography" was issued on March 11, 1986. Hull then co-founded 3D Systems to commercialize the procedure.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hull)(Econ, 4/21/12, SR p.14)
1984 Jan 17, The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Sony and ruled, 5 to 4, that the private use of home video cassette recorders to tape television programs did not violate federal copyright laws.
(AP, 1/17/02)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1984 Nov 26, The San Francisco Chronicle first reported on cellular phone technology. Cellular phone service came to the SF Bay Area in 1985 with phones costing between $1900 and $4100 for installation in a car with a $39 per month base price.
(SFC, 9/8/18, p.C1)
1984 Jan 24, Apple Computer Inc unveiled its Macintosh personal computer. It included sound-sampling technology that could play recorded sounds.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)(MC, 1/24/02)
1984 Jul 21, In Jackson, Michigan, a male die-cast operator (34) was pinned by a hydraulic Unimate robot. He died after 5 days. This was the 1st documented case of a robot killing a human in US.
(www.cdc.gov/niosh/FACE/In-house/full8420.html)
1984 The TED conference was founded. TED sprung from an observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between technology, entertainment and design. The Sapling Foundation (b.1996) bought the conference in 2001.
(SSFC, 2/07/04, p.E5)
1984 Mike Lazaridis, while a student at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, co-founded Research In Motion (RIM) with Douglas Fregin. In 1997 Lazaridis came up with the idea for a small thumb-using keyboard and RIM went on to produce the hand-held Blackberry e-mail device.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
1984 Hewlett-Packard introduced a printer using its ground-breaking thermal inkjet printing technology.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1984 Motorola introduced a brick-sized cell phone for $4,000. [see Apr 3, 1983]
(WSJ, 10/30/03, p.A1)
1985 Mar 23, Joshua Silver, Oxford physicist, began contemplating the development of self adjusting eyeglasses. By 2009 some 30,000 of Silver's specs had been distributed to the poor in 15 countries; his eventual target is 100 million pairs.
(SSFC, 1/11/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/96buv9)
1985 Michael S. Malone authored “The Big Score: The Billion-Dollar Story of Silicon Valley." The PBS documentary “Silicon Valley Boomtown" was based his book.
(http://malone-grove.com/html/malone.htm)
1985 The FCC decided to open several bands of wireless spectrum for communications use without a government license. Bands at 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz were made available.
(Econ, 6/12/04, Tech p.26)
1986 South Carolina-based 3D Systems introduced the first commercially available 3-D printer, pioneering the development of stereolithography.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.28)
1985 Tom Zimmerman, Chuck Blanchard, Young Harvill and Steve Bryson joined Jaron Lanier at his recently formed company VPL Research, and pioneered virtual reality. The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1990 and all its patents were sold to Sun Microsystems.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.26)
1986 Oct 4, In the Netherlands Queen Beatrix officially opened the Oosterscheldekering for use by saying the well-known words: De stormvloedkering is gesloten. De Deltawerken zijn voltooid. Zeeland is veilig. (The flood barrier is closed. The Delta Works are completed. Zealand is safe.) It was the world's largest movable flood barrier.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering)
1986 Honda began a robot program at a fundamental research center outside Tokyo.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A1)
1986 Danny Hillis (b.1956), an American inventor, entrepreneur and author, began thinking and working on a 10,000 Year Clock. After some years Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com provided assistance and the clock began taking shape inside a mountain in West Texas. The first prototype of the clock began working on December 31, 1999.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now)
1986 Chuck Hull co-founded 3D Systems to commercialize “stereolithography," a word he coined to describe a system he patented for making three-dimensional objects.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography)(Econ, 4/21/12, SR p.14)
1987 May 30, North American Philips Company unveiled compact disc video.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1987 GSM, a 2nd generation wireless technology, was mandated as a Europe-wide standard.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.66)
1987 Morris Chang founded the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). His was the first pure foundry making chips for designers with no factories.
(Econ, 7/27/13, p.54)
1988 Jan 23, Experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager, completed the 1st nonstop, round-the-world flight without refueling.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1988 Apr 12, The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form.
(AP, 5/9/98)
1988 Dean Kamen, inventor, bought North Dumpling Island, 3 acres off the Connecticut coast. His inventions included the 1st portable insulin pump.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.B3)(http://tinyurl.com/2pntdd)
1989 Mar 23, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, Univ. of Utah scientists, claimed they had produced atomic fusion at room temperature.
(SS, 3/23/02)(WSJ, 9/5/03, p.B1)
1989 Garmin Ltd., an American multinational technology company formerly known as ProNav, was founded by Gary Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas, United States, with headquarters in Olathe, Kansas, to extend the Global Positioning System (GPS) beyond military use. In 2010 the company was incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin)(Econ, 12/1/12, TQ p.9)
1989 Dean Kamen, inventor, started a robotics competition for high-schoolers, for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST).
(NW, 4/24/03, p.44)(Econ, 6/12/10, TQ p.25)
1989 The nickel-metal-hydride battery appeared on the market.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1989 In Israel Dov Moran founded M-Systems, the original maker of USB flash drives (1999). He sold the business to SanDisk in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
(www.twst.com/notes/articles/lzt068.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Systems)
1990 The Human Genome Project began and planned to sequence all human DNA by 2005. The database did not just store sequences, but linked them with citations to enable new discoveries. James Watson served as its 1st head. His opposition to gene patents helped force him from the position in 1992.
(Wired, 8/96, p.198)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.10)
1991 Nov 6, Keck II became the biggest telescope in use at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1991 Cisco Systems, a network equipment company, sold for as low as $.06 per share. In 2001 a history of Cisco Systems, "Cisco Unauthorized: Inside the High Stakes Race to own the Future" by Jeffrey S. Young, was published.
(WSJ, 3/7/00, p.A20)
1991 Sony introduced the first commercial lithium-ion batteries in its CCD-TR1 camcorder. They had a capacity to overheat. In 2004 the US banned them as cargo on passenger planes. In 2006 Dell and Apple initiated recalls for laptop computers with recently manufactured, problematic lithium-ion batteries.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.52)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 8/12/17, p.16)
1991 Carbon nanotubules, formed from hexagonal arrays of carbon atoms, were first discovered by Sumio Iijima of NEC Fundamental Research Labs in Tsukuba, Japan. In 2001 IBM scientists assembled transistors using carbon nanotubules.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.B1,4)
1992 Jul 31, The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a problem-plagued scientific mission.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1992 The Audio Home Recording Act restricted the use of digital-recording tools and required makers of blank tapes an other copying devices to contribute to a royalty pool for musicians.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1993 Mar 22, Intel introduced its Pentium processor (80586): 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm#pentium)
1993 In Japan Shuji Nakamura, an employee of Nichia Corp., invented the blue light-emitting diode (LED). In 2001 Nakamura sued Nichia in a patent dispute that later settled for $7 million.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.27)
1995 Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen, researchers at Harvard Business School, invented the new term “disruptive technology" (disruptive innovation) to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_Technology)
1995 The US Predator surveillance drone was 1st used over Bosnia. In 2001 it was equipped with the hell-fire missile and used over Afghanistan. This unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew as slowly as a Cessna.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A12)(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.22)
1995 The US military Global Positioning System (GPS) became fully operational with 27 orbiting satellites and dual civilian use. It was conceived in the 1960s.
(WSJ, 3/24/03, p.B1)
1995 Marvell Techonolgy Group was founded In Santa Clara, Ca., by Weili Dai and brother Sehat and Pantas Sutardja, Indonesian-Chinese immigrants who had studied together at UC Berkeley. In 2009 the Sutardja Dai Hall, a 7-story science building, opened in their honor.
(SFC, 2/28/09, p.B3)
1995 A team including Ajay Bhatt worked on the Universal Serial Bus standard at Intel. The first integrated circuits supporting USB were produced by Intel in 1995.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.65)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus)
1995 VocalTec, an Israeli company, was the first company to release commercial PC-to-PC calling software, which it called Internet Phone. However, many competitors soon followed. In 2010 VocalTec merged with YMax Corp, maker of magicJack, an Internet phone gadget.
(AP, 8/14/10)
1996 Mar 1, New toll-free 888 area code was introduced.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Mar 1, Plans were approved allowing traffic cameras at High Harrington and Shap, England.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Aug 8, Frank A. Whittle (89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1996 Spanish chemist Pilar Mateo patented a microencapsulation technique that embedded pesticides into house paints.
(SSFC, 5/20/12, p.F3)
1997 Nov 20, It was reported that Lucent Tech.’s Bell Labs has developed a new tiny transistor that is 5 times faster and 1/4th the size of commercially available transistors.
(WSJ, 11/20/97, p.B4)
1997 Dec 11, From Austria scientists reported in Nature that they had demonstrated a form of tele-transportation. They teleported the physical condition of a photon using a phenomenon called entanglement.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A4)
1997 Anita Borg, computer scientist, founded the Institute for Women and Technology.
(SFC, 2/18/14, p.A6)
1997 Gary Hudson (47) bet everything he had on the Roton rocket, a reusable rocket tipped with rotor blades and some 100 fuel nozzles. It cost over $60 million and never reached over a mile in test flights. In 2002 Elizabeth Weil authored "They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus: An Incurable Dreamer Builds the First Civilian Spaceship."
(SSFC, 12/1/02, p.M3)
1997 The first (digital video disk) DVD players came on the market.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1997 Philippe Kahn, founder of Borland Software (1983), pioneered the camera phone when he connected his digital camera to a cell phone.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.C2)
1997 In Taiwan the High Tech Computer company was founded as a designer and manufacturer of products sold under other brand names. The company was later renamed HPC and created its own brand name. In 2007 it launched the HTC Touch, a touch screen device whose sales were boosted by the appearance of Apple’s first iPhone.
(Econ, 4/7/12, p.73)
1997 Taiwan’s MediaTek was founded and began making controllers for CD-ROMS. By 2004 the company was developing chops for mobile phones.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.60)
1999 Mar 22, The Volantor, a flying car, was described. It was designed by Paul Moller of Davis, Ca., and estimated to have range of 900 miles.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A15)
1999 Apr, Personal Video Recorders (PVR) were introduced at a broadcaster’s convention in Las Vegas. and allowed users to skip through commercials. The cheapest model of TiVo’s digital video recorder (DVR) cost $499.
(Econ, 4/17/04, p.61)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.68)
1999 Jun 7, Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Labs reported the creation of elements 118 and 116 from krypton-86 and Lead-208. In 2002 Victor Ninov was accused of faking the data. Spurious data by Ninov was also reported on elements 110 and 112 from experiments in 1994 and 1996.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.A3)
1999 Jul 31, NASA controllers planned to send the $63 million Lunar Prospector crashing into the Mawson crater located in the south pole. They hoped to churn up some water vapor for possible detection. Evidence of the crash at 2:51 PDT was not detected.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.A4)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 12, The invention of a new rechargeable battery with a 50% longer life span was announced by researchers in Israel.
(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec, Two variants were adopted for the 1997 IEEE 802.11 standard on wireless communications: 802.11a for the 5.8GHz band and 802.11b for the 2.4GHz band. The technology was soon named Wi-Fi.
(Econ, 2/14/04, Survey p.27)
1999 Michael Hiltzik authored “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC in the Dwan of the Computer Age."
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.C5)
2000 Jun 16, Inacom Corp., once the world’s largest computer dealer, sent most of its 5,100 employees an e-mail directing them to a toll-free phone number with a recorded message that fired them.
(WSJ, 11/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 13, It was reported that physicist Humphrey Maris of Brown Univ. had reported findings in June to the Quantum Fluids and Solids Conference that challenged the indivisibility of electrons.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 30, It was reported that computer scientists had created a robot to design and build other robots almost entirely without human help.
(SFC, 8/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 18, It was reported that scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab had fashioned the smallest transistor using a buckyball, single molecule of carbon-60.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A6)
2000 Nov 16, The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers adopted 7 new domains: .aero for airports, .biz for businesses, .coop for business cooperatives, .info for general use, .museum for accredited museums, .name for individuals, and .pro for professionals.
(SFC, 11/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov, Honda introduced its 4-foot bipedal Asimo robot.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A8)
2000 Dec 13, It was reported that scientists had decoded the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, a common spindly weed, making it the 1st plant to have its genetic material fully described.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.A11)
2000 Dec 15, Under Estonian law the cryptographic signature became legally equivalent to a manual signature.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_ID_card)
2000 In Haines, Alaska, Dave Pahl created his Hammer Museum, a tribute to the oldest human tool. In 2007 he struggled to retain the name as the Armand Hammer Museum of Art changed its name to the Hammer Museum of Art and applied for a trademark to the name.
(WSJ, 10/5/07, p.A1)
2000-2006 The Interphone study on mobile the threat to human health from mobile phone use cost $30 million and involved some 50 scientists working in 13 countries. Results proved very confusing and inconclusive.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.93)
2001 Jan 26, Scientists announced that they had decoded the genetic blueprint of rice. It was the 1st important plant to have its genome decoded.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A7)
2001 Mar 26, It was reported that scientists had detected high-energy neutrinos for the 1st time in the Antarctic Muon and neutrino Detector Array (Amanda).
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr 23, It was reported that scientists in Chicago had connected a lamprey eel’s brain to microprocessors to steer a robotic device toward light.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr, Linus Torvalds, founder of Linux, authored "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary."
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.B2)
2001 Jun 4, Hewlett-Packard agreed to pay $400 million to Pitney Bowes to settle a 6-year-old patent dispute over printer technology.
(SFC, 6/5/01, p.C1)
2001 Jul 5, Scientists at Delft Univ. of Tech. in the Netherlands reported the creation of nanotechnology transistors built from a single molecule.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.B3)
2001 Aug 21, It was reported that nuclear waste researchers had developed a process, pyroprocessing, to remove long term radioactive elements from waste and transmute them to less radioactive elements.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 31, It was reported that scientists at Lucent Tech. achieved superconductivity with carbon-60 (buckyballs) at minus 249 degrees by combining the carbon molecules with compounds of chloroform and bromoform.
(SFC, 8/31/01, p.B3)
2001 Sep 3, It was reported that scientists at the Max Planck Inst. for Biochemistry in Germany had affixed snail neurons to transistor chips and demonstrated communication.
(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A4)
2001 Oct 3, Apple introduced the iPod, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket, at a cost of $399.
(www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/oct/23ipod.html)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.14)
2001 Oct 17, Researchers at Lucent’s Bell Labs reported the development of a tiny new transistor made of a simple cluster of organized molecules.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.D2)
2001 Nov 17, John M. Dawson, plasma physics expert, died at age 71. He is considered the father of computer-simulated plasma models and of plasma-based particle accelerators.
(SFC, 12/1/01, p.A19)
2001 Nov 20, Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm computer, was reported to hold that the brain works by anticipating and completing patterns more than it does through inputs and outputs of information.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 3, A test US anti-missile launched from Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands successfully hit a dummy warhead from Vandenberg Air Base in California, 4,800 miles away.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A4)
2001 Dec 3, Dean Kamen, inventor, unveiled his battery-powered, 12 mph Segway Human Transporter in NYC. Kamen had spent $100 million over the last decade to develop the vehicle. In 2003 Steve Kemper authored "Code Name Ginger," the story of the Segway's development.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A2)(WSJ, 6/17/03, p.D5)
2001 Dec 4, Edwin Huffine, US forensic scientist, launched a new DNA ID software program developed with a team of Bosnian experts at the Sarajevo-based Int’l. Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP). The program used kinship analysis.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 4, Kodak and Sanyo prepared to invest $350 million to make flat panel color displays using organic light-emitting diode technology for hand-held devices.
(WSJ, 12/4/01, p.B7)
2001 Dec 12, David Criswell, director of the Univ. of Houston Space Systems Operations, proposed a "Lunar Solar Power System" to collect solar energy on the moon, convert it to microwaves, and beam it to Earth for electrical power.
(SFC, 12/13/01, p.A5)
2001 The US National Institutes of Health began its Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project to isolate each of the estimated 30,000 human genes along with a full set of mouse genes.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.B1)
2001 John Deere, the world’s largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment, decided to fit its tractors and other mobile machines with global-positioning-system sensors.
(Econ, 6/11/16, TQ p.4)
2001 Ben Kacyra (b.1949), Iraqi-born founder of SF Bay Area firm Cyra Technologies, sold the company’s new laser mapping tool to Leica Geosystems of Switzerland. The device was created to produce digital blueprints of 3-dimensional objects.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.C3)
2001 Alexander Gorlov, a Russian civil engineer who worked on the Aswan High Dam, won the Edison patent for his invention of a turbine that could extract power from free-flowing currents.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.12)
2001 Tom Malzbender, a computer scientist at HPs laboratory in Palo Alto, Ca., developed a lighting method that came to be known as polynomial texture mapping (PTM). It was later found useful in illuminating details on ancient objects.
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.88)(www.hpl.hp.com/research/ptm/)
2001 Shi Zhengrong, a Chinese solar engineer, started Suntech to manufacture solar cells. In 2005 it became the first Chinese solar firm to go public. By 2007 the company was the world’s 3rd largest in the field. In 2013 it went bankrupt.
(Econ, 6/2/07, SR p.16)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.68)
2001 In Budapest, Hungary, a meeting on scientific publishing by the Open Society Institute (later the Open Society Foundation) coined the phrase “open access" as it sought to make scientific papers free to users. Open access publishing had already begin in 2000 with launch in Britain of BioMed Central and in America of the Public Library of Science (PLOS).
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.83)
2002 Mar 5, It was reported that a team of physicists claimed nuclear fusion utilizing a burst of ultrasound on a bubble of gases in a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. Details were to appear the journal Science.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A4)
2002 Aug 7, Ford Motor Co. and Canadian fuel cell developer Ballard Power Systems Inc. jointly unveiled a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine-driven generator they said could help pave the way toward the commercialization of fuel cell technology.
(Reuters, 8/7/02)
2002 Dec 31, In China a German-designed magnetic-levitation train hit 260 mph on its maiden run between Shanghai and Pudong airport.
(SFC, 1/1/03, p.A10)
2002 Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st rewritable DVD system compatible with standard DVD players.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
2002 The grid emerged as a linkage of many servers into a single system to tackle complex computing tasks. The system was created to do work previously possible only with supercomputers. The Global Grid Forum built on the Globus software developed by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
2002 The Auto-ID centre came up with a standard for a new, stripped-down RFID chip that stores 96 bits of information. Radio frequency identification quickly became commonplace for tagging retail items.
(Econ, 6/26/04, p.63)
2003 Jan 23, Graham Hawkes (54) took his Deep Flight Aviator, a winged submersible, on a demonstration run in SF Bay.
(SFC, 1/24/03, p.A21)
2003 Jan 30, Spencer Abraham, US Energy Secretary, said the US would rejoin the $5 billion int’l. project to build an experimental fusion reactor. The US had left the project in 1998.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A6)
2003 Jun 13, Scientists reported that the new hydrogen fuel cell technology could lead to greater destruction of the ozone layer that protects Earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays.
(AP, 6/13/03)
2003 Jul 17, A US company launched Mexican sales of microchips that can be implanted under a person's skin and used to confirm health history and identity.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Oct 13, It was reported that scientists in North Carolina had built a brain implant that lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Two books on the new nanotechnology: "Nanocosm" by William Illsey Atkinson and "The next Big Thing Is Really Small" by Jack Uldrich with Deb Newberry.
(WSJ, 5/23/03, p.W14)
2003 Pres. Bush signed the National Nanotechnology Initiative into law. The current market value of the industry was about $1 billion.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.52)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 A report from Texas A&M Univ. showed that ionization fire detectors (smoke alarms) take 15 minutes longer or more than photoelectric fire detectors to detect smoldering fires. About 90% of US homes at this time contained the ionization type, which were about $5 cheaper than the photoelectric type.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A12)
2003 Scientists at the Univ. of Texas found a way to spin nanotubes into fibers to make the world’s toughest polymer.
(Econ, 1/1/05, Survey p.5)
2003 Near-field communications (NFC) was finalized as an industry standard. The wireless technology operated over very short ranges measured in centimeters.
(Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.22)
2003 The first cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) debuted about this time.
(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
2004 Jan 1, China began running the world's 1st commercially operated maglev train in Shanghai. The German-built system spanned 18 miles.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.E4)
2004 Jan 28, Scientists said they had created a new form of matter, called a fermionic condensate, and predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications. It is the sixth known form of matter, after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995.
(Reuters, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 30, In Japan a judge ruled that Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue light-emitting diode (LED), should share in the profits of his former employers. He was awarded $190 million in a case against Nichia Corp.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)
2004 Mar 13, In the first DARPA Grand Challenge robotic vehicles began a 200-mile road race near Barstow, California. The Pentagon sponsored race ended without a winner, as none of the autonomous vehicles built by the 15 qualifying teams was able to travel farther than 7 miles from the starting line.
(SFC, 3/13/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/14/04)
2004 Apr 13, The FDA approved a clinical trial by Cyberkinetics on implants in humans for a brain-computer interface.
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
2004 Jun 12, It was reported that engineers had created a “metal-rubber," a substance that conducts electricity like metal, but also stretches like rubber up to 250% of its original length.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.14)
2004 Jun 24, In Japan Cyberdyne was founded by Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at the University of Tsukuba as a venture company to develop his ideas for an exoskeleton suit.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdyne_Inc.)
2004 Oct 13, The US government approved a microchip that can be implanted under the skin to provide doctors with patient data. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Tommy Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options. In 2007 it was reported that a series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
(SFC, 10/14/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/9/07)
2004 Dec 15, A walking, talking child-size robot from Honda Motor Co. managed an easy, although comical, jog in the Japanese automaker's latest quest to imitate human movement.
(AP, 12/15/04)
2004 In 2004 David V. Herlihy authored “Bicycle: The History."
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.W5)
2004 Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, co-founded Palantir Technologies in Palo Alto, Ca., to build software that ties databases together to make it easier to search and analyze information.
(SFC, 6/25/15, p.C6)
2004 University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom thick but more than 100 times stronger than steel, and showed it has exceptional properties, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.
(AP, 10/5/10)(Econ, 12/5/15, TQ p.9)
2004 Hong Kong-based Ruyan, which means "like smoking," introduced the world's first electronic cigarette. It patented its ultrasonic atomizing technology, in which nicotine is dissolved in a cartridge containing propylene glycol, the liquid that is vaporized in smoke machines in nightclubs or theaters and is commonly used as a solvent in food.
(AP, 2/2809)
2004-2005 In Canada Mike Lazaridis, co-founder of Research In Motion (RIM), founded the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at Ontario’s Univ. of Waterloo. He linked the institute to the university’s nanotechnology program and provided donations totaling C$50 million.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
2005 Feb 1, HP researchers introduced groundbreaking nanotechnology that could replace traditional transistors on computer chips.
(SFC, 2/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 17, Researchers demonstrated a robot that used a “passive-dynamic design" to learn walking step by step like a toddler.
(SFC, 2/18/05, p.A2)
2005 Mar, The Y Combinator company, an American startup incubator (accelerator) for tech companies, was founded by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, and Jessica Livingston.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator_%28company%29)
2005 Apr, Moshe Alamaro of MIT proposed the creation of small, man-made cyclones to cool the ocean and prevent large natural hurricanes.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.8)
2005 Neil Gershenfeld authored “Fab: The coming Revolution on Your Desktop--From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication."
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.37)
2005 High Impact Technology (HIT), a small Oregon firm, proposed using lightweight plastic to protect fuel trucks from bullets. It developed a polyurethane material that when sprayed onto a fuel tank would dry to a rigid plastic. Fuel spurting out a bullet hole would react with a catalyst in the polyurethane causing it to absorb fuel and expand, this plugging the leak in seconds.
(Econ, 9/7/13, TQ p.7)
2005 Universal Robots was founded in Denmark to make robot arms that were light and easily programmed.
(Econ, 3/29/14, SR p.6)
2006 Mar 15, It was reported that Japanese scientists had unveiled a robotic fish that could one day be used to observe fish in the ocean or survey oil platforms for damage.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
2006 Apr 22, The 2-day Maker Faire began in San Mateo, Ca., as a gathering of tinkerers to display their gadgets.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.87)(http://makezine.com/faire/2006/)
2006 Sep 18, Researchers at Intel and UC Santa Barbara announced new technology using lasers on silicon chips for optical computing. Practical use was thought to be 5-7 years away.
(SFC, 9/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 13, Peter McColough (b.1922), former CEO of Xerox (1968-1982), died. He funded the fabled Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1969.
(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.A6)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced the 1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb, Estonia became the first country in the world to institute electronic voting for parliamentary elections.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_ID_card)
2007 Mar 2, Checkpoint Systems Inc. said it will provide Reno GmbH with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and store tagging systems. Reno GmbH plans to embed wireless chips in shoes sold at hundreds of stores across the continent.
(http://tinyurl.com/2cpo45)
2007 Mar 26, Intel Corp. announced it will build a $2.5 billion chip factory in China, giving the US company a bigger presence in the booming Chinese market and boosting Beijing's efforts to attract high-tech investment. Intel also unveiled a prototype chip that uses optical connections to increase speed. Products using the technology were expected to appear within 3 years.
(AP, 3/26/07)(WSJ, 3/26/07, p.B6)
2007 Apr 15, Scientists unveiled the world’s tiniest eyedropper, capable of squeezing out zeptoliter droplets.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A9)
2007 Jun 15, The US Patent and Trademark office launched a one-year pilot program for a peer review of patent applications using an internet-based collaboration process.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.28)
2007 Jun 26, A Japanese robot maker unveiled what it called the world's first prototype of an artificial hand with "air muscles" that can do even delicate work like picking up a raw egg.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jul 24, Intel Corp. said it has fabricated the first modulator made from silicon that can encode data onto a beam of light at a rate of 40 billion bits per second (gigabits). Such speeds represented a rate 40 times faster than most corporate data networks.
(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.B4)
2007 Aug 14, It was reported that Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute had developed a flexible battery using carbon nanotubes and cellulose.
(www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-08-14-2925644111_x.htm)
2007 Aug 31, Leading Japanese mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it will tie up with broadband provider ACCA Networks to introduce ultra-fast mobile WiMAX technology.
(AFP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 10, It was reported that John Kanzius of Erie, Pa., had accidentally discovered a way to burn salt water when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
(AP, 9/10/07)
2007 Oct 31, Physicists at UC Berkeley said they had produced the world’s smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than human hair. They had it play “Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and said it could also function as a transmitter.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct, The first commercial wave farm was set up off the coast of Portugal. The system was created at Pelamis Wave Power, a firm based in Scotland.
(Econ, 6/7/08, TQ p.22)
2007 Nov 12, A new study said US researchers have developed a method of producing hydrogen gas from biodegradable organic material, potentially providing an abundant source of this clean-burning fuel. The method used by engineers at Pennsylvania State University combines electron-generating bacteria and a small electrical charge in a microbial fuel cell to produce hydrogen gas.
(AFP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 19, Amazon.com began selling its Kindle electronic book reader, the size of a paperback, for $399. It was able to hold 200 volumes.
(WSJ, 11/20/07, p.B1)(Econ, 10/25/08, SR p.11)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Bruce D. Abramson authored “The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court Where the Rules of the Information Age Unfold," a discussion of the American patent system.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M3)
2007 Planar Energy of Orlando, Florida, was spun off from America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The company went on to develop a process for printing lithium-ion batteries onto sheets of metal or plastic. A pilot production facility opened in 2011.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.77)
2008 Feb 11, It was reported that Ronald Fearing, Berkeley professor in electrical engineering, has invented a tape-like substance based on the physics used by geckos to scoot upside-down across ceilings.
(SFC, 2/11/08, p.C1)
2008 Feb 19, Japan’s Toshiba Corp. announced it would no longer develop, make or market high-definition HD DVD players and recorders, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2008 May 20, Scientists delivered a warning about nanotechnology after tests on lab rodents found that microscopic, needle-like fibers that are already in commercial use led to lesions similar to those caused by asbestos.
(AFP, 5/20/08)
2008 Jun 6, Pres. Bush signed a transportation bill that freed $45 million for environmental studies for a levitating train planned to run from Disneyland to Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Aug 12, It was reported that Akron inventor Charlie Grispin, chief technical officer of PolyFlow Corp., had developed a new process to recycle plastic and that a demonstration plant in Akron showed how the process broke all manner of plastics into their base chemicals.
(http://tinyurl.com/6xfw5s)(www.polyflowcorp.com/)
2008 Aug 21, Intel showed off a wireless electric power system at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco. Analysts said it could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Geneva the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle collider, passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe. On Sep 19 it started leaking helium and had to be turned off. The technical problems delayed for at least two months the quest for scientists to learn more about the nature of the universe and the origins of all matter.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.96)
2008 Sep 22, It was reported that SanDisk, a maker of flash memory, was teaming with 4 top music labels to roll out a new music medium based on its microSD cards, which would feature pre-loaded albums and additional content and compete with the declining CD market.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 23, Google and T-Mobile unveiled the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to use the Google’s Android operating system.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct, Solyndra, a Fremont, Ca., company, launched a new type of solar panel using lightweight glass tubes. It expected installation costs to be half that of conventional panels.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.110)
2008 Oct 30, The Economist magazine presented its annual innovation awards. Winners included Martin Evans, for stem cell research at Cardiff Univ.; Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia for the promotion online public collaboration; Matti Makkonen, a Finnish engineer, for the development of Short Message Service (SMS), better known as text messaging; Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube, for the creating of an easy way to share video; Arthur Rosenfeld of Lawrence Berkeley for his promotion of energy efficiency; Sumio Iijima for the discovery of carbon nanotubes; Bill and Melinda Gates for the developing a philanthropic support platform; and Nokia Corp. For its ability to respond to social and technological trends.
(Econ, 12/6/08, TQ p.13)
2009 Jan 29, India began a plan to issue a new biometric identity card to its whole 1.2 billion population. On June 25 Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of Infosys, was given ministerial status and appointed to run the scheme.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.36)(http://tinyurl.com/nvfahh)
2009 Feb 11, BrightSource Energy of Oakland, California, announced that it will sell southern California Edison 1,300 megawatts of electricity from 7 large solar plants planned for the California desert. This was believed to be the world’s largest solar deal to date.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A1)
2009 Feb 16, In Spain Samsung of South Korea unveiled the world's first solar-powered mobile phone at an industry show where the sector is showcasing the new technology it hopes will drive demand through the economic crisis.
(AFP, 2/16/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported the Behrad Khamesee and colleagues at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, have built a micro-robot with gripper arms that levitates.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.85)
2009 May 13, A new, 2-person, research submarine, the Deep Flight Super Falcon, was unveiled at the California Academy of Sciences in SF. It was designed by marine engineer Graham Hawkes. Its $1.5 million cost was underwritten by venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It was scheduled to begin exploring Monterey Bay in June.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B5)
2009 May 18, It was reported that South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 31, A robotic vehicle named Nereus, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, made the deepest ocean dive ever - 6.8 miles (10,902 meters). At this depth, Nereus was able to explore the Challenger Deep, the ocean's lowest point, located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.
(www.livescience.com/environment/090603-ocean-abyss.html)
2009 Jun 6, Palm Inc. introduced its new smart phone called Pre. Two days later Apple unveiled updated versions of its popular iPhone.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Aug 28, Denmark announced the 5 winners of its biennial Index design awards. The winners included: Kiva.org, of the SF Bay Area for bringing money and intellectual capital to the working poor; Better Place, of the SF Bay Area for a clean energy system for all-electric cars; the Freeplay fetal heart rate monitor; Philip Design for its India-team designed safe kitchen stove for one-room homes; and Rotterdam-based Pig 05049 for its list of 185 good and bad products made from a single pig.
(SFC, 8/29/09, p.E1)
2009 Oct 1, Mattel planned to release its Mindflex toy, which allowed users to lift a ball and send it through an obstacle course using brain control interface technology.
(SSFC, 9/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Sep 18, South Korean scientists said they had developed a new transistor which moves faster and consumes less energy than existing semiconductors, a technology opening the way for no-booting computers.
(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Nov 19, In Silicon Valley, California, the Tech Awards, a humanitarian program recognizing technological solutions aimed at worldwide challenges, honored 5 winners for their work in the environment, economic development, education, equality and health.
(SFC, 11/20/09, p.D1)
2009 Dec 2, An Italian-led team of scientists said a robotic hand has been successfully connected to an amputee, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts. A video was shown of Pierpaolo Petruzziello (26) as he concentrated to give orders to the hand placed next to him.
(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Dec 5, The Defense Advance Research projects Agency (DARPA) conducted an experiment challenging teams around the country to locate the submit the correct geographic coordinates of 10 weather balloons in return for a $40,000 cash prize. Over 4,000 teams participated and the winning answer came after 8 hours and 56 minutes. Social networking sites played a major role in the game theory simulation. Riley Crane, a post doc research fellow at MIT’s media lab, led the winning team using an elaborate information gathering pyramid.
(SFC, 12/7/09, p.A9)
2009 Dec 7, Scientists at Stanford University in California reported that they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a "paper battery" that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage.
(Reuters, 12/10/09)
2009 Dec 26, China unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world, a train connecting the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 350 km (217 miles) an hour.
(AFP, 12/26/09)
2009 Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich authored the online book: “Seasteading: Homesteading the High Seas." Backed by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, they planned to begin creating a floating colony 12 miles off the coast of San Francisco in 2012.
(SFC, 6/1/11, p.A14)(http://seasteading.org/mission/faq)
2009 The first perovskite solar cells were made. They converted 3.8% of the light falling on them into electricity. By 2015 the conversion was pushed up to about 20%.
(Econ, 5/16/15, p.71)
2010 Jan 7, Intel CEO Paul Otellini introduced a technology called Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) that allows a user to beam the contents of a computer screen to a TV.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Jan 8, It was reported that YMax Corp., the company behind the magicJack, the cheap Internet phone gadget that's been heavily promoted on TV, has made a new version of the device that allows free calls from cell phones in the home, in a fashion that's sure to draw protest from cellular carriers.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 9, A company called TrueCompanion premiered the "lifelike" sex robot, Roxxxy on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb7w8gr)(Econ, 4/2/11, p.65)
2010 Jan 23, The British Department for Business Innovation and Skills halted the export of the ADE651 after a Jan 22 BBC Newsnight investigation challenged the claims of the company, ATSC. The broadcaster took the key aspects of the device to a laboratory, which concluded that a component intended to detect explosives contained technology used to prevent theft in stores. The government banned its export to Iraq and Afghanistan because of the risk that it could hurt British and allied forces.
(AP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan, It was reported that German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology in Chemnitz have found a way to use electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) to punch holes into steel.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.80)
2010 Feb 11, The US military used a laser gun aboard a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to shoot down a missile near Point Mugu, Ventura County, Ca. The airborne laser program began in 1996 and has cost billion of dollars.
(SFC, 2/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 15, In Spain, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Apple announced its new Windows Phone 7 software. Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile handsets, said it would merge its Linux Maemo software platform, used in its flagship N900 phone, with Intel's Moblin, which is also based on Linux open-sourced software, to create a new platform, MeeGo. The software deal was set to boost Intel's chances of getting its chips into the cellphones of the Finnish company, which controls around 40% of the global phone market.
(Reuters, 2/15/10)(SFC, 2/16/10, p.D1)
2010 Feb 18, US researchers unveiled a vehicle that earns money for its driver instead of guzzling it up in gasoline and maintenance costs. The presentation of the box-like, unassuming looking Scion was the researchers' way of introducing the "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G) concept as it begins to gain momentum in the United States and around the world.
(AFP, 2/19/10)
2010 Feb 24, In San Jose, Ca., stealth start-up Bloom Energy publicly unveiled an innovative fuel cell that promises to deliver affordable, clean energy to even remote corners of the world.
(AFP, 2/25/10)
2010 Mar 16, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said she is freezing funding for the SBInet project, the virtual border fence along the US-Mexican border, due to cost overruns and missed deadlines by Boeing Corp. The project has cost $2.4 billion between 2005 and 2009.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100317/ts_csm/288327)
2010 Apr 2, It was reported that researchers, at Israeli weapons maker Rafael, were putting the final touches on a tank-mounted miniature anti-missile system, Trophy, that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach tanks equipped with the system.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 12, China eased requirements for companies to qualify for government purchasing of technology after a plan to favor domestic technology was met with heavy criticism from other countries and business groups.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 May 16, Israel inaugurated a huge new desalination facility on its Mediterranean seashore, with a network of pipes beneath the beach reaching far into the ocean. The $425 million Hadera plant is the world's largest using reverse osmosis technology.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 27, In Florida a Delta 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral carried a new generation GPS satellite into space. A dozen such Boeing-built satellites will be launched over the next several years to replace the 20-year-old systems now in service.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 Jun 9, The Technology Academy of Finland awarded Michael Graetzel of Switzerland, a German-born chemist, the international Millennium Technology Prize for inventing low-cost solar cells used in renewable energy. The prize included euro800,000 ($960,000).
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 Jun 23, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev visited Silicon Valley and met with executives at Apple, Cisco and Twitter as he sought to advance Russia as a global leader in technology.
(SFC, 6/24/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 1, D.light, a solar powered lantern that could provided light for up to 12 hours after charging in sunlight for one day, won the Ashden award for sustainable energy. It was designed by an Indian company in California and marketed successfully in India.
(www.dlightdesign.com/dataDoc/media/International_winners_Ashden2010_final.pdf)
2010 Aug 6, Saudi Arabia suspended BlackBerry messaging services, as concerns spread across the Middle East and parts of Asia over security issues with the popular smartphones.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Eastport, Maine, the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) launched a $2.5 million prototype, tidal grid-compatible power system.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.48)(www.oceanrenewablepower.com/home.htm)
2010 Sep 11, Japan launched a rocket carrying a satellite intended to improve global positioning systems.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Oct 4, Tokyo-based Toshiba unveiled the world's first high definition liquid crystal display 3-D television that does not require special glasses, one of the biggest consumer complaints about the technology.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 5, Two Russian-born scientists shared the Nobel Prize in physics for groundbreaking experiments with ultrathin carbon. In 2004 University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom thick but more than 100 times stronger than steel, and showed it has exceptional properties, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.
(AP, 10/5/10)(Econ, 12/5/15, TQ p.9)
2010 Oct 8, Pres. Obama signed a law on providing the disabled easier access to technology.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 11, Microsoft unveiled a new mobile phone operating system as it seeks to regain ground lost to the iPhone, Blackberry and devices powered by Google's Android software.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Austria Christian Kandlbauer (22), man who was able to drive because of an innovative high-tech artificial arm, died. He had been in intensive care since Oct 19 after his vehicle veered off the road and into a tree. It was unclear whether the crash was caused by problems with Kandlbauer's artificial arms.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Nov 4, Microsoft released Kinect, a motion-tracking peripheral for the Xbox console. Scientists soon found uses multiple other uses for the device.
(SFC, 1/10/11, p.D1)
2010 Dec 28, South Korean education officials said almost 30 robots have started teaching English to youngsters in a South Korean city, in a pilot project designed to nurture the nascent robot industry.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 William Rosen authored “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention," a study of the process of tinkering with an existing mechanism to make it better.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.70)
2010 Fourth-generation networks embraced internet protocol providing mobile devices with broadband access to the internet. The first generation of cellular phones began around 1980 and relied on analogue technology. The 2nd generation arrived in 1991 and wireless networks began to go digital. By 2001 the 3rd generation dumped circuit-switching for more efficient packet-switching.
(Econ, 5/30/15, TQ p.10)
2010 The AR drone built by Parrot, a French company, became a best seller. The easy-to-fly quadcopter was able to beam video back to a smartphone.
(Econ, 9/26/15, p.80)
2011 Feb 7, France-based Alcatel-Lucent unveiled technology that reduces the filing cabinet size of a wireless base station to that of Rubik’s cube.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.70)
2011 Feb 24, In Japan the world's first robot marathon kicked off in Osaka, with five two-legged participants racing on an indoor track. The race was expected to last through Feb 27.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 28, It was reported that California's AeroVironment has built the world's first hummingbird spy plane. The Pentagon had asked them to develop a pocket-sized aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance that mimicked biology.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Mar 3, Japanese researchers said they have developed a human-shaped mobile phone with a skin-like outer layer that enables users to feel closer to those on the other end.
(AFP, 3/3/11)
2011 Apr 13, The US navy said it successfully tested a high energy laser from a ship last week. The laser beam could set on fire boat engines, such as those used by Somali pirates.
(SFC, 4/14/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 19, It was reported that a US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.
(www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458.asp)
2011 Apr, The American Navy successfully tested a prototype of its Maritime Laser. The device of just over 100 kilowatts integrated with a ship’s radar and other systems for use to destroy a target at sea.
(Economist, 9/1/12, TQ p.12)
2011 May 30, Australian robots have begun talking to each other in a language of their own devising. Two "Lingodroids," developed by the University of Queensland, have picked up their shared language by playing location games that led them to construct a shared vocabulary for places, distances and directions.
(Reuters, 5/30/11)
2011 May 30, European anti-trust regulators launched in-depth probes into proposed US takeovers of South Korean and Japanese businesses manufacturing computer hard disk drives (HDD). The planned acquisitions of the hard disk drive operations of South Korean electronics giant Samsung by Seagate Technology, and the storage business of Japan's Hitachi by Western Digital Corporation in a sector with just five manufacturers worldwide have raised concerns. Brussels officials have until October 10 to decide what action if any they will take.
(AFP, 5/30/11)
2011 Jun 18, A five-hour computer outage virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and early Saturday, a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.
(AP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 23, Japanese inventors were reported to have pushed the frontiers of technology with the ultimate companion for lonely singles, a wired torso-shaped device that you can hug and that hugs you back.
(AFP, 6/23/11)
2011 Jul 26, China’s Jiaolong undersea craft, named after a mythical sea dragon, reached 5,057 meters (16,591 feet) below sea level in a test dive in the northeastern Pacific. In 1960 the US Navy reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the world's oceans at 11,000 meters. Dr. Cui Weicheng, founder and director of the Hadal Science and Technology Research Center (HAST) had organized the construction of the craft.
(AFP, 7/26/11)(Econ, 8/27/16, p.61)
2011 Sep 7, It was reported that New Mexico plans to build a $200 million, 20-square mile model metropolis to test renewable energy innovations, intelligent traffic systems and new wireless networks. It would model a typical American town of 35,000 people.
(SFC, 9/7/11, p.A6)
2011 Oct 4, Apple Inc. unveiled a faster, more powerful iPhone, the iPhone 4S, in its first major product event in years without Steve Jobs presiding. The device included Siri, a personal assistant application.
(AP, 10/4/11)(SFC, 1/23/15, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri)
2011 Nov 18, Findings detailed in today’s issue of the journal Science tell how scientists have devised ultra-lightweight, low-density metallic lattices with orderly structures. These possess higher levels of stiffness, strength and conductivity of conventional forms of their parent materials.
(http://tinyurl.com/73h5bh4)
2011 Dec 17, In Afghanistan the US military began testing Kaman K-MAX helicopters, a revolutionary new drone for its arsenal. The pilotless helicopters will fly cargo missions to remote outposts where frequent roadside bombs threaten access by road convoys.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2011 The Chinese company Megvii, an artificial intelligence firm, was founded and developed face recognition technology. The name stands for mega vision.
(Econ, 9/9/17, p.59)
2012 Mar 13, British chip designer ARM unveiled what it said was the world's most energy-efficient microprocessor design that will help devices ranging from fridges to medical equipment to parking meters to communicate with other devices.
(Reuters, 3/13/12)
2012 Jan 8, The Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas. South Korea-based Samsung and LG introduced their new 55-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) HDTVs.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.D2)
2012 Apr 22, A prize-winning, super-energy-saving 10-watt LED bulb from Dutch electronics giant Philips, went on sale to coincide with Earth Day. The bulb, said to last over 20 years, has won the US Department of Energy's "Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize" and was now available from retailers for $50, down from an initial $60 price tag.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Jun 24, A manned Chinese submersible, the Jiaolong, broke through the 7,000-meter mark for a new national deep water dive record in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean on its fourth dive since arriving in the area earlier this month. The dive came on the same day China successfully completed its first manual space docking.
(AFP, 6/24/12)
2012 Jun 28, US scientists reported the development of a paint that can store and deliver electrical power just like a battery.
(Reuters, 6/28/12)
2012 Aug 14, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced the winners of its $100,000 Reinventing the Toilet Challenge. The winning toilet was developed by Michael Hoffman of the California Institute of Technology.
(Economist, 9/1/12, TQ p.10)
2012 Aug 16, A solar powered toilet that turns urine and feces into hydrogen and electricity won a $100,000 first prize in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge in Seattle, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
(SFC, 8/17/12, p.A8)
2012 Oct 19, British engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, said they have produced 5 liters of synthetic petrol over a period of three months. AFS said it has developed a way to create petrol from air and water.
(AP, 10/19/12)
2012 Oct, A robot called Baxter, developed by Rethink Robotics, went on sale. The company was founded by Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.86)
2012 Brad Feld, co-founder of the TechStars accelerator network, authored “Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City," a to do list for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
(Econ, 1/18/14, SR p.10)
2012 Michigan doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of Kaiba Gionfriddo, a 3-month-old Ohio baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.
(AP, 5/22/13)
2012 Scientists at the Harvard robotics laboratory performed a successful flight of hovering robots the size of crane flies.
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.77)(http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/110/)
2012 Memoto, a Swedish startup, raised over $500,000 on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. The company also raised €500,000 in seed funding enabling it to build a stamp-sized wearable camera that takes pictures every 30 seconds. The company later moved to San Francisco and in 2016 introduced the narrative Clip 2, a body cam for civilians.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.69)(SFC, 4/22/16, p.C1)
2013 Jan 23, Pebble Technology, an American maker of smart watches, began shipping it’s $150 digital wrist watches that can show e-mail, text and Facebook messages. Eric Migicovsky's company launched a Kickstarter campaign on April 11, 2012, with an initial fundraising target of $100,000. On May 18, 2012, funding closed with $10,266,844 pledged by 68,928 people.
(Econ, 1/26/13, p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_%28watch%29)
2013 Mar 13, Shares of Silver Spring Networks (SSNI) of Redwood City, Ca., closed at $22 in an IPO of 4.75 million shares on the NYSE. The maker of smart meter technology jumped nearly 30% from the $17 offer.
(SFC, 2/14/13, p.C1)
2013 Mar 18, The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was awarded to Marc Andreessen, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn and Louis Pouzin, for their efforts in the development of the Internet.
(Econ, 3/23/13, p.84)
2013 Apr 11, Netherlands-based Royal Philips NV said it has developed a working prototype of an LED lamp that will confine the fluorescent bulb to the recycling bin of history.
(AP, 4/11/13)
2013 May 2, An experimental US aircraft, the unmanned X-51A WaveRider sped over 3,000 mph in a test flight above the Pacific Ocean. It used a scramjet engine and reached Mach 5.1 riding its own shock wave before plunging into the ocean as planned.
(SFC, 5/4/13, p.A10)
2013 May 16, Heinrich Rohrer (79), Swiss physicist and Nobel Prize winner (1986), died in Switzerland. He is regarded as the father of nanotechnology.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.90)
2013 Jun 10, Apple Corp. said it will equip its new iPhones with a “kill switch" that will render the devices useless if stolen.
(SFC, 6/11/13, p.A1)
2013 Jun 11, Google announced the acquisition of Waze, the Israeli creator of a traffic and navigation app for smartphones.
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.68)
2013 Aug 12, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, proposed to revive the old science-fiction vac-train concept to carry passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles at over 1,200kph.
(Econ, 8/17/13, p.65)
2013 Sep 4, South Korea’s Samsung set the price of its new Galaxy Gear wristwatch at $299 with sales to begin Sep 25.
(SFC, 9/5/13, p.C3)
2013 Oct 15, The European Space Agency said it has developed a technology that allows metal parts for spacecraft and nuclear reactors to be "printed" as a single piece.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that Britain's biggest retailer Tesco plans to install screens at its petrol stations that scan customers' faces so that advertising can be tailored to their age and gender.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, South Korea's spy agency said that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralyzing military electronic equipment south of the border.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Florida 17 teams competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge at a speedway track near Miami. Only one robot, SCHAFT, made it to the top of a nine-step aluminum ladder. It was created by a Japanese startup owned by Google.
(Econ, 3/29/14, SR p.3)(http://tinyurl.com/lsbfd5n)
2013 Clive Hamilton authored “Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.80)
2013 Evgeny Morozov authored “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism."
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.D1)
2013 Fred Vogelstein authored “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution."
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.F5)
2013 Chris Sheldrick founded the British firm What3Words. The company created a geocoding system for the simple communication of locations with a resolution of three meters.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words)(Econ, 7/2/16, p.71)
2013 The Chinese firm DJI introduce the Phantom drone. It brought professional quality aerial photography within the reach of general users.
(Econ, 9/26/15, p.80)
2014 Jan 27, Google said that it had agreed to buy British artificial intelligence start-up company DeepMind. The company, co-founded Demis Hassabis, was purchased for $400 million.
(AFP, 1/27/14)(Econ, 6/25/16, SR p.4)
2014 Apr 9, Stuart Parkin (58) won the Finnish 1 million-euro ($1.3 million) Millennium Technology Prize for discoveries leading to a thousand-fold increase in digital data storage on magnetic disks. The British-American physicist directed the IBM-Stanford spintronic science center in California.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 15, The wireless industry said that smartphones will offer optional, reversible “kill switches" starting next year as a way to deter thieves.
(SFC, 4/16/14, p.A1)
2014 May 9, The Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle Nereus, operated by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was lost during its dive to the Kermadec Trench off the coast of New Zealand. It was being operated as part of the Hadal Ecosystems Studies (HADES) Program funded by the US National Science Foundation.
(AP, 5/11/14)
2014 May 9, In Germany SLM Solutions, a pioneer in making selective laser melting equipment, i.e. 3D printers, used in factories, began trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Here additive manufaturing was used to describe one aspect of 3D printing.
(Econ, 5/3/14, p.56)
2014 Jun 5, In Japan billionaire Masayoshi Son's mobile phone company Softbank unveiled a robot dubbed Pepper that can decipher emotions. It will go on sale in Japan in February for 198,000 yen ($1,900). Overseas sales plans are under consideration but undecided.
(AP, 6/5/14)
2014 Jun 19, San Francisco DA George Gascon said Google and Microsoft will incorporate kill switches into the next versions of of their operating systems for mobile devices.
(SFC, 6/20/14, p.A1)
2014 Jul 14, MakerBot, now owned by Stratasys Inc., and Home Depot announced a new partnership to bring 3D printing capabilities to the masses. The MakerBot Replicator Mini was priced at $1,375.
(http://tinyurl.com/q3atfda)(SFC, 7/16/14, p.C1)
2014 Aug 8, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Japan and the United States will jointly develop a fuel-cell powered submarine that can run for a month under the sea on a single charge an unmanned. The 10-meter (33-feet) long sub would be able to chart a pre-programmed course before returning to base.
(AFP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 20, Siluria Technologies of California said a $30 million fundraising round was led by Saudi Aramco. Siluria said it can make gasoline from gas for about $1 per gallon.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.C1)
2014 Sep 9, Apple unveiled a $349 watch, two larger iPhones and the mobile payments service Apple Pay. Apple Inc will reportedly charge fees from banks every time consumers use their iPhone to make purchases, a move that will give the company a cut of the growing mobile payments market.
(Reuters, 9/9/14)(Econ, 9/13/14, p.73)
2014 Oct 15, Lockheed Martin Corp said it has made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.
(Reuters, 10/15/14)
2014 Nov 2, China’s state media said China has successfully tested a self-developed laser defense system against small-scale low-altitude drones.
(Reuters, 11/2/14)
2014 Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee authored “The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.71)
2014 In Canada Ian Goodfellow, a student at the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA), introduce a generative adversarial network (GAN), a type of machine-learning algorithm.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.70)
2015 Jan 6, The Intl’. Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.48)
2015 Mar 8, China-based Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) launched its new Phantom 3 range of drones with prices starting at $1,000.
(SFC, 5/14/15, p.58)
2015 Mar 9, Apple Corp. CEO Tim Cook presented the company’s new smartwatch at a show in San Francisco’s Y’s Yba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. Prices for the watch started at $349.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.D1)
2015 Apr 21, Japan’s maglev train set a world speed record during a test run near Mount Fuji, clocking 375 mph.
(SSFC, 4/26/15, p.A4)
2015 Apr 30, Tesla Motors Inc. unveiled Tesla Energy for storage systems or batteries for homes, companies and utilities that will expand its business beyond electric vehicles and tap into a fast-growing area of the energy industry. The smallest 10kWh Powerwall model was priced at $3,500.
(Reuters, 5/1/15)
2015 Jun 3, Britain’s Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay plc (TLSB) named China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) as preferred bidder for a £300 million ($548 million, 412 million euros) contract the world's first artificial tidal lagoon.
(AFP, 6/3/15)
2015 Jun 6, At the finals for the DARPA Robotic Challenge in Pomona, Ca., a robot named Hubo, developed at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, (KAIST) won the $2 million first place prize.
(Econ, 6/13/15, p.77)
2015 Aug 1, HitchBOT, the adorable hitch-hiking robot cobbled together from household odds-and-ends, prematurely ended its summer travels across America, after being destroyed by vandals and abandoned on the side of a road in Philadelphia. The little talking automaton had hitchhiked unscathed last summer across thousands of miles in Canada, and had traversed parts of Europe as well without so much as a scratch. Canadian creators Frauke Zeller and David Smith considered rebuilding it.
(AFP, 8/3/15)(SFC, 8/3/15, p.A4)(SFC, 8/4/15, p.A3)
2015 Oct 25, It was reported that carbon nanotubes have been found in the lung fluid of asthmatic children living in Paris. The nanomaterial has only recently been used to manufacture items such as bicycle parts, sporting goods and wind turbines.
(SSFC, 10/25/15, p.D16)
2015 The phrase Fourth Industrial Revolution was first introduced by Klaus Schwab, the executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in a 2015 article in Foreign Affairs. "Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution" was the theme of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. On October 10, 2016, the Forum announced the opening of its Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. This was also subject and title of Schwab's 2016 book. Schwab includes in this fourth era technologies that combine hardware, software, and biology (cyber-physical systems), and emphasizes advances in communication and connectivity. Schwab expects this era to be marked by breakthroughs in emerging technologies in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the internet of things, the industrial internet of things, decentralized consensus, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G), 3D printing and fully autonomous vehicles.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3ky6csv)
2016 Jan 19, Amnesty International said cobalt mined dangerously by children in the Democratic Republic of Congo could end up in the lithium batteries of smartphones and electric cars made by Apple, Samsung or Sony.
(AFP, 1/19/16)
2016 Mar 10, In Nevada a drone made by Flirtey successfully delivered a package to a residential location in Hawthorne in what was reportedly the first fully autonomous urban drone delivery in the US.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Apr 4, In California work began on the new Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS-II) at the Dept. of Energy’s SLAC national Accelerator Center three miles west of Stanford Univ. Beams from the x-ray laser will reveal the atomic structure of matter and show the molecular movements of living matter such as viruses. The ultimate cost was estimated at $1 billion.
(SFC, 4/8/16, p.D3)
2016 Sep 25, In China the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest radio telescope, began working in the mountainous region of Guizhou.
(AFP, 9/25/16)
2016 Dec 7, Amazon completed its first delivery by drone, in what the global online giant hopes will become a trend in automated shipments by air. The delivery was made to a customer near Cambridge, England.
(AFP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 15, Malawi launched Africa's first drone-testing corridor as developing countries explore how drones could be used during humanitarian crises such as floods, or to deliver blood for HIV tests.
(AFP, 12/15/16)
2017 Feb 26, In Spain Chinese telecoms giant ZTE unveiled what it said is the world's first smartphone compatible with the lightening-fast 5G mobile internet service on the eve of the start of the Mobile World Congress. Networks expect to have 5G up and running by 2020.
(AFP, 2/26/17)
2017 May 20, Softbank, a Japanese telecoms group, along with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and smaller investors including Apple and Sharp, launched the world’s largest technology investment fund, worth nearly $100 billion.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.59)
2017 Jul 26, It was reported that Wisconsin-based tech company Three Square Market will begin offering employees the implantation of RFID microchips under the skin between their thumb and index finger as of August 1. This will allow employees to perform tasks such as entering the office, and paying for food with a wave of the hand.
(SFC, 7/26/17, p.C5)
2017 Sep 1, In Germany the world's largest X-ray laser wen t online and will help them capture images of structures and processes at an atomic level. Scientists hoped the European XFEL project will open up new areas of research.
(AP, 9/1/17)
2017 Oct 3, London-based DeepMind, the Google sibling focusing on artificial intelligence, announced the launch of an "ethics and society" unit to study the impact of new technologies on society.
(AP, 10/4/17)
2017 Oct 13, It was reported that a recent report by JPMorgan Chase estimated that just 10% of daily stock trading is done by human stock pickers.
(SFC, 10/13/17, p.A1)
2017 Oct 19, Google began selling its 2nd generation Daydream View, a virtual reality viewer, for $99.
(SFC, 10/20/17, p.C1)
2017 Dec 25, India's capital launched a metro train with driverless technology, though officials said it would operate with a driver for at least a year or two.
(AP, 12/25/17)
2017 Franklin Foer authored “World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech."
(Econ, 9/16/17, p.77)
2017 Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson authored “Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing our Digital Future."
(Econ 7/15/17, p.72)
2017 Japanese researcher Yu Yanagisaw at the University of Tokyo developed -- by accident-- a new type of glass that can be repaired simply by pressing it back together after it cracks.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2018 Jan 18, A pair of Australian swimmers became the first people to be rescued in the ocean by a drone when the aerial lifesaver dropped a safety device to distressed teens caught in rough seas.
(AFP, 1/18/18)
2018 Feb 4, Australia’s South Australia state government said some 50,000 homes will receive solar panels and Tesla batteries, in a landmark plan to turn houses into a giant, interconnected power plant.
(AFP, 2/4/18)
2018 Aug 6, Singapore's immigration authority said it has started scanning travelers' eyes at some of its border checkpoints, in a trial of expensive technology that could one day replace fingerprint verification.
(Reuters, 8/6/18)
2018 Aug 22, A man (26) in Germany died after a AA battery-charging device exploded, firing an object into the man's chest.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 27, In Switzerland a weeklong gathering opened in Geneva to discuss ways to define and deal with "killer robots," futuristic weapons systems that could conduct war without human intervention.
(AP, 8/27/18)
2018 Sep 7, It was reported that two companies in the Lesotho's tiny capital Maseru are now using one of the world's first commercial 5G networks on the long-awaited 3.5 GHz spectrum.
(AFP, 9/7/18)
2018 Oct 20, The $1.5 million XPrize for Water Abundance was won by The Skysource / Skywater Alliance, based in Venice Beach, California for developing an easily deployable high-volume water generator. The winning team was led by David Hertz and his wife Laura Doss-Hertz.
(http://tinyurl.com/y93ras2c)(SFC, 10/26/18, p.A8)
2019 Jan 28, In Japan Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.
(AP, 1/28/19)
2019 Feb 15, The US government said it will lead an ambitious effort to develop technologies to recycle lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, cellphones and other sources to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of metals crucial to battery production in anticipation of soaring global demand and potential shortages.
(AP, 2/16/19)
2019 Feb 20, Samsung unveiled its new foldable smartphone in San Francisco. The Galaxy Fold will sell for $1980 when it is released on April 26.
(SFC, 2/21/19, p.D1)
2019 Feb 24, China's Huawei unveiled a new folding-screen phone on the eve of the 4-day MWC Barcelona show, joining the latest trend for bendable devices as it challenges the global smartphone market's dominant players, Apple and Samsung.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Mar 8, In Hungary MTA President Laszlo Lovasz and Innovations and Technology Minister Laszlo Palkovics announced that they had reached an agreement to separate the science research network from the academy's teaching institutions. Staff members of the historic Hungarian Academy of Sciences said their academic freedom has been threatened by a new deal giving the nationalist government influence over its research institutions.
(Reuters, 3/9/19)
2019 Apr 24, Britain said it will allow Huawei Technologies a restricted role in building parts of its 5G network, seeking a middle way in a bitter dispute between the United States and China over the next generation of communications technology. Britain would block Huawei from all core parts of the 5G network and access to non-core parts would be restricted.
(Reuters, 4/24/19)
2019 Apr 24, China's government rejected accusations that it steals technology. A day earlier Xiaoqing Zheng, a former employee of GE's power division, and Zhaoxi Zhang, a businessman in northeastern China, were indicted in the US on charges of industrial spying.
(AP, 4/24/19)
2019 Jul 17, It was reported that a local government in southern China has handed out smart watches to nearly 17,000 primary school pupils, capable of pinging their real-time locations and emergency alerts to their parents.
(The Telegraph, 7/17/19)
2019 Aug 16, Huawei Technologies sent a letter to The Wall Street Journal, refuting the publication's bombshell report describing how China's tech giant allegedly helped the governments of two African nations spy on their political opponents.
(South China Morning Post, 8/17/19)
2019 Aug 21, The European Union took a stance against “killer robots" when the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for an international ban on the development, production and use of weapons that kill without a human deciding to fire. A Dutch report this week said Amazon, Microsoft and Intel are among leading tech companies putting the world at risk through killer robot development.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3f63vqh)(AFP, 8/22/19)
2019 Aug 30, It was reported that a Paris suburb is trying out a new system that can identify noisy vehicles, pinpoint their location and automatically ticket them. The device has been installed on a lamppost in the center of Villeneuve-le-Roi, a town next to Paris Orly airport.
(Reuters, 8/30/19)
2019 Sep 6, Qualcomm Inc said it will put fifth-generation, or 5G, technology into chips powering mid-priced mobile phones starting next year, expanding use of chips now found almost exclusively in pricey phones such as Samsung's $1,299 Galaxy S10 5G model.
(Reuters, 9/6/19)
2019 Sep 12, This year's Ig Nobel winners included: Dutch and Turkish researchers who figured out which nation has the yuckiest money, an Italian scientist who urges consumption of pizza for its health benefits, and an Iranian engineer who obtained a US patent for a diaper-changing machine.
(AP, 9/13/19)
2019 Nov 3, China launched a new high-resolution remote sensing satellite capable of providing stereoscopic imagery, marking another important step as Beijing seeks to reduce reliance on foreign technology in topographic mapping.
(Reuters, 11/3/19)
2019 Nov 14, IBM said it will launch a new weather forecasting system which will be able to predict conditions up to 12 hours in advance and cover parts of the world which have not had access to such detailed data. The Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (IBM GRAF) will run on a supercomputer and provide more detailed and higher quality forecasts.
(Reuters, 11/14/19)
2019 Dec 1, In China new rules came into effect making it a legal requirement for people signing up to new mobile phone and data plans to have their faces scanned, in a major growth of the surveillance state.
(The Telegraph, 12/1/19)
2019 Dec 9, Intel Corp announced a chip called "Horse Ridge" that is designed to take all the work being done by the wires in a quantum computer and shrink it down to a chip and electronics about the size of a tea cup saucer. The chip is named for one of the coldest spots in the state of Oregon, where many of its factories are located.
(Reuters, 12/9/19)
2020 Jan 24, London's Metropolitan Police said they will use facial recognition cameras to scan the faces of passersby to see if they are criminals, in a move that critics slammed as a massive expansion of surveillance.
(Business Insider, 1/24/20)
2020 Jan 28, It was reported that most major railway stations in India will use facial recognition to fight crime by the end of 2020. Digital rights campaigners warned the move could breach people's privacy in the absence of stringent laws.
(Reuters, 1/28/20)
2020 Feb 10, Arm Ltd, a semiconductor technology firm owned by SoftBank Group, unveiled a chip technology aimed at putting artificial intelligence functions on tiny devices such as sensors designed to detect patterns in human speech or other streams of data.
(Reuters, 2/10/20)
2020 Feb 28, Apple Inc agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle litigation accusing it of quietly slowing down older iPhones as it launched new models, to induce owners to buy replacement phones or batteries. The settlement calls for Apple to pay consumers $25 per iPhone, which may be adjusted up or down depending on how many iPhones are eligible, with a minimum total payout of $310 million. This still required approval by US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose.
(Reuters, 3/2/20)
2020 Mar 3, A Moscow court ruled that the city's facial recognition system does not violate the privacy of its citizens, a blow to activists who had hoped to ban the technology's use.
(Reuters, 3/3/20)
2020 Mar 27, Microsoft said it is pulling its investments from a facial-recognition startup that scans faces at Israeli military checkpoints, even though the tech giant couldn't substantiate claims that the startup's technology is used unethically.
(AP, 3/27/20)
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3.3Mil BC In 2015 scientists reported the discovery of stone tools in Kenya that dated back to about this time, pushing back the previous record by some 700,000 years. Makers of the tools were contemporary with a species called either Kenyanthropus platyops or Australopithecus platyops.
(SFC, 5/21/15, p.A6)(Econ, 5/23/15, p.68)
385k BC – 172k BC In 2018 it was reported that stone tools, found in India, were fashioned during this period by Neanderthals, Homo sapiens or an evolutionary cousin.
(SFC, 2/1/18, p.A4)
13.5k BC – 11.2k BC In 2011 archeologists reported the discovery of 56 stone tools found in central Texas dating to about this time. The dating prefigured the “Clovis culture" by about 2 thousand years.
(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A7)
5000 BC An international team of researchers in 2019 said they have discovered a 7,000-year-old-seawall along Israel's Mediterranean coast, providing evidence that coastal communities protected themselves against rising waters even in ancient times. The seawall, found about 120 meters (130 yards) off the coast, is the only structure of its kind found in Israel's coastal region. The Neolithic era village, called Tel Hreiz, was abandoned and eventually swallowed by the sea.
(AP, 12/19/19)
4000 BC The Chinese began working with silkworms about this time. They built their first silk machine about 2,000 BC.
(Econ, 9/12/15, SR p.15)
2500 BC The making of glass began about this time in Mesopotamia.
(Econ, 8/22/15, p.64)
1000 BC The world’s oldest known lens was ground about this time by an Assyrian maker.
(Econ, 12/1/12, TQ p.8)
236 BC Archimedes, according to the Roman architect Vitruvius, built his first elevator about this time.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
150BC-100BC In 1901 pieces of an ancient Greek calculating machine, called the Antikythera Mechanism, were discovered by sponge divers exploring the remains of a shipwreck off the tiny island of Antikythera. Radiocarbon dating suggested it was built around 65 BC, but in 2006 newly revealed lettering on the machine indicate a slightly older construction date of 150 to 100 BC. In 2008 researchers said the device, which originally contained 37 gears, included the cycle of the Greek Olympics.
(http://tinyurl.com/y255xr)(SFC, 7/31/08, p.A15)
c1-100 AD Steam engines--machines harnessing the heat energy of hot steam to perform work--date to the steam turbine invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD called the aeolipile. However, the aeolipile was regarded as a curiosity demonstrating a mechanical principle and was not developed into a practical engine.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
105 Ts'ai Lun (Cai Lun), a Chinese government official (eunuch), told Emperor He about making zhi, i.e. paper. He used bark from mulberry trees and plant fiber pounded into pulp, which were then dried and matted into sheets. By the end of the second century, the Chinese were printing books on rag paper using wooden type.
(NG, Feb, 04, p.9)(SSFC, 5/26/13, p.F5)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.87)
300-400 As long ago as the 4th century, an Egyptian scientist named Papp suggested there should be a science called heuristics to solve inventive problems.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
1329 In Korea a foundry was used to print books with metal type.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1377 In Korea Jikjisimgyeong, a Buddhist scripture, was printed with the world’s first movable metal type.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1421 The Republic of Florence passed a law giving Brunelleschi what is thought to be the first true patent of an invention. The first recorded patent was granted for a barge with hoisting gear used to transport marble.
(http://tinyurl.com/c3teab)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1441 In Korea King Sejong called for better water management in his agricultural based economy and Yeong-sil Jang responded with the first rain gauge.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1450 First book printed with movable metal type. Johannes Gutenberg printed a bible with movable type in Mainz. He perfected interchangeable type that could be cast in large quantities and invented a new type of press. [see 1452]
(NG, March 1990, p. 117)(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A21)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1452 Sep 30, The 1st book was published, Johannes Guttenberg's Bible. [see 1450]
(MC, 9/30/01)
1492 Oct 26, Lead pencils were 1st used.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1498 Jun 26, Toothbrush was invented. In China the first toothbrushes with hog bristles began to show up. Hog bristle brushes remained the best until the invention of nylon.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.E3)(MC, 6/26/02)
1590 The microscope was invented.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.E3)
1592 Nov 29, An admiral’s report said an English warship was lost off the coast of Alderney. A block of mineral was later found on the wreck. In 2013 scientists reported that the rock was likely a sunstone (Iceland spar), used to reveal the sun’s direction and thus assist in navigation.
(Econ, 3/9/13, p.80)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey, spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW, Spring ‘99, p.33)
1621 Dec 3, Galileo invented the telescope.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1624 Sep 12, The 1st submarine was tested in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1644 Jul 11(Jun 11), A Florentine scientist described the invention of barometer.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1646 Mar 6, Joseph Jenkes received the 1st colonial machine patent.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1647 Aug 22, Denis Papin, inventor of the pressure cooker, was born.
(HN, 8/22/00)
1675 Jan 20, Christian Huygens, Dutch scientist, transformed a theoretical insight on springs into a practical mechanism with the 1st sketch of a watch balance regulated by a coiled spring.
(www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/huygens/timelong/timelong.html)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.73)
1684 Apr 25, A patent was granted for the thimble.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1690 Jan 14, The clarinet was invented in Germany.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1696 Jacques Ozanam, a visionary Frenchman, 1st proposed a “self-moving vehicle."
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1698 English engineer Thomas Savery devised a way to pump water out of mines by the use of condensed steam.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1709 Jan 10, Abraham Darby (1678-1717) in Coalbrookdale, England, began using coke to provide carbon for making iron. This led to the end of the use of charcoal for making iron.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Darby_I)
1712 Englishman Thomas Newcomen created a piston system to separate the steam from the water.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1714 Jan 7, A typewriter was patented by Englishman Henry Mill. It was built years later.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1722 Oct 19, French C. Hopffer patented the fire extinguisher.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1733 John Kay, a British weaver, invented the flying shuttle, allowing the production of wider pieces of cloth.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.15)
1738 French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson built a mechanical duck that could quack, flap,, paddle, drink, eat and “digest" grain.
(SFC, 1/23/15, p.A10)
1738 Jacques de Vaucanson exhibited a mechanical flute player that actually breathed.
(WSJ, 8/23/02, p.W8)
1738 Apr 15, The bottle opener was invented.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1741 Dec 25, Astronomer Anders Celcius introduced the Centigrade temperature scale.
(MC, 12/25/01)
1742 Jul 11(Jun 11), Benjamin Franklin invented his Franklin stove.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1743 In France Louis XV commissioned an elevator installed at Versailles to link his apartment to that of his mistress.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
1744 Feb 15, John Hadley, inventor (sextant), died.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1745 Oct 11, The Leyden jar, capable of storing static electricity, was invented by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist. Also about this time Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden (Leyden) independently came up with the same idea.
(ON, 2/12, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyden_jar)
1750 Benjamin Franklin drew up plans for a “sentry box," designed to prove his theory that lightning as an electrical phenomenon.
(ON, 2/12, p.11)
1752 May, Dutch botanist Thomas Francois Dalibard (1709-1799) successfully performed Benjamin Franklin’s “sentry box" experiment proving that lightning is an electrical phenomenon.
(ON, 2/12, p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Fran%C3%A7ois_Dalibard)
1752 Jun 15, Benjamin Franklin and his son tested the relationship between electricity and lightning by flying a kite in a thunder storm. Some sources date this to June 10.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin)
1753 Jul 26, New style date is Aug 6. Georg Richmann (b.1711), German physicist, died of electrocution in St. Petersburg, Russia, during an attempt to duplicate Benjamin Franklin’s “sentry box" experiment. Reportedly, ball lightning traveled along the apparatus and was the cause of his death, apparently the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.104)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Richmann)(ON, 2/12, p.12)
1753 Sep 9, The 1st steam engine arrived in US colonies.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1754 Thomas Mudge (1715-1794), English horologist, invented the lever escapement, which became used in watches ever since.
(Econ, 11/19/11, p.p.106)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mudge_%28horologist%29)
1755 Mar 12, The 1st steam engine in America was installed to pump water from a mine.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1761 Benjamin Franklin invented his glass armonica.
(WSJ, 1/15/04, p.D8)
1762 The Harrison chronometer was invented. It allowed voyagers to calculate longitudinal distance.
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.A1)
1765 Nov 14, Robert Fulton, inventor, was born. His steamboat, the Clermont, made its 1st voyage on Aug 17, 1807.
(HN, 11/14/98)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1765 Scotsman James Watt (1736-1819) further refined Thomas Newcomen’s piston system steam engine innovation by adding a separate condenser. Watt took out a patent on his improved engine in 1769.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)(ON, 6/10, p.4)
1765 Eberhard put erasers on pencils. [see 1794]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1766 Apr 8, The 1st fire escape was patented: a wicker basket on a pulley and chain.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1766 Henry Cavendish isolated hydrogen during experiments with H2O in England.
(NH, 7/02, p.32)
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen of Hungary invented the Automoton Chess Player. It was 1st demonstrated to the Austrian court in 1770. In 2001 the deception was analyzed by James W. Cook in his book "The Arts of Deception." In 2002 Tom Standage authored "The Turk," an examination of the 18th century fascination with automatons.
(WSJ, 7/12/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 4/12/02, p.W12)
1769 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French military engineer, invented an ungainly, steam-powered tricycle and practical steam locomotives and steamboats appeared early in the next century, eventually superceded by the internal combustion engine.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1771 Apr 13, Richard Trevithick, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in Cornwall, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.4)
1773 John Harrison (1693-1776) received a monetary award in the amount of £8,750 from the British Parliament for his achievements regarding the invention of the marine chronometer solving the problem of establishing the East-West position or longitude of a ship at sea. He never received the official award, proclaimed in 1714, which was never awarded to anyone.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.80)(www.surveyhistory.org/john_harrison%27s_timepiece1.htm)
1774 Feb 10, Andrew Becker demonstrated a diving suit.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1774 Aug 1, British scientist Joseph Priestley succeeded in isolating oxygen from air in Calne, England. He called his new gas "dephlogisticated air."
(ON, 10/05, p.2)(AP, 8/1/07)
1778 Apr 22, James Hargreaves, inventor (spinning jenny), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1779 Jan 18, Peter Roget, thesaurus fame, inventor (slide rule, pocket chessboard), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1779 Apr 24, Mr. H. Sykes, an English optician living in Paris, wrote to Ben Franklin and explained a delay in sending an order for special spectacles, complaining that he was having difficulty making them. Franklin is believed to have ordered his first pair of bifocals from Sykes.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1779 Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright's water frame and James Hargreaves' spinning jenny in the same way that mule is the product of crossbreeding a female horse with a male donkey.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_mule)
1781 Jun 9, George Stephenson, English engineer, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in Newcastle, England.
(HN, 6/9/01)(MC, 6/9/02)
1783 Aug 27, 1st hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned); reached 900 m altitude.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1783 Oct 6, Benjamin Hanks patented a self-winding clock.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1783 Oliver Evans (1755-1819), American inventor, designed an automated gristmill.
(WSJ, 6/4/08, p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Evans)
1785 May 23, Benjamin Franklin in Paris spoke of his invention of bifocals in a letter to friend and philanthropist George Whatley.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1787 Aug 22, Inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat, the Perseverance, on the Delaware River to delegates of the Continental Congress. In 2004 Andrea Sutcliffe authored “Steam: The Untold Story of America’s First Great Invention."
(AP, 8/22/99)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1788 Feb 1, Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patented the steamboat on this day.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1789 Mar 16, George S. Ohm (d.1854), German scientist, was born. He gave his name to the ohm unit of electrical resistance. [WUD says Mar 16, 1787]
(HN, 3/16/99)(WUD, 1994 p.1001)
1789 Uranium was discovered and named after the planet Uranus.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)
1790 Mar 27, The shoelace was invented.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1790 Apr 10, President George Washington signed into law the first United States Patent Act. The Patent Board was made up of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War and the Attorney General and was responsible for granting patents on "useful and important" inventions. In the first three years, 47 patents were granted. Until 1888 miniature models of the device to be patented were required. [see July 31] The US Patent and Trademark Office’s subject grouping scheme includes a major component called a class and a minor one called a subclass. A class distinguishes one technology from another. Subclasses of the USPTO delineate processes, structural features and functional features of the technology in that particular class. By 2015 there were 474 classes and over 160,000 codes.
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 8/6/99)(AP, 4/10/07)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.73)
1790 Jul 31, The first US patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process". This patent was signed by then President George Washington. The first 10,280 patents, issued between 1790 and 1836, were destroyed by a fire. The legal basis for the United States patent system (USPTO) is Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution wherein the powers of Congress are defined.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Patent_and_Trademark_Office)
1790 The "Philadelphia Spelling Book" was the first US work to be copyrighted.
(WSJ, 6/14/00, p.A1)
1791 Mar 10, John Stone of Concord, Mass, patented a pile driver.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1791 Mar 11, Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia was the 1st to obtain more than 1 US patent.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1791 Aug 2, Samuel Briggs and his son patented a nail-making machine.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1791 Aug 26, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rival inventors, were both granted a US patent for a working steamboat.
(MC, 8/26/02)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1792 May 12, A toilet that flushed itself at regular intervals was patented.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1793 Jun 20, Eli Whitney petitioned for a cotton gin patent in Philadelphia.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h1517t.html)
1793 Oct 28, Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the cotton gin, a machine which cleaned the tight-clinging seeds from short-staple cotton easily and effectively--a job which was previously done by hand. The patent was granted the following March. [see Mar 13, Jun 20, 1793, Mar 14, 1794]
(AP, 10/28/97)(HN, 10/28/98)
1794 Feb 14, 1st US textile machinery patent was granted, to James Davenport in Phila.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1794 Mar 14, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America's cotton industry. He paid substantial royalties to Catherine T. Greene and this makes his claim to the invention suspect.
(AP, 3/14/97)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E3)
1794 Mar 23, Josiah Pierson patented a "cold-header" (rivet) machine.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1794 A French inventor mixed ground graphite with clay and water and fired it to make strong pencil leads. [see 1765]
(WSJ, 11/24/00, p.A1)
1799 Jan 25, Eliakim Spooner of Vermont received the 1st US patent for a seeding machine.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1800 William Herschel (1738-1822), German-born English astronomer, detected what later became known as infra-red red light in experiments with glass prisms and thermometers.
(NH, 11/1/04, p.54)
1800 Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), Italian physicist, first demonstrated the electric pile or battery.
(V.D.-H.K.p.269)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.22)
1801 Dec 24, Richard Trevithick, inventor of the steam locomotive, completed a road test of his 1st "traveling engine" in Camborne, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Feb 8, Simon Willard patented a banjo clock.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1802 Mar 24, Richard Trevithick was granted a patent in London for his steam locomotive.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Jul 9, Thomas Davenport, invented 1st commercial electric motor, was born.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1803 May 17, John Hawkins and Richard French patented a reaping machine.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1803 Sep 8, A high pressure steam boiler, made by Richard Trevithick, exploded at a corn mill in Greenwich, England, and 3 men were killed. A worker had left a heavy wrench on the safety valve and gone fishing.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1803 The steel ink pen was developed in Birmingham, England.
(SFC, 12/13/06, p.E3)
1804 Feb 21, The 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, ran for 1st time in Wales.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1804 Feb 6, Joseph Priestley (b.1733), English-born US writer, philosopher and chemist, died in Pennsylvania. He became best known for having discovered oxygen. Priestley also figured out how to manufacture carbonated water and is sometimes called “the father of the soft-drink industry." In 2008 Steven Johnson authored “The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America."
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9061366)(ON, 10/05, p.1)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.E3)
1805 The Philadelphia harbor was dredged with a high-pressure steam engine invented by Oliver Evans. He was unable to get a proper patent for it.
(WSJ, 6/4/08, p.A19)
1806 Oct 7, Carbon paper was patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1807 Aug 17, Robert Fulton’s "North River Steam Boat" (popularly known as the "Clermont") began heading up New York’s Hudson River on its successful round-trip to Albany. He named the boat Katherine of Clermont after his wife. It was 125 feet (142-feet) long and 20 feet wide with side paddle wheels and a sheet iron boiler. He averaged 5 mph for the 300-mile round trip.
(AP, 8/17/97)(SFC, 6/20/98, p.F4)(WSJ, 9/21/01, p.A22)
1808 Apr 30, Italian Pellegrini Turri built the 1st practical typewriter for the blind Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizono, the world's first typist.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(MC, 4/30/02)
1808 Jul 9, A leather-splitting machine was patented by Samuel Parker of Billerica, MA.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1809 Feb 15, Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor (Mechanical reaper), was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1809 Nov 22, Peregrine Williamson of Baltimore patented a steel pen.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1809 Humphry Davy (1778-1809), an English chemist, invented the first electric light. Davy connected two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp.
(http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/first_electric_light_bulb.htm)
1809 Nicholas Appert won a French prize of 12,000 francs for his method of keeping food in glass bottles. Napoleon had offered the prize with military needs in mind.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1812 Dec 4, Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pa., patented a horse-drawn mower.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1813 Apr 29, Rubber was patented.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1815 Oct 31, Sir Humphrey Davy of London patented miner's safety lamp.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1816 Aug 24, Daniel Gooch, laid 1st successful transatlantic cables, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1816 Robert Stirling, British clergyman, proposed a sealed heated air engine to compete with the ubiquitous steam engine. His Stirling engine converted heat into mechanical energy by compressing and expanding a fixed quantity of gas.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.72)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.24)
1816 In France Dr. Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec invented the stethoscope.
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1817 Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun of Germany invented the draisienne, the first 2-wheeled, rider-propelled machine and exhibited it in Paris in 1818. The vehicle came to be known as the “velocipede," a 2-wheeled running machine without pedals.
(www.cycle-info.bpaj.or.jp/english/learn/bcc02.html)(Wired, 2/98, p.172)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1819 May 21, The 1st bicycles (swift walkers) in US were introduced in NYC.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1819 May 26, The first steam-propelled vessel to attempt a trans-Atlantic crossing, the 350-ton Savannah, departed from Savannah, Ga., May 26 and arrived in Liverpool, England, Jun 20. [HNQ set May 24 for the departure]
(AP, 5/22/97)(HNQ, 3/18/02)
1819 Jun 26, The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York City. [see May 21]
(MC, 6/26/02)
1819 Aug 25, Scotsman James Watt (b.1736), Scottish inventor, died. His 1775 improved steam engine advanced coal mining and made the Industrial Revolution possible.
(ON, 6/10, p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt)
1819 Sep 6, Thomas Blanchard (b.1788) patented the lathe.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1821 English economist David Ricardo noted that the influence of machinery is frequently detrimental to the interest of the working class.
(Econ, 6/25/16, SR p.3)
1822 Mar 9, The first patent for false teeth was requested by C. Graham of NY. [see 1882]
(HN, 3/9/98)(MC, 3/9/02)
1822 Jun 14, Charles Babbage (1792-1871), a young Cambridge mathematician, announced the invention of a machine capable of performing simple arithmetic calculations in a paper to the Astronomical Society. His 1st Difference Engine could perform up to 60 error-free calculation in 5 minutes. Babbage and engineer John Clement completed the calculator portion of a new engine in 1832, but the project lost funding and remained unfinished.
(I&I, Penzias, p.94)(ON, 5/05, p.5)
1823 Apr 22, R.J. Tyers patented roller skates.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1824 Jun 8, A washing machine was patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1824 Oct 21, Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement in Yorkshire, England.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1824 Oct 23, The 1st steam locomotive was introduced.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1824 The first company to come out with the paper milk carton was the Toronto East India Company, which developed it in 1824 due to a glass shortage.
(www.milk.com/experiments/exper17.html)
1825 Sep 27, The Stockton and Darlington rail line opened in England. The first locomotive to haul a passenger train was operated by George Stephenson in England. The British engineers Richard Trevithick and George Stevenson were the first innovators of the technology.
(AP, 9/27/97)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAstephensonG.htm)
1825 The element aluminum was discovered.
(NH, 7/02, p.35)
1826 Apr 1, Samuel Mory patented the internal combustion engine.
(OTD)
1826 Scotsman Robert Stein invented the continuous still. It was later refined by Aeneas Coffey as the Coffey still.
(Hem, 11/02, p.36)
1827 Apr 2, Joseph Dixon began manufacturing lead pencils.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1827 Apr 7, English chemist John Walker invented wooden matches.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1827 Jul 14, Augustin-Jean Fresnel (b.1788), French engineer, died. He contributed significantly to the establishment of the theory of wave optics. Fresnel studied the behavior of light both theoretically and experimentally. He worked out a way to focus light using diffraction and was the first to construct a special type of lens, now called a Fresnel lens, as a substitute for mirrors in lighthouses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin-Jean_Fresnel)(Econ, 6/9/12, p.85)
1829 Jul 23, William Austin Burt of Mount Vernon, Mich., received a patent for his "typographer," a forerunner of the typewriter.
(AP, 7/23/99)
1829 Aug 9, The locomotive "Stourbridge Lion" went into service.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1829 Robert Stephenson built the Rocket, one of the world’s first steam locomotives, in Newcastle, England.
(Econ, 6/6/15, p.46)
1830 May 3, The 1st regular steam train passenger service started.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1830 May 18, Edwin Beard Budding of England signed an agreement for the manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower. He adopted the rotary blade in the cloth industry to grass.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.118)
1830 May 20, Dr. Hyde patented a fountain pen.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1831 May 16, David Edward Hughes, inventor (microphone, teleprinter), was born.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1831 Aug 9, 1st US steam engine train run was from Albany to Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1831 Aug 29, Michael Faraday, British physicist, demonstrated the 1st electric transformer. Faraday had discovered that a changing magnetic field produces an electric current in a wire, a phenomenon known as electromagnetic induction.
(www.acmi.net.au/AIC/FARADAY_BIO.html)(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.R6)
1831 US copyright protections were expanded to cover musical compositions.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1831 The lawn mower was invented in England.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1833 Apr 22, Richard Trevithick (62), inventor (steam locomotive), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1835 Aug 2, Elisha Grey, inventor (Telephone), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1835 Nov 23, Henry Burden invented the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. He then made most of the horseshoes for the Union Cavalry in the Civil War. Burden patented a horseshoe manufacturing machine in Troy, NY.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.E3)(MC, 11/23/01)
1835 Dec 7, The Adler, a steam engine built in Newcastle by British father and son George and Robert Stephenson, began running between Nuremberg and Furth, marking the birth of the German railway system.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.77)
1836 Feb 25, Samuel Colt patented the first revolving barrel multi-shot firearm.
(HN, 2/25/98)(AP, 2/25/98)
1836 Mar 23, Coin Press was invented by Franklin Beale.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1836 Oct 24, A. Phillips patented the match.
(HN, 10/24/98)(MC, 10/24/01)
1837 Dec 29, A threshing machine powered by a single horse treadmill was patented in Winthrop, Maine, by twins Hiram A. and John A. Pitts.
(DM, 8/5/03)
1837 Samuel F.B. Morse incorporated the discoveries of Sturgeon and Henry in the first practical telegraph, separating the magnet from the switch by some five hundred yards of wire. [see 1838, 1844]
(I&I, Penzias, p.96)
1837 English plumber Thomas Crapper came out with a flush model, valve controlled, water closet. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow installed one in his home in 1840 and sparked public attention. Thomas Crapper, popularly credited with inventing the water closet, held three patents, although he may simply have bought the siphon discharge system patent from Albert Giblin and marketed it himself. In 1969 Wallace Reyburn authored “Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper."
(HNQ, 11/25/00)(http://tinyurl.com/2ws5w)
1838 Jan 6, Samuel Morse (1791-1872) first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown, N.J. In 2003 David Paul Nickles authored "Under the Wire," a history of the telegraph and its impact on the world. [see Jan 8]
(AP, 1/6/98)(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.D10)
1838 Jan 8, 1st telegraph message using dots & dashes was sent in NJ. [see Jan 6]
(MC, 1/8/02)
1839 Jan 2, French photographic pioneer Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre took the first photograph of the moon. Soon after his first photograph of people was a shoeshine scene on a Paris boulevard.
(HN, 1/2/99)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.2)(ON, 4/00, p.10)
1839 Jan 9, The Daguerreotype photo process was announced at the French Academy of Science. Louis Daguerre had the influential astronomer Dominique-Francois-Argo make an announcement at the Academy of Sciences in Paris of the daguerreotype, a photographic process using fumes of iodine to sensitize a silver plate, vapor of mercury to bring out the image, and common salt to fix the image. [See 1765-1833, Nicephore Niepce, French lithographer, and 1816].
(http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/Louis_Daguerre)(http://tinyurl.com/arl5k5)(WSJ, 9/14/95, p.A-16)(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1839 Jan 28, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), English inventor, presented his discoveries and methods of photography to the Royal Society of London. His callotype, a negative to positive process, allowed multiple reproductions of a single image for the 1st time. Talbot suggested a daguerreotype camera with extra parts to hold mercury.
(ON, 4/00, p.10)(SFC, 6/12/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 12/26/02, p.E9)
1839 Feb 24, A steam shovel was patented by William Otis, Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1839 Aug 19, At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris a new photographic process was unveiled by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre. He "was able to capture images directly onto small, silvered plates; and in England where William Henry Fox invented what he called "photogenic drawing." This process produced a negative image on paper from which positive images could be made... but it took more than an hour to take a picture and the fuzzy prints were difficult to see. The daguerreotype enabled the photographer to create a highly detailed image. The process consisted of polishing a copper plate, using iodine to sensitize it, and developing it over mercury after exposing it to light in a camera. Daguerreotypes became so popular in the United States that New York City boasted more than 70 daguerreotype studios by 1850.
(Smith., 5/95, p.72)(HNQ, 10/28/98)
1839 Sep 9, John Herschel (1792-1871), English astronomer, took the 1st glass plate photograph.
(www.getty.edu)
1839 Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) found the right formula for making rubber impervious to temperature, a combination of chemicals and heat that became know as vulcanization.
(WSJ, 7/31/02, p.D10)(ON, 6/07, p.11)
1839 Erastus Bigelow invented the 1st power loom. It doubled carpet production within a year.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1839 The photovoltaic effect, where light produces a current, was 1st noticed.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.E1)
1839 The basic idea for electrocombustion, the combination of oxygen and hydrogen to generate electricity and water, was discovered. This later provided the basis for fuel cell technology.
(Wired, 10/96, p.128)(SFC, 9/28/01, p.B9)
1840 Jan 18, "Electro-Magnetic Intelligencer", 1st US electrical journal, appeared.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1840 May 8, Alexander Wolcott patented a photographic process.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1840 Jun 20, Samuel F.B. Morse, a popular artist, patented his telegraph.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1841 Aug 21, John Hampson of New Orleans patented the Venetian blind.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1841 Sep 30, Samuel Slocum patented the stapler.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1842 Feb 21, 1st known sewing machine was patented in US by John Greenough in Wash, DC. [see 1830,1833]
(MC, 2/21/02)
1842 Aug 31, Micah Rugg patented a nuts & bolts machine.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1843 Mar 3, US Congress appropriated $30,000 "to test the practicability of establishing a system of electro-magnetic telegraphs."
(SC, 3/3/02)
1843 Aug 26, Charles Thurber patented a typewriter.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1843 Dec 4, Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894) received US patent # 3,237 for a double-effect evaporator, while overseeing the building of the device for plantation owner Theodore Packwood.
(www.answers.com/topic/norbert-rillieux)
1843 Alexander Bain, Scottish inventor, received a British patent for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs." His fax machine evolved from the telegraph technology.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfax.htm)
1844 May 1, Samuel Morse (1791-1872) sent the 1st telegraphic message as a demonstration between Washington, DC, and Baltimore [see Jan 6, 1838]. The line officially opened on May 24, 1844.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse)
1844 May 24, Samuel F.B. Morse, before a crowd of dignitaries in the chambers of the Supreme Court, tapped out the message, "What hath God wrought?" to his partner in Baltimore, Alfred Vail. Congress had appropriated $30,000 for the experimental line built by Ezra Cornell between Washington and Baltimore. American portrait artist Samuel F.B. Morse developed the technology for electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the first instantaneous form of communication. Using a key to hold open an electrical circuit for longer or shorter periods, an operator would tap out a message in a code composed of dots and dashes. Public demonstrations of the equipment were made in February 1838, but it was necessary for Morse to secure financial backing to build the first telegraph line to carry the signal over distance. In 1843, Congress appropriated the funds for a 37-mile line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. After underground telegraph wires proved unsuccessful, Morse switched to pole wires.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(HNPD, 2/6/99)(HNQ, 5/27/00)
1844 May 25, The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appeared in the Baltimore "Patriot."
(AP, 5/25/97)
1844 Jun 15, Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) received patent #3633 for the vulcanization of rubber, his process to strengthen rubber. He had perfected the process in 1839 and never took out a European patent.
(AP, 6/15/97)(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)(ON, 6/07, p.11)
1845 Mar 17, The rubber band was patented by Stephen Perry of London. [see May 17]
(MC, 3/17/02)
1845 May 17, The rubber band was patented. [see Mar 17]
(MC, 5/17/02)
1846 Nov 4, Benjamin F. Palmer of Meredith N.H. received a patent on an artificial human leg.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 11/4/01)
1846 Dec 10, Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894), African-American engineer, received a patent for the Rillieux Process for refining sugar. He won several patents for a way to refine sugar in a process that later came to be called multiple-effect distillation.
(Econ, 6/7/08, p.24)(www.aalbc.com/books/black7.htm)
1847 Oct, The German company Siemens was founded in a Berlin courtyard. Johann Georg Halske and Werner von Siemens formed their own company, Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske to develop a new design for the Wheatstone telegraph.
(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/26xq4a)(Econ, 12/3/16, p.54)
1848 Aug 15, M. Waldo Hanchett patented a dental chair.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1949 Feb 24, A V-2 WAC-Corporal was the 1st rocket to outer space. It was fired at White Sands, NM, and reached 400 km.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1849 Mar 27, Joseph Couch patented a steam-powered percussion rock drill.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1849 May 29, A patent for lifting vessels was granted to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, & some of the people some of time, but you can't fool all of the people all of time"
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)
1849 Apr 10, Walter Hunt (1796-1859), a mechanic, patented the safety pin in NYC. He sold rights for $400 to pay off a $15 debt. Hunt’s other inventions included a new stove, paper collar, ice-breaking boat, fountain pen and nail-making machine. In 2016 the safety pin gained prominence in Britain as a sign of solidarity with immigrant and minority populations facing a reported surge in hate crimes after the Brexit vote. The symbolism of the pin extended to the US following the election of Donald Trump.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_pin)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)(SFC, 4/1/00, p.B4)(AFP, 11/13/16)
1849 Dec 28, M. Jolly-Bellin discovered dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset a lamp containing turpentine and oil on his filthy clothing and saw a cleaning effect.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1850 Jul 14, The 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration took place. James Harrison of Australia designed an ice-making machine. It was an improvement on one invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834.
(MC, 7/14/02)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1850 Aug 28, The English Channel telegraph cable was laid between Dover and Cap Gris Nez.
(HTnet, 8/28/99)
1850 The US Supreme Court opined that an invention had to be something more than the work of a skilled mechanic to qualify for a patent.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.78)
1851 May 6, Dr. John Gorrie patented a "refrigeration machine."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 6, Linus Yale patented his Yale lock.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 18, The Amsterdam-Nieuwediep telegraph connection linked.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1851 Aug 12, Isaac Merritt Singer was granted a patent on his lockstitch sewing machine. He formed I.M. Singer & Co. in New York City and soon began selling machines for $100 each. In 4 years he expanded to Scotland becoming the first American int’l. company.
(AP, 8/12/97)(SSFC, 11/7/10, p.N1)
1851 Nov 11, Alvan Clark patented a telescope.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1852 Elisha Graves Otis invented a safety elevator in Yonkers, NY. Otis invented the safety elevator to brake the car to a halt if the supporting cable broke. Otis Steam Elevator Works made its 1st sale in 1854 to P.T. Barnum for display at the New York’s World Fair. In 1889 (the same year Eiffel built his Tower) the elevator met electricity. United Technologies acquired Otis in 1976. In 2001 Jason Goodwin authored "Otis, Giving Rise to the Modern City."
(HT, 5/97, p.23)(HNQ, 4/21/01)(WSJ, 10/9/01, p.A20)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1852 English mathematician and physicist George Gabriel Stokes (1819–1903) finally named and explained the phenomena of fluorescence (he named it after fluorite, a strongly fluorescent mineral). Fluorescent lighting only became commercially available in 1938.
(www.scienceclarified.com/Ex-Ga/Fluorescent-Light.html)(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
1854 Feb 11, Major streets were lit by coal gas for 1st time.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1854 Mar 7, Charles Miller patented the 1st US sewing machine to stitch buttonholes.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1854 May 30, Vermont native Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) unveiled his invention, the safety elevator at the New York World's Fair. Audiences gasped as Otis, riding on the hoist's platform, dramatically ordered the lifting rope cut. Instead of falling, the car locked safely into the elevator shaft. Prior to the 1850s there was no existing market for passenger elevators because there was no safety mechanism in the event of a cable break. In 1852 Otis was a master mechanic working at a bedstead factory in Yonkers, N.Y., when he built a hoisting machine with two sets of metal teeth at the car's sides. If the lifting rope broke, the teeth would lock into place, preventing the car from falling. Otis never realized the potential of his invention. His sons built the Otis Elevator Company, enabling the skylines of cities throughout the world to be transformed with skyscrapers.
(HNPD, 5/30/99)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1854 Aug 29, Daniel Halladay patented a self-governing windmill.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1854 The first lighthouse on Fastnet rock off of southwest Ireland was completed. Work on a replacement began in 1896. In 2004 James Morrissey authored “A History of the Fastnet Lighthouse."
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.100)
1855 Mar 27, Abraham Gesner patented kerosene.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1855 Oct 9, Isaac Singer patented sewing machine motor.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 9, Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass., patented the 1st calliope.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1856 Oct 7, Cyrus Chambers Jr. patented a folding machine that folded books and newspapers.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1856 William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, discovered the property of magneto-resistance. The change in some materials of electrical resistance under a magnetic field was later used in data storage systems.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.89)
1857 Jan 6, Patent for reducing zinc ore was granted to Samuel Wetherill in Penn.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1857 Mar 23, Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in the 5-story Haughwout and Co. building at 488 Broadway in New York City.
(www.theelevatormuseum.org/h/h-2.htm)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1857 Jun 2, James Gibbs, Va., patented a chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Sep 15, Timothy Alden of NYC patented a typesetting machine.
(www.todayinsci.com/)
1858 Feb 21, Edwin T. Holmes installed the 1st electric burglar alarm in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1858 Mar 2, Frederick Cook, New Orleans, patented a cotton-bale metallic tie.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1858 Jul 6, Lyman Blake patented a shoe manufacturing machine.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1858 Aug 5, Cyrus W. Field completed the first transatlantic cable. It linked Newfoundland to Ireland. The line went completely dead in October. William Thompson oversaw the operation at sea aboard the HMS Agamemnon, which laid half the cable. The other half was laid by the USS Niagara. The cables had been spliced at a central meeting point on June 26. A new attempt to lay newly designed cable failed in 1865. another attempt in 1866 succeeded.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)(AP, 8/5/08)(ON, 10/10, p.2)
1858 Oct 26, Hamilton Smith patented rotary washing machine.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1859 Jul 12, William Goodale patented a paper bag manufacturing machine in Mass.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1859 Sep 1, The 1st Pullman sleeping car went into service. George M. Pullman began outfitting railroad cars. His company was incorporated in 1867.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)(MC, 9/1/02)
1859 Sep 20, George Simpson patented the electric range.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1859 Gaston Plante, French physicist, invented the first lead-acid rechargeable battery.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.4)
1860 Mar 27, M.L. Byrn patented a "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew).
(MC, 3/27/02)
1860 Jul 1, Charles Goodyear (b.1800), inventor or the vulcanization process for rubber, died. In 2002 Charles Slack authored "Noble Obsession" an account of his quest to develop a form of rubber impervious to high temperatures.
(WSJ, 7/31/02, p.D10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear)
1860 Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville captured 10-second clip of a woman singing "Au Clair de la Lune," using a phonautograph, a device that created visual recordings of sound waves.
(AP, 3/28/08)
1860s Ernest Michaux, a Parisian blacksmith, invented the “velocipede," a 2-wheeled machine with pedals to drive the front wheel. It used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the boneshaker."
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)
1861 Jan 15, Elisha Otis received patent # 31,128 for his steam elevator.
(www.sterlingelevatorcons.com/history.htm)
1861 Feb 5, The kinematoscope was patented by Coleman Sellers in Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1861 Apr 8, Elisha Graves Otis (50), US elevator builder (Otis), died.
(www.famousamericans.net/elishagravesotis/)
1861 Dec 5, Gatling gun was patented. [see Oct 30, 1862, Nov 3, 1862]
(MC, 12/5/01)
1861 Felix Nadar invented a battery operated flash lamp and began exploring the sewers and catacombs of Paris.
(Econ, 12/8/12, IL p.15)
1862 Apr 8, John D. Lynde patented an aerosol dispenser.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1862 Oct 30, Dr. Richard Gatling patented a machine gun. [see Dec 5, 1861, Nov 3, 1862]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1862 Nov 3, Dr. Richard Gatling patented machine gun in Indianapolis. [see Dec 5, 1861, Oct 30, 1862]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1862 Dec 29, The bowling ball was invented.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1862 The first crude desalination plant was installed in Key West, Florida, to support military personnel at Fort Zachary Taylor.
(SFC, 5/7/15, p.D3)
1863 Jan 10, London's Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway, opened to the public. The first stretch of rail had opened the day before. It was nationalized in 1948. In 2004 Christian Wolmar authored “The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was Built and How it Changed the City Forever."
(AP, 1/10/98)(HN, 1/10/99)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.81)(AP, 1/9/13)
1863 Jan 13, Thomas Crapper pioneered a one-piece pedestal flushing toilet.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1863 Feb 9, A fire extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1863 Apr 14, William Bullock patented a continuous-roll printing press.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1863 Nov 23, A patent was granted for a process of making color photographs.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1863 Pierre Lallemont, French mechanic, created a bicycle driven by foot pedals attached to the front wheel. In 1865 he moved to the US and applied for a patent, which was granted in Nov. 1866.
(ON, 2/10, p.1)
1864 Mar 1, Louis Ducos du Hauron patented a movie machine that was never built.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1865 Aug 2, A trans Atlantic Cable being laid by SS Great Eastern snapped and was lost.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1865 Henry Bessemer, English mechanical engineer, filed a patent to cast strips of steel directly, rather than as large ingots to be reheated and shaped.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.65)
1866 Mar 27, Andrew Rankin patented the urinal.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1866 Jul 27, Cyrus W. Field finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe. A previous cable in 1858 burned out after only a few weeks of use.
(AP, 7/27/08)
1866 Oct 2, J. Osterhoudt patented a tin can with key opener.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1866 Nov 20, Pierre Lallemont, French mechanic, was granted a US patent for his velocipede, a rotary crank bicycle.
(http://www.todayinsci.com/11/11_20.htm)(ON, 2/10, p.1)
1867 Jul 16, D.R. Averill patented a ready-mixed paint.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1867 Jul 16, Joseph Monier patented reinforced concrete.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1867 Oct 11, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule applied for a patent on their new direct action typewriter. Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890), Carlos Glidden (1834-1877) and Samuel Soule had invented the typewriter in the 1860s. Charles E. Weller coined the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" to check out the first typewriter built in Milwaukee.
(ON, 12/10, p.7)(SFC, 1/29/97, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 3/22/98, Z1 p.8)
1867 Nov 25, Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1867 Edward Calahan of American Telegraph Company developed the first stock ticker.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A8)
1867 Ernest Michaux, a Parisian blacksmith, added pedals and brakes to an iron “velocipede," a 2-wheeled machine that used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the boneshaker."
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1868 Jan 16, The refrigerated railroad car was patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1868 Mar 5, A stapler was patented in England by C.H. Gould.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1868 Jul 14, Alvin J. Fellows patented a tape measure.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1868 The world’s first traffic light was installed outside Britain’s House of Parliament. The gaslit signal controlled the flow of London’s carriages.
(Econ, 8/5/17, p.45)
1869 Oct 16, A hotel in Boston became the 1st to have indoor plumbing.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1868 Oct 11, Thomas Edison patented his 1st invention, an electric voice machine.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1868 Nov 23, Louis Ducos du Hauron patented trichrome color photo process.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1869 Feb 2, James Oliver invented the removable tempered steel plow blade.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1869 Apr 6, John and Isaiah Hyatt applied for a new patent using collodion to manufacture billiard balls. They later named their product celluloid. It was similar to that made by English inventor Alexander Parkes, who patented the process in England in 1855. The new plastic could be molded and mass produced, but was very flammable and exploded when struck with excessive force. [see Jun 15]
(HNQ, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(MC, 4/6/02)(PCh, 1992, p.467)(ON, 11/03, p.3)
1869 Apr 13, Steam power brake was patented by George Westinghouse.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1869 Aug 10, O.B. Brown patented a moving picture projector.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1869 Jun 8, Ives W. McGaffey of Chicago patented the 1st vacuum cleaner.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1869 Dec 28, William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patented chewing gum.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1869 Frenchman Eugene Meyer invented wire wheels with individually adjusted spokes.
(www.everybicycletire.com/Encyclopedia/History.aspx)(ON, 2/10, p.2)
1870 A Rhode Island company began making the Howell torpedo, the first to follow a track without leaving a wake. It made 50 by 1889 when a rival company copied and surpassed the design.
(SSFC, 5/19/13, p.A7)
1871 Jan 17, The 1st cable car patented by Andrew S. Hallidie. It began service in 1873.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1871 Dec 19, Albert L. Jones patented corrugated paper in NYC.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1871 Fr. Joseph Neri, SJ, demonstrated the 1st electric light in SF from a window of St. Ignatius on San Francisco’s Market St. He used a large electro-magnetic device, the Alliance Machine, that had been used in the 2nd Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War for lighting defensive work.
(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1871 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev developed the periodic classification system of the elements, presenting a periodic table listing the elements in 1871. Born in Siberia, the last of 17 children, Mendeleyev eventually found success in academia. While writing a basic textbook on chemistry in the 1860s, he attempted to find a way to classify the elements. His periodic system gained acceptance over time. His periodic table left gaps for elements as yet undiscovered, but he correctly predicted the properties of three of those elements. The table and his concepts of periodic law gained more acceptance with the approach of the 20th century, forming the basis for modern chemistry.
(HNQ, 1/4/01)
1872 Feb 20, A hydraulic electric elevator was patented by Cyrus Baldwin.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Feb 20, Luther Crowell patented a machine for manufacturing paper bags.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Feb 20, Silas Noble and JP Cooley patented a toothpick manufacturing machine.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Mar 5, George Westinghouse Jr. patented triple air brake for trains.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1872 Mar 26, Thomas J. Martin patented a fire extinguisher.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1872 Apr 2, George B. Brayton patented a gasoline powered engine.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1872 Jul 20, Mahlon Loomis patented a wireless radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1872 Aug 1, The first long-distance gas pipeline in the U.S. was completed. Designed for natural gas, the two-inch pipe ran five miles from Newton Wells to Titusville, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1872 Oct 29, J.S. Risdon patented a metal windmill.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1873 Mar 1, E. Remington and Sons (1816–1896), a firearms manufacturer founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, started manufacturing the first commercial typewriter. James Densmore and George Yost contracted Remington to build 1,000 machines designed by Christopher Latham Sholes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons)(ON, 12/10, p.8)
1873 Aug 3, Inventor Andrew S. Hallidie successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco. Hallidie made the first cable car trip aboard his Nob Hill Line traveling down Clay St. from Knob Hill to Kearney and then back up.
(www.sfmuseum.org/bio/hallidie.html)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A16)(AP, 8/2/06)(SFC, 5/30/15, p.C2)
1873 Aug 26, Lee De Forest (d.1961), inventor of the audion vacuum tube, was born in Council bluffs, Iowa. He is considered the father of radio.
(WUD, 1994 p.379)( http://www.britannica.com)
1873 Nov 4, Dentist John Beers of SF patented the gold crown.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1873 Ernst Abbe (1840-1905), German physicist, noted that a microscope cannot properly see any object smaller than half the wavelength of the light it uses.
(Econ, 10/11/14, p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Abbe)
1874 Aug 11, Harry S. Parmelee patented a sprinkler head.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1874 Jul 24, James Woodward and a colleague by the name of Mathew Evans, described in the patent as a "Gentleman" but in reality a hotel keeper, filed a patent for the Woodward and Evan's Light.
(http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/first_electric_light_bulb.htm)
1875 Jan 26, Electric dental drill was patented by George F. Green.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1875 Feb 4, Ludwig Prandtl, physicist (father of aerodynamics), was born in Germany.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1875 Alexander Graham Bell traveled to Washington and filed patent applications for the multiple telegraph and the autograph telegraph.
(ON, 1/03, p.2)
1875 Jun 2, Alexander Graham Bell made his 1st complex sound transmission.
(ON, 1/03, p.2)
1875 Nov 16, William Bonwill patented dental mallet to impact gold into cavities.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1876 Feb 19, Gardiner Hubbard submitted Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for a telephone.
(ON, 1/03, p.4)
1876 Mar 7, Patent #174,465 was issued to Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) for his telephone. In 2008 Seth Shulman authored “The Telephone Gambit," the story behind Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone patent #174,465. Shulman made a case that Bell stole the critical technology for making the telephone work from Elisha Gray, who had filed his own papers just hours after Bell.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(HN, 3/7/98)(AP, 3/7/98)(WSJ, 1/16/08, p.D10)
1876 Mar 10, Alexander Graham Bell made what was, in effect, the first telephone call. He found a way of converting words into electrical current and back again and sent his first message using his new variable-liquid resistance transmitter. Bell's telephone caused the current to vary smoothly in proportion to the pressure created on a microphone by human speech and got a patent. His assistant, in an adjoining room in Boston, heard Bell say over the experimental device: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." On a page from his notebook, dated March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell described the first successful experiment with the telephone. Bell wrote: "I then shouted into M (the mouthpiece) the following sentence: ‘Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.’ To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said."
(I&I, Penzias, p.97)(CFA, '96, p.42)(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)(HNPD, 3/10/99)
1876 Jun 25, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brazil's Emperor Dom Pedro was among the witnesses.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1876 Jul 4, Fr. Joseph Neri, SJ, introduced electric lights on Market Street in SF.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1876 Dec 5, Daniel Stillson (Mass) patented the 1st practical pipe wrench.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 Halcyon Skinner, American inventor, perfected the Axminster loom.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1876 The high-wheel bicycle was introduced in the US at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
(ON, 2/10, p.3)
1877 Feb 12, The 1st news dispatch by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1877 Jul 18, Thomas Edison recorded the human voice for the first time. He shouted “Haloo" into a mouthpiece and played back a moving tape.
(HN, 7/18/01)(ON, 2/07, p.11)
1877 Nov 21, Inventor Thomas A. Edison announced the invention of his phonograph.
(V.D.-H.K.p.270)(AP, 11/21/97)
1877 Dec 6, Thomas A. Edison made the first sound-recording when he recited "Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 Dec 24, Thomas A. Edison filed a patent application for his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 The Bell Telephone Co. was formed.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1877 Erastus Bigelow introduced a machine-made broadloom carpet in the US.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1877 William Voss and his brothers Fred and John Voss established the Voss Bros. Manufacturing Co. in Davenport, Iowa. Voss had invented one of the first washing machines with early models operated by a hand crank or foot pedal. Voss motor-driven machines were introduced in 1905. during the Depression Voss washing machines sold for $39.95.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1878 Jan 28, The 1st telephone exchange was established at New Haven, Conn.
(AP, 1/28/04)
1878 Feb 19, Thomas Edison received a U.S. patent for "an improvement in phonograph or speaking machines."
(AP, 2/19/07)
1878 Feb 21, The first telephone directory was issued, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven (New Harbor), Conn. It contained the names of its 50 subscribers. As of 2007 regulators began granting telecommunications companies the go-ahead to stop mass-printing residential phone books.
(AP, 2/21/98)(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W7)(AP, 11/11/10)
1878 Oct 18, Edison made electricity available for household usage.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1878 Dec 26, The 1st US store to install electric lights was in Philadelphia.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1878 Lyman C. Byce, Petaluma poultry pioneer, began experimenting with an incubator to hatch baby chicks.
(Ind, 4/26/03, p.5A)
1878 The 1st electric street lights were deployed alongside Holburn Viaduct in London, England.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.79)
1878 In Italy the world’s first spectacles factory was built at Belluno.
(Econ, 4/16/11, p.70)
1879 Feb 5, Joseph Swan demonstrated a light bulb using carbon glow.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1879 May 31, 1st electric railway opened at the Berlin Trades Exposition.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1879 Sep 23, Richard Rhodes invented a hearing aid called the Audiophone.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1879 Oct 21, Thomas Edison perfected his carbonized cotton filament light bulb after 14 months of testing at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was the first incandescent electric lamp. The bulb burned for about 13 ½ hours.
(AP, 10/21/97)(HN, 10/21/02)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1879 Dec 31, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1879 James Ritty (1836-1918) and his brother invented the 1st cash register. It was to combat stealing by bartenders in his Dayton, Ohio, saloon. The first model looked like a clock, but instead of the hands indicating hours and minutes, they indicated dollars and cents. Behind the dial two adding discs accumulated the total of the amounts recorded. Known as "the incorruptible cashier," with no cash drawer, it would show anyone within sight how much had been recorded. They received a patent Jan 30, 1883.
(www.inventors.about.com)(www.uspto.gov/go/kids/kidjan.htm)
1879 Photogravure was invented. It involved the transfer of photographic images onto a copper plate by acid-etching. The plate is then inked and pressed by hand onto artist's paper for a print of exceptional detail.
(WSJ, 1/28/99, p.A1)
1879 George Eastman of Rochester, New York, devised a ready-to-use dry plate for photography. Eastman sought to improve the chemistry and the processes of photography that had, for 40 years, required subjects to remain perfectly still for exposure times of up to a minute.
(HN, 7/12/99)
1879 A cylindrical lump of platinum-iridium alloy was cast in Hatton Garden, England, and then dispatched to the Int’l. Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Sevres, France, as the standard measure for one kilogram. An ingot for the meter was deposited in 1889.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.79)
1880 Jan 21, 1st US sewage disposal system, separate from storm drains, was established in Memphis.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1880 Jan 27, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
(AP, 1/27/98)
1880 Mar 23, John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patented the grain crushing mill. This mill allowed flour production to increase by 70 percent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1880 Mar 31, Wabash, Ind., became the first town completely illuminated by electrical lighting.
(AP, 3/31/97)(HN, 3/31/98)
1880 Jul 23, 1st commercial hydroelectric power planet began in Grand Rapids, Mich.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1880 Aug 24, Joshua L. Cowen, inventor of the electric train, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1880 Oct 5, The first ball-point pen was patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.
(HN, 10/5/00)
1880 James Albert Bonsack (1859-1924) invented the first cigarette rolling machine. He received 2 patents for it in 1881. Bonsack's machine was able to produce 120,000 cigarettes in ten hours, revolutionizing the cigarette industry. In 2007 Allan M. Brandt authored “The Cigarette Century: The Rise and Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Albert_Bonsack)
1881 May 16, World's 1st electric tram went into service in Lichterfelder near Berlin.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1881 Aug, John Dolbeer, a founding partner of the Dolbeer and Carson Lumber Company in Eureka, California, invented the "steam donkey" logging engine. The patent (number: 256553) was issued April 18, 1882. The steam-powered winch, or logging engine, widely used in past logging operations, though not limited to logging, were also found in the mining, maritime, and nearly any other industry that needed a powered winch.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_donkey)
1881 Sep 13, Lewis Latimer invented and patented an electric lamp with a carbon filament.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1881 Oct 11, David Houston patented roll film for cameras.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1882 Mar 9, False teeth were patented. [see 1822]
(MC, 3/9/02)
1882 Apr 3, Wood block alarm was invented. When alarm rang it dropped 20 wood blocks.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1882 Sep 4, Thomas Edison displayed the first practical electrical lighting system. He successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York City with the world’s 1st electricity generating plant.
(MC, 9/4/01)(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.R6)
1882 Edison Electric installed a power grid in Manhattan that wrecked telephone reception.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.13)
1883 Feb 8, Louis Waterman began experiments to invent fountain pen.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1883 Feb 27, Oscar Hammerstein patented the 1st cigar-rolling machine.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1883 Mar 19, Jan Matzeliger invented the 1st machine to manufacture entire shoes.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 24, Long-distance telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York. [see Mar 27, 1884]
(AP, 3/23/97)
1884 Mar 27, The first long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York City. [see Mar 24, 1883]
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1884 May 29, 1st steam cable trams started in Highgate.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1884 Oct 14, Transparent paper-strip photographic film was patented by George Eastman. He had invented a flexible paper-backed film that could be wound on rollers. To encourage amateur photography and film sales, Eastman developed a simple black box camera that cost $25 and came already loaded with a 100-exposure roll of film. When the roll was used up, the entire No. 1 Kodak camera was shipped back to Eastman's factory for developing and reloading, at a cost of only $10. Eastman's photographic improvements proved successful, with 13,000 cameras sold in 1888. The roll holder was designed by William Hall Walker. Eastman renamed his corporation the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.
(HN, 7/12/99)(HN, 10/14/00)(ON, 3/05, p.11)
1884 Herman Hollerith, a German-American, found a way to store information through holes on cards.
(WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A20)
1885 Mar 20, John Matzeliger of Suriname patented a shoe lacing machine.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1885 Mar 26, The Eastman Film Co. of Rochester, N.Y., manufactured the first commercial motion picture film. George Eastman had perfected a method for bonding photographic emulsion onto thin strips of celluloid.
(AP, 3/25/98)(HN, 3/25/98)(ON, 11/03, p.5)
1885 Aug 29, Gottlieb Daimler received a German patent for a motorcycle.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1885 In England John Starley introduced the safety bicycle. It had 2 wheels of the same size and pedals attached to a chain to the rear wheel.
(Hem, 8/96, p.34)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.70)
1886 Jan 26, Karl Benz patented the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1886 Jan 29, 1st successful gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe. [see Jan 26]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1886 Feb 23, An aluminum manufacturing process was developed.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1886 Mar 6, The 1st US alternating current power plant started in Great Barrington, MA.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1886 Sep 14, George K. Anderson of Memphis, Tennessee, patented typewriter ribbon.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltypewriter.htm)
1886 Nov 30, 1st commercially successful AC electric power plant opened in Buffalo.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1886 LaVerne Noyes (1849-1919) invented his akromotor, a device that converted wind to electricity and proved to be immensely useful to American farmers.
(http://eos.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/donors2.html#d)
1887 Mar 8, Everett Horton of Connecticut patented a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1887 May 2, Hannibal W. Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1887 Aug 2, Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1887 Aug 31, Inventor Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his Kinetoscope," a device which produced moving pictures. [see Apr 14, 1894]
(AP, 8/31/97)
1887 Oct 11, A. Miles patented the elevator.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1887 Nov 8, Emile Berliner, a German immigrant working in Washington D.C., patented his gramophone, a successful system of sound recording. Berliner was the first inventor to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat disks or records.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gramophone.htm)
1887 Frank Brownell, the maker of George Eastman’s roll holder, created for Eastman a simple box camera. Eastman named it “Kodak" and patented the name with the camera. [see 1888]
(ON, 3/05, p.12)
1888 Apr 24, Eastman Kodak was formed. The company produced the Kodak Camera: “You press the button – we do the rest."
(HN, 4/24/98)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/2/06, p.B10)
1888 May 7, George Eastman patented his Kodak box camera.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1888 Jul, Harold P. Brown, on behalf of Thomas Edison, zapped dogs at Columbia College to demonstrate the supposed danger of alternating current, a mode of power favored by Edison’s rival George Westinghouse. The NY state legislature had recently designated electrocution as the official means for capital punishment.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A26)(ON, 10/04, p.7)
1888 Aug 7, The revolving door, the brainchild of Philadelphia inventor Theophilus Van Kannel (1841-1919), was patented. In 1889 he founded the Van Kannel Revolving Door Company.
(http://tinyurl.com/mdqrqxs)
1888 Aug 13, John Logie Baird, inventor (father of TV), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1888 Sep 7, An incubator was used for the first time on a premature infant.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1888 Oct 30, John J. Loud patented a ballpoint pen.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1888 Dec 7, John Boyd Dunlop (1840-1921), Scotland-born inventor, patented a pneumatic tire. Two years after he was granted the patent Dunlop was officially informed that it was invalid as Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson (1822–1873), had patented the idea in France in 1846 and in the US in 1847. Dunlop's patent was later declared invalid on the basis of Thomson's prior art.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_Dunlop)
1888 Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), Serbian-American inventor, patented his rugged alternating current induction motor.
(Econ, 6/4/11, TQ p.13)
1889 Jan 8, Dr. Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), statistician for the US Census Bureau, received the 1st US patent for a tabulating machine. It resembled Charles Babagge’s Analytical Engine, but used electromagnetic relays instead of metal gears.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)(ON, 5/05, p.7)
1889 Mar 8, Jens/John Ericsson (85), Swedish-US, engineer (fire extinguisher), died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1889 Apr 1, The first dishwashing machine was marketed (in Chicago).
(OTD)
1889 Apr 6, George Eastman placed the Kodak Camera on sale for 1st time.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1889 Aug 10, Dan Rylands patented a screw cap.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1889 Aug 13, The first coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Conn. A foreman had refused to let Gray call his sick wife from the company phone.
(SFEC, 10/22/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 8/13/08)
1889 Aug 23, The 1st ship-to-shore wireless message was received in US in SF.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1889 Dec 24, Daniel Stover and William Hance patented a bicycle with back pedal brake.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1890 Nov 11, D. McCree patented a portable fire escape.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1890 Aug 6, Convicted murderer William Kemmler became the 1st person to be executed in the electric chair. He was put to death at Auburn State Prison in New York for murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. In 2003 Jill Jonnes authored "Empires of Light," and account of how Edison, Tesla and Westinghouse brought electric power to public use. In 2003 Mark Essig authored "Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death."
(AP, 8/6/97)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC, 8/6/02)(WSJ, 8/19/03, p.D5)(Econ, 9/20/03, p.81)
1891 Apr 1, The London-Paris telephone connection opened.
(OTD)
1891 Aug 24, Thomas Edison filed a patent for the motion picture camera.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1891 Nov 10, Granville T. Woods patented an electric railway.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1891 Dec 29, Edison patented the "transmission of signals electrically" (radio).
(MC, 12/29/01)
1891 The Thomas Houston Electric Co., the Thomas Houston International Electric Co., and Edison General Electric merged. Houston had made its fortune selling AC powered arc lights for city streets. In 1892 the new company was incorporated as General Electric.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1892 Jan 5, The 1st successful auroral photograph made.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1892 Feb 2, Bottle cap with cork seal was patented by William Painter in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1892 Mar 15, Jesse W. Reno, inventor, patented the 1st escalator in NYC.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1892 Apr 12, George C. Blickensderfer received the first US patent for a portable typewriter.
(www.todayinsci.com/4/4_12.htm)
1892 May 19, Charles Brady King of Detroit invented the pneumatic hammer. [see Jan 30, 1894]
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1892 May 20, George Sampson patented a clothes dryer.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1892 May 22, Dr. Washington Sheffield invented toothpaste tube.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1892 Jul 5, Andrew Beard was issued a patent for the rotary engine.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1892 Aug 2, Charles A. Wheeler patented a prototype of the escalator. [see Mar 15]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1892 Sep 26, The Diamond Match Co. patented book matches. [see Sep 27]
(MC, 9/26/01)
1892 Sep 27, Book matches were patented by Diamond Match Company. [see Sep 26]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1892 Oct 18, The first long-distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was formally opened. It could only handle one call at a time.
(AP, 10/18/07)
1892 Dec 20, Pneumatic automobile tire was patented in Syracuse, NY.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1892 The 1st electrical hearing aid was invented. It weighed several pounds.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, Par p.4)
1893 Feb 28, Edward Acheson of Pennsylvania, patented an abrasive he named "carborundum."
(MC, 2/28/02)
1893 Mar 27, The American Bell telephone Company made its first long distance telephone call to its branch office in New York.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1893 Aug 1, A machine for making shredded wheat breakfast cereal was patented.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1893 Aug 29, The “clasp locker," a clumsy slide fastener and forerunner to the zipper was first patented by Whitcomb L. Judson. He demonstrated it at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He invented an improved C-Curity fastener in 1902.
(Wired, Dec., ‘95, p.138)(SFEC, 6/6/99, Z1 p.10)(ON, 7/04, p.3)
1893 Dec 5, 1st electric car was built in Toronto. It could go 15 miles between charges.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1893 Dec 24, Henry Ford completed his 1st useful gas motor.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1893 The first electric bread toasters were made in England about this time.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.G4)
1894 Jan 30, Pneumatic hammer was patented by Charles King of Detroit. [see May 19, 1892]
(MC, 1/30/02)
1894 Mar 24, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent product safety certification organization, conducted its first test on non-combustible insulation material after founder William Henry Merrill opened the Electrical Bureau of the National Board of fire Underwriters.
(www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/corporate/aboutul/history/)
1894 Apr 14, Thomas Edison made his first public showing of the kinetoscope. The first Kinetoscope Parlor opened in New York City where you could view moving film through a magnifying lens. Thomas Edison invented the Kinetograph in 1889, a cinema camera that utilized celluloid roll film that had been developed by George Eastman in 1888. The Kinetoscope, developed by Edison in 1891, was a peephole viewer in which the developed film moved continuously under a magnifying glass. The Cinematographe and Vitascope were later machines that actually projected images onto a screen. The Stroboscope and Phenakistoscope were devices developed in 1832, pre-dating photography, that attempted to show apparent motion from a series of drawings on a revolving disc.
(HN, 4/14/98)(HNQ, 2/17/00)
1894 Sep, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian engineer, built his first radio equipment. By the end of this month he could flit a switch and make a bell ring at the other end of his attic workspace. Originally, radio or radiotelegraphy was called 'wireless telegraphy', which was shortened to 'wireless'. The prefix radio- in the sense of wireless transmission was first recorded in the word radioconductor, coined by the French physicist Edouard Branly in 1897.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(ON, 11/99, p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio)
1894 Oct 30, Daniel Cooper patented a time clock.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1895 Feb 13, A moving picture projector was patented.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1895 Feb 26, Michael Owens of Toledo, OH., patented a glass-blowing machine.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1895 Apr 11, Anaheim, Ca., completed its new electric light system.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1895 Nov 5, George B. Selden of Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for a gasoline-driven automobile.
(AP, 11/5/97)(MC, 11/5/01)
1895 Nov 8, Wilhelm Konrad von Röntgen (50), German physicist, discovered X-rays.
(ON, 11/04, p.6)(www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/25/2/25-2-assmus.pdf)
1896 Jan 12, The 1st X-ray photo on record in the US was made by Dr. Henry Louis Smith at Davidson, NC. Dr. Henry Smith shot a bullet into the hand of a dead human body and made a 15 minute x-ray exposure to reveal the bullet.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 1/12/02)
1896 Jun 30, W.S. Hadaway patented an electric stove.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1896 Aug 11, Harvey Hubbell patented an electric light bulb socket with a pull chain.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1896 Aug 20, Dial telephone was patented.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1897 May 14, Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph.
(HN, 5/14/98)
1897 Aug 31, Thomas Edison patented his movie camera (Kinetograph).
(MC, 8/31/01)
1897 Nov 15, The electricity plant at Niagara Falls opened sending AC power 26 miles to Buffalo, NY. It contained AC generators built by Westinghouse Electric and transformers built by General Electric under license from Westinghouse Electric.
(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1897 Nov 23, A pencil sharpener was patented by J.L. Love.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1897 Dec 16, The 1st submarine with an internal combustion engine was demonstrated.
(MC, 12/16/01)
1897 Adolphe Chaillet, French inventor and US immigrant, developed a coiled filament carbon lamp that burned brighter than existing models. He met John C. Fish of Shelby, Ohio and began an association that was to be the start of the Shelby Electric Company. In 1901 a Shelby bulb was installed in a Livermore, Ca., firehouse. Though it was moved a few times, as of 2011 it was still working.
(www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohscogs/shelbymuseum/ShelbyMuseum3.html)(SSFC, 2/6/11, p.C1)
1898 Feb 8, John Ames Sherman patented the 1st envelope folding & gumming machine in Mass.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1898 Jul 13, Guglielmo Marconi patented his radio.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1898 Aug 16, Edwin Prescott patented a roller coaster.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1898 Sep 13, Hannibal Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1898 Charles Fey built the 3-reeled Card Bell, the first machine to dispense coins as prizes.
(Econ, 7/10/10, SR p.10)
1898 Otis Steam Elevator Works merged with 14 other elevator makers to form the Otis Elevator Company. It later became a subsidiary of United Technologies.
(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1899 Jan 24, The rubber heel was patented by Humphrey O'Sullivan.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1899 Mar 27, The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1899 May 9, A lawn mower was patented.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1899 Oct 3, J.S. Thurman patented a motor-driven vacuum cleaner.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1899 Oct 10, I.R. Johnson patented the bicycle frame.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1900 Apr 11, US Navy's 1st submarine made its debut.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1900 Nov 30, A German engineer patented front-wheel drive for automobiles.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1900 Nickel-cadmium battery cells were developed about this time.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1900 Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian living in Germany, invented the paper clip.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1901 Aug 30, Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner. [see 1869]
(MC, 8/30/01)
1901 Dec 11, Marconi sent his 1st transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall, England to Newfoundland, Canada. The first transmission failed, but another the next day succeeded.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/1701461.stm)
1901 Dec 12, Italian scientist and engineer Guglielmo Marconi received the first long-distance radio transmission in St. John's, Newfoundland. Electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming transmitted the Morse code signal for "s" from across the Atlantic Ocean in England and Marconi heard it--three short clicks--through a radio speaker. Marconi had begun experimenting with radiotelegraphy around 1895, and he realized that messages could be transmitted over much greater distances by using grounded antennae on the radio transmitter and receiver. A few years after the successful transmission with Fleming, Marconi opened the first commercial wireless telegraph service.
(HNPD, 12/12/98)
1901 The Victor Talking Machine Co. was founded in Camden, NJ. It introduced the Victrola with an internal horn, rather than an external one, in 1906. The company was sold to RCA in 1929.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1902 Mar 25, Irving W. Colburn patented a sheet glass drawing machine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1903 Mar 10, Harry Gammeter of Cleveland patented a multigraph duplicating machine.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1903 Mar 29, A regular news service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1903 Nov 24, Clyde Coleman of NYC patented an automobile electric starter.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville, lying prone at the 605-pound plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The momentous events of that day received little press attention, since the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American Experience." In 2015 David McCullough authored “the Wright Brothers."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD, 12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.B8)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.78)
1903 M. H. Kuhn founded The M.H. Kuhn Company in Rochester, NY, in 1903. In 1906 it became the Haloid Company (later Xerox) with George C. Seager as President.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8ebt9gx)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made his 1st airplane flight.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1904 Nov 9, 1st airplane flight to last more than 5 minutes.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1904 Nov 15, King C. Gillette patented his Gillette razor blade.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1904 Glenn Curtiss, a motorcycle builder in Hammondsport, NY, began making gasoline-burning aircraft engines for dirigibles that Tom Baldwin was building in California.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Einstein presented his theory of relativity declaring that the very measurement of time intervals is affected by the motion of the observer. He proposed that light is itself quantized, or particle-like, to explain how electrons were emitted when light hit certain metals. He presented four papers, the first on Brownian motion, the second was on the composition of light, the third proposed the Special Theory of Relativity, and the fourth established the equivalence of mass and energy.
(NG, March 1990, J. Boslough p. 118), (NG, May 1985, J. Boslough, p. 642), (V.D.-H.K.p.325-326)
1906 Jan, Lee De Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, a two-electrode device for detecting electromagnetic waves, a variant of the Fleming valve invented two years earlier. A year later, he filed a patent for a 3-electrode device that was a much more sensitive detector of electromagnetic waves. It was granted US Patent 879,532 in February 1908 and paved the way for the radio and television industry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest)(SSFC, 6/26/11, p.42)
1906 Apr 11, Einstein introduced his Theory of Relativity. [see 1905]
(MC, 4/11/02)
1906 Aug 22, The 1st Victor Victrola was manufactured.
(MC, 8/22/02)(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1906 Oct 25, US inventor Lee de Forest patented the "Audion," a 3-diode amplification valve which proved a pioneering development in radio and broadcasting.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1906 The Haloid Co. was founded in Rochester, New York (home of Kodak). It was a photographic paper supplier and later became the Xerox Corp.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox)(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)
1906 Charles F. Kettering designed the first cash register powered by an electric motor.
(www.ncr.com/history/history.htm)
1907 Jan 15, 3-element vacuum tube was patented by Dr. Lee De Forest.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1907 Jun 4, Automatic washer and dryer was introduced.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1907 Jul 15, The London Electrobus Company began picking up passengers in the world’s biggest trials of battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in 1909. It suffered from an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny, a Canadian music-hall artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a worthless patent that caused investors to demand the return of some 80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1907 Leo Baekeland of Yonkers, NY, invented Bakelite, a hard plastic. [see 1909]
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1907 Whiting & Davis Co. of Plainville, Mass., established in 1896, developed a chain mail mesh machine about this time and became the world’s largest manufacturer of mesh products.
(SFC, 7/11/07, p.G4)(http://bagladyemporium.com/BLU/index.php?n=Main.WhitingDavisCo)
1907 The phenomenon of electroluminescence was first observed in a piece of Silicon Carbide (SiC) by Henry Joseph Round (1881-1966), an English electronics engineer.
(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.26)(www.wavicle.biz/led_history.html)
1907 In France the physicist Georges Claude discovered that high voltage electricity shot through certain gases radiated color. He patented a neon tube in 1909.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.T6)
1908 Jan 12, A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1908 Mar 2, Gabriel Lippman introduced the new three-dimensional color photography at the Academy of Sciences.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1908 May 12, Wireless Radio Broadcasting was patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1908 May 21, The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) launched their 2nd airplane, called White Wing, equipped with aelerons, a mechanism proposed by Alexander Graham Bell, to steer the craft. Pilot Glenn Curtiss flew over 1000 feet and landed safely.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Dec 29, A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake in Clintonville, Wisc.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1908 The US Supreme Court ruled that player-piano rolls based on copyrighted music are not a copyright violation but a piece of machinery.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1908 Gideon Sundback, Swedish-born engineer working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey, designed a new fastener, the “Plako," for use in the placket of a woman’s skirt.
(ON, 7/04, p.5)
1909 Jan 23, The 1st radio rescue at sea took place.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1909 Feb 16, 1st subway car with side doors went into service in NYC.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1909 Mar 18, Einar Dessau of Denmark used a short-wave transmitter to converse with a government radio post about six miles away in what is believed to have been the first broadcast by a "ham" operator.
(AP, 3/18/97)
1909 Dec 7, Dr. Leo H. Baekeland patented Bakelite, the 1st completely synthetic plastic thermosetting plastic. [see 1907]
(HNQ, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(MC, 12/7/01)
1909 A US federal copyright law was passed that allowed composers and music publishers to demand royalty payments for any public performance of copyrighted material. Protection was extended to player-piano rolls and the phonograph.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1909-1910 German chemists Fritz Haber (1868-1934) and Carl Bosch (1874-1940) developed the Haber process (Haber-Bosch process), an artificial nitrogen fixation process that became the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process)
1910 Apr 2, Karl Harris perfected the process for the artificial synthesis of rubber.
(HN, 4/2/98)
1910 Aug 27, Thomas Edison demonstrated the first "talking" pictures using a phonograph in his New Jersey laboratory.
(HN, 8/27/01)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of a twin-engined airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1910 The US federal regulator for rail took on the regulation of telephony.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.86)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Oct 4, The 1st public elevator began service at London's Earl's Court Metro Station.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1912 Apr 6, Cadillac adopted an electric self-starter. Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958), as president of Delco, introduced the electric-starter on the 1912 Cadillac.
(www.todayinsci.com/4/4_06.htm)(http://local.aaca.org/bntc/mileposts/1912.htm)
1912 Feb 14, The 1st US submarines with diesel engines were commissioned at Groton, Ct.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1912 Apr 10, The first wireless transmission was received on an airplane.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1912 Jul 16, A Naval torpedo, launched from an airplane, was patented by B.A. Fiske.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1912 Harry C. Heath (d.1962) invented a new siren capable of an instant blast. It was referred to as the 1st-ever electric siren. A Heath-designed siren was used in the SF Ferry Building from 1918-1972.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A22)
1913 Franz Schneider patented a gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great Britain. In 1915 it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire bullets through an airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913 Frank Shuman, American inventor, created the first large solar pumping station in Meadi, Egypt.
(Econ, 6/6/09, TQ p.23)
1913 Germany-based BASF discovered how to use the Haber-Bosch process" to mass produce fertilizer.
(Econ, 9/17/16, p.63)
1913 Italy built the world’s first geothermal power station at Larderello, Tuscany. By 2015 geothermal energy met 27% of the region’s needs.
(Econ, 9/19/15, p.49)
1914 Apr 14, Stacy G. Carkhuff patented a non-skid tire pattern.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1914 Apr 28, W.H. Carrier was issued a patent for a method of “dew point control," crucial to the development of automatic air cooling systems. In 1923 he invented an air-conditioning system powerful enough for installation at movie theaters.
(http://dealscape.thedealblogs.com/2006/04/this_date_in_deal_history_firs.php)(ON, 8/07, p.11)
1914 Jul 29, Transcontinental telephone service began with the first phone conversation between New York and San Francisco.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1914 Oct 13, Garrett Morgan invented and patented the gas mask.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1915 Jan 19, The neon tube sign was patented by George Claude.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1915 Jan 25, The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated transcontinental telephone service in the United States. Bell placed the first ceremonial cross-continental call from New York to his old colleague Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)(AP, 1/25/98)(HN, 1/25/99)
1915 Feb 7, 1st wireless message sent from a moving train to a station was received.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 26, The 1st flame-thrower was used by the Germans at Malancourt, Argonnen.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1915 May 24, Thomas Edison invented the telescribe to record telephone conversations.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1915 Oct 19, The US Patent Office granted John Van Wormer a patent for his "paper bottle." His patent was later acquired by the American Paper Bottle Company. The first paper milk carton was introduced in 1933.
(www.planetark.org/cartons/carthist.html)
1915 Oct 21, The 1st transatlantic radio-telephone message was transmitted from Arlington, Va., to Paris.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1915 In Japan Tokuji Hayakawa developed an improved mechanical pencil. His company became known as the Sharp Corp.
(Econ, 3/5/11, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/4thh7ke)
1916 May 11, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was presented.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1916 Jul 9, The 1st cargo submarine to cross Atlantic arrived in US from Germany.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1917 Mar 20, Gideon Sundback, Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber galoshes. In 1994 Robert Friedel authored “Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty."
(ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)
1918 May 20, The 1st electrically propelled warship (New Mexico).
(MC, 5/20/02)
1918 Nov 7, Goddard demonstrated tube-launched solid propellant rockets.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1919 May 29, Charles P. Strite of Minnesota filed for a patent for a pop-up toaster. His US patent: 1,394,450 was issued October 18, 1921.
(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/toaster.htm)
1919 The 1st rotary-dial telephones were installed in Norfolk, Va.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1919 French inventor Andre Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplee filed a patent application for an “Electric Apparatus for Propelling Projectiles.
(Econ, 5/9/15, p.73)
1920 Jan 13, A NY Times editorial reported that rockets can never fly.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1920 Jul 7, A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1920s Harvey Fletcher built the Western electric Model 2A hearing aid at the Research Division of Bell.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1921 The polygraph (lie detector), used to measure physiologic phenomena, was invented.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1922 Feb 15, Marconi began regular broadcasting transmissions from Essex.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1922 Mar 28, The 1st microfilm device was introduced.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1922 Aug 2, Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-US physicist (telephone), died in Nova Scotia. He and Gardiner Hubbard, his father-in-law, were the founders of the National Geographic Society.
(MC, 8/2/02)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1922 William Ogburn (1886-1959), American sociologist, offered a theory of social change suggesting that technology is the primary engine of progress, but tempered by social responses to it. He coined the term “cultural lag" to describe the mismatch between the material conditions of life and behavior and attitudes.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_lag)(Econ, 8/22/15, p.36)
1922 The 1st arc-welded structure in the US was a 245-step, freestanding, steel staircase into the Moaning Caverns of Calaveras, Ca.
(SSFC, 12/16/01, p.C5)
1923 Apr 15, American inventor Lee De Forest (1873-1961) premiered 18 short films made in Phonofilm at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. Phonofilm recorded sound directly onto film.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest)
1923 Apr 24, Colonel Jacob Schick patented Schick razors.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1923 Oct 16, John Harwood patented a self-winding watch in Switzerland.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1923 Nov 6, Col. Jacob Schick patented the 1st electric shaver.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1923 Nov 20, Garrett Morgan invented and patented a traffic signal.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1923 Economics Laboratory (later Ecolab) was founded in St. Paul, Minnesota, by Merrit Osborn, a former traveling salesman. Its first product was Absorbit, an instant carpet cleaner. In 2012 its revenues reached $12 billion.
(Econ, 10/5/13, p.70)
1924 Nov 30, 1st photo facsimile transmitted across Atlantic by radio from London to NYC.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1924 Otis Elevator Co. installed its first automatic elevator requiring no attendants in a residential apartment building. Automatic elevators in skyscrapers arrived 30 years later.
(WSJ, 11/14/06, p.A18)
1924 Oct, Anton Flettner (1885-1961), German aerospace engineer, demonstrated his Flettner rotor, a rotating cylinder placed on a ship to extract energy from the wind using the Magnus effect.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship) (Econ, 4/9/15, p.80)
1925 AT&T founded Bell Labs as its research and development subsidiary at 463 West Street, New York. By this year the company had achieved a virtual monopoly on local telephone service. Frank B. Jewett was the first president of Bell Labs and continued to 1940. In 2012 Jon Gertner authored “The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation."
(www.flickr.com/photos/businesshistory/907685155/)(Econ, 4/21/12, p.97)
1926 Mar 7, The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York City and London.
(AP, 3/7/98)
1926 Mar 16, The first liquid-fuel rocket was launched by physicist Robert H. Goddard. It went 184' (56 meters).
(HN, 3/16/98)(MC, 3/16/02)
1926 Apr 3, Robert Goddard launched his 2nd flight of a liquid-fueled rocket.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1926 Jul 16, National Geographic took the 1st natural-color undersea photos.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1926 Oct 8, Physicist Julius Lilienfield filed a US patent application titled "Method and Apparatus for Controlling Electric Currents." This proposed the use of semiconductors for switching and amplification purposes. He was awarded US patent 1,745,175 on Jan 28, 1930.
(Econ, 8/20/11, p.72)(www.jmargolin.com/history/1745175.pdf)
1926 Oct 19, John C. Garand patented a semi-automatic rifle.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1926 Dec 7, A gas refrigerator was patented.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1927 Feb 23, President Coolidge signed the Radio Act, a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover established the Federal Radio Commission to prevent interference among radio signals by allocating broadcast spectrum.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A20)(AP, 2/23/98)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.61)
1927 Apr 7, Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a working prototype of a TV. AT&T Bell Labs scientists invented long-distance TV transmission. An audience in New York saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. His first tele-electronic image was transmitted on a glass slide in his SF lab at 202 Green St.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(AP, 4/7/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1927 Sep 7, American television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, 21, succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector. When Philo T. Farnsworth was 13, he envisioned a contraption that would receive an image transmitted from a remote location—the television. Farnsworth submitted a patent in January 1927, when he was 19, and began building and testing his invention that summer. He used an "image dissector" (the first television camera tube) to convert the image into a current, and an "image oscillite" (picture tube) to receive it. On this day his tests bore fruit. When the simple image of a straight line was placed between the image dissector and a carbon arc lamp, it showed up clearly on the receiver in another room. The New York World’s Fair showcased the television in April 1939, and soon afterward, the first televisions went on sale to the public.
(AP, 9/7/97)(HNPD, 9/7/98)
1928 Jan 31, Scotch tape was 1st marketed by 3-M Company.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1928 Feb 8, 1st transatlantic TV image was received at Hartsdale, NY.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Feb 25, Bell Labs introduced a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1928 Apr 8, The 1st Karastan rug, a machine-made product woven through the back, came off the loom in Leaksville, NC.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.10)
1928 Apr 24, The fathometer, used to measure underwater depth, was patented.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1928 May 29, Fritz von Opel reached 200 kph in an experimental rocket car. [see Sep 30, 1929]
(SC, 5/29/02)
1928 Sep 2, SF inventor Philo T. Farnsworth announced two major advances in television technology. He reportedly eliminated all moving parts and shortened the wave band length to keep broadcasts from interfering with each other. His work was funded by local capitalists headed by W.W. Crocker and Roy N. Bishop.
(SSFC, 9/6/15, p.F3)
1928 Dec 19, The 1st autogiro flight was made in the US. It was a predecessor of the helicopter.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1928 Jean-Leon Reutter, a Swiss engineer, developed the Atmos clock, which was powered by changes in the atmosphere. LeCoultre & Cie bought the patent in 1935 and began making the clock a year later. In 1937 the Swiss company became Jaeger-LeCoultre.
(SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)
1929 Mar 2, US Congress created Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1929 Jul 3, Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories made foam rubber.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned rocket plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1929 Stuart Chase authored “Men and Machines," in which he examined how machines were replacing human workers.
(Econ, 11/13/04, Survey p.14)
1929 William Green developed the first automatic pilot used on an airliner.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)(www.spaceday.org/index.php/History-of-Flight-Timeline.html)
1930 Feb 26, Manhattan, NYC, installed the 1st red and green traffic lights.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1930 Mar 27, 1st US radio broadcast from a ship at sea.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1930 Apr 10, The first synthetic rubber was produced.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1930 Apr 29, Telephone connection England-Australia went into service.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1930 May 27, Richard Drew invented masking tape.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1930 Jun 24, The 1st radar detection of planes was made at Anacostia, DC.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1930 Sep 21, Johann Ostermeyer patented the flashbulb.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1930 Dr. Thomas Midgley, Jr. (1889-1944), employed by General Motors, discovered dichlorodifluoromethane, a chlorinated fluorocarbon (CFC), that he named Freon. It proved ideal as a refrigerant and opened the way for smaller and less expensive air conditioning units.
(ON, 8/07, p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley)
1930 Adam Goettl invented the air cooler. The Goettl brothers began their adventure in 1926 in Mansfield, Ohio. Several years later, the brothers Adam, John, and Bill moved out west to Phoenix, Arizona, to seek opportunities during the Great Depression. Hence, the Phoenix-based Goettl Air Conditioning was founded and went on to become an internationally known pioneer in the mass production of evaporative coolers and a variety of other innovations in heating and cooling technology.
(Econ, 1/31/15, p.55)(/www.goettlshdm.com/history.html)
1930 The Germany Stihl company, founded in 1926 by Andreas Stihl, introduced a portable gasoline chain saw.
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C5)
1930-1945 Leo Szilard, scientist on the Manhattan Project, later published selected recollections and correspondence from this period in the book: "Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts."
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1931 Nov 1, Dupont introduced synthetic rubber. [see Nov 3]
(MC, 11/1/01)
1931 Nov 3, The 1st commercially produced synthetic rubber was manufactured. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1931 Nov 20, AT&T began commercial teletype service.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1931 Dec 8, Coaxial cable was patented.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1931 Dec 29, The identification of heavy water was publicly announced by H.C. Urey.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1931 The Bosch Semaphore was introduced. It was an orange arm that drivers could pop out the window to signal turns.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1931 Ernst Ruska, a student at Berlin’s Technical Univ., found that a magnetic coil could focus a beam of electrons in much the same way that a glass lens focuses light. This later led to his use of a pair of magnetic lenses and a detector to produce the first electron microscope. Rheinhold Ruedenberg (1883-1961) patented the principle of electron-microscope imaging for Siemens and Halske.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-ru.htm)(www.timelinescience.org/years/1950.htm) (I&I, Penzias, p.204)
1932 Feb 16, The 1st patent for a tree was issued to James Markham for a peach tree.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1932 Feb 21, Camera exposure meter was patented by WN Goodwin.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1932 Aug 14, Philips made its 1 millionth radio.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1932 Nov 22, A pump was patented that computed quantity and price delivered.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1933 Feb 25, The 1st genuine aircraft carrier was christened: USS Ranger.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1933 Mar 27, Polythene was discovered by Reginald Gibson and Eric William Fawcett.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1933 May 15, 1st voice amplification system was used in US Senate.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1933 The first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was the radio-controlled “Fairey Queen" biplane. It was catapulted into the air and survived 2 hours of live fire from a British warship. In 1934 Britain’s Air Ministry ordered 420 such aircraft, known as the Queen Bee, which gave rise to the word drone to describe such aircraft.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1934 Mar 20, Test of practical radar apparatus was made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Germany.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1934 May 23, Wallace Carothers manufactured the 1st nylon, polymer 66.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1934 The Readphone was produced for putting literature and music on long-playing disks.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1934 Britain’s Flying Scotsman became the first locomotive to be officially clocked at 100 miles (160 km) per hour. It was built in 1923 in the northern town of Doncaster for the London and North Eastern Railway.
(AP, 1/8/16)
1935 Jan 8, AC Hardy patented the spectrophotometer.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1935 Feb 2, A lie detector, invented in 1921, was 1st used in court at Portage, Wisc.
(MC, 2/2/02)(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1935 Feb 26, Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR) was 1st demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1935 Feb 28, Nylon was discovered by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1935 Mar 28, Goddard used gyroscopes to control a rocket.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1935 Apr 1, The first radio tube to be made of metal was announced in Schenectady, NY.
(OTD)
1935 Apr 2, Sir Watson-Watt patented RADAR.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1935 Germany-based BASF discovered how to make recording tape.
(Econ, 9/17/16, p.63)
1936 Jan 2, The 1st electron tube to enable night vision was described in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1936 Feb 4, 1st radioactive substance, radium E, was produced synthetically.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1936 Mar 26, A 200" telescope lens was shipped by the Corning Glass Works from New York to Cal Tech.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1936 May 5, Edward Ravenscroft patented screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1936 Nov 2, The first high-definition public television transmissions began from Alexandra Palace in north London.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1936 Dec 1, Bell Labs tested coaxial cable for TV use.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1936 Dec 1, EW Brundin & FF Lyon obtained patents on the soil-less culture of plants.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1936 H.W. Dudley, a scientist for Bell Labs, invented the "voice coder" or "voder," 1st electronic speech synthesizer.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1936 Germany’s Reichspost launched the world’s first public videophone service. It was developed by Dr. Georg Schubert and opened using square displays of 8 inches (20 cm), but which quickly closed in 1940 due to the WWII.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.91)(http://tinyurl.com/2ceklpr)
1937 Jul 20, Guglielmo Marconi (b.1874), Italian engineer, inventor of wireless telegraphy, marquis (radio, Nobel 1909), died in Rome.
(ON, 11/99, p.10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1937 Dr. Gerhard Fisher patented a metal detector. Alexander Graham Bell had developed a primitive forerunner in 1881 to try to remove an assassin’s bullet from Pres. Garfield.
(ON, 5/02, p.9)
1937 “Bill" Griffith P. Taylor, an Australian-Canadian, built his automatic block setting crane: the "Meccano Robot Gargantua." An article describing the crane was published in the March 1938 issue of Meccano Magazine.
(http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=7929)
1938 Jan 19, GM began mass production of diesel engines.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1938 Feb 17, The first color television was demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London. [see Dec 20]
(HN, 2/17/01)
1938 Feb 26, The 1st passenger ship was equipped with radar.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1938 Oct 22, Chester Carlson and Otto Kornei performed the 1st successful test of their photocopier at Astoria, Queens, NYC. They used powdered ink and an electrical charge to create the first photocopy. The reproduced page said: "10-28-38 Astoria." Carlson tried to sell the machine to IBM, RCA, Kodak and others, but they were not impressed.
(HN, 10/22/00)(ON, 11/04, p.7)
1938 Dec 20, First electronic television system was patented. [see Feb 17]
(HN, 12/20/98)
1938 Apr 6, Roy Plunkett, a DuPont researcher in New Jersey, discovered the polymer, polytetrafluoroethylene, later known as teflon. He patented the substance in 1941.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, Par p.12)(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1938 William Hewlett and David Packard began their Hewlett Packard Co. in a one-car garage at 767 Addison in Palo Alto with $538. As a student at Stanford, Hewlett built a prototype for an audio oscillator. In 1939 it became their first product to be sold. Walt Disney used it in making the film "Fantasia." In 2007 Michael S. Malone authored Bill & Dave."
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.C3)(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.T7)(WSJ, 6/6/07, p.D7)
1939 Jan 22, The uranium atom was 1st split at Columbia University.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1939 Feb 15, SF officials attended IBM’s preview of an electric typewriter and a punch card method of electric accounting at the Palace of Electricity and Communications on Treasure Island.
(SSFC, 2/9/14, DB p.42)
1939 Jul 18, Edwin H. Armstrong (1890-1954), US radio engineer, started the 1st FM (frequency modulation) radio station in Alpine, NJ.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1939 Aug 1, Synthetic vitamin K was produced for the first time.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1939 Nov 1, The 1st animal, a rabbit, conceived by artificial insemination was displayed.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 1, 1st jet plane, a Heinkel He 178, was demonstrated to German Air Ministry.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 4, The 1st air conditioned automobile, the Packard, was exhibited, Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1940 Apr 20, RCA publicly demonstrated its new and powerful electron microscope in Philadelphia, Pa.
(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)(MC, 4/20/02)
1940 May 20, Igor Sikorsky unveiled his helicopter invention.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1940 Jun 4, A synthetic rubber tire was unveiled.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1940 Aug 20, Radar was used for the first time, by the British during the Battle of Britain.
(HN, 8/20/00)
1940 Martin Kamen (d.2002 at 89) discovered carbon-14. Kamen was fired in 1944 from his position at UC Berkeley due to suspicions arising from a dinner with 2 officials from the Russian consulate.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A19)
1940 Neptunium was discovered and named after the planet Neptune.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)
1941 Aug 13, A prototype of the GEE or AMES Type 7000 British radio navigation system was lost on a raid over Hanover, Germany. GEE was devised by Robert Dippy and developed at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Swanage. Dippy later went to the United States where he worked on the development of the LORAN system. Loran, long-range navigation, later fell out of favor with the development of satellite-based navigation systems.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEE_%28navigation%29)(Econ, 3/12/11, TQ p.21)
1942 Four engineers at Standard Oil, including Donald L. Campbell (d.2002 at 98), invented a process called fluid catalytic cracking, which became essential to increasing the yield of high-octane gasoline from crude oil.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A25)
1943 May 22, The 1st jet fighter was tested.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1944 Jan 2, The first Atlantic convoy that used the new antisubmarine helicopter patrol capability sailed from New York to Liverpool, UK, with three HNS-1 helicopters.
(www.gerlecreek.com/coolplaces/pamphlettrial1c.pdf)
1944 The "Prospectus on Nucleonics," also known as the Jeffries Report, from the Chicago Metallurgical Lab addressed the "dilemma of technological progress in a static world order" and warned that "technological advances without moral development are catastrophic."
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1945 Feb 11, The 1st gas turbine propeller-driven airplane was flight tested, at Downey, Ca.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1945 May 25, Arthur C. Clark proposed relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1945 Jun, James Franck, head of a group of scientists in the study of the social and political implications of nuclear weapons, delivered the report to Washington directed to Sec. of War Henry L. Stimson.
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1945 Jul, Vannevar Bush published his report to Pres. Roosevelt: "Science—The Endless Frontier," a vision for government-funded science and engineering. His essay in the Atlantic Monthly described how adding structured code words to microfilm pages in his imaginary “Memex" information retrieval system would help researchers.
(WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A20)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.74)(www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm)
1945 Dec 7, The microwave oven was patented. Percy LeBaron Spencer accidentally discovered that microwaves would also heat food. Spencer, an eighth-grade dropout and electronic wizard, worked for the Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation of Massachusetts developing a radar machine using microwave radiation.
(HN, 9/5/01)(Econ, 10/29/11, p.100)
1946 Jan 10, US Army established the 1st radar contact with Moon from Belmar, NJ.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1946 Feb 16, The 1st commercially designed helicopter was tested at Bridgeport, Ct.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1946 Apr 27, 1st radar installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1946 May 26, A patent was filed in U.S. for H-bomb.
(HN, 5/26/98)
1946 Jun 17, SW Bell inaugurated mobile telephone commercial service in St Louis.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1946 Sep 11, The 1st mobile long-distance car-to-car telephone conversation.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1947 Jan, Chester Carlson, patent attorney and kitchen inventor, signed a licensing agreement with Haloid Corp. of Rochester, NY, to develop a copy machine. This marked the beginning of Xerox’s copy business. 12 years later, the company launched a practical dry copier. Entrepreneur Joe Wilson propelled Xerox to success. In 2006 Charles D. Ellis authored Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox."
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)(ON, 11/04, p.8)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.86)
1947 Feb 21, Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera in NYC. It could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds. Polaroid Corp. was co-founded by Land and George W. Wheelwright III (d.2001 at 97).
(AP, 2/21/98)(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A22)(MC, 2/21/02)
1947 Apr 16, A lens that provided zoom effects was demonstrated in New York City.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1947 May 1, Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1947 May 22, The 1st US ballistic missile was fired.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1947 Sep 15, The 1st 4 engine, jet propelled fighter plane was tested at Columbus, Ohio.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1947 Oct 3, The 1st telescope lens 200" (508 cm) in diameter completed.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1947 Dec 23, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, unveiled what was soon to be called the transistor, short for the electrical property known as trans-resistance, which paved the way to a new era of miniaturized electronics. The device was improved by William Schockley as a junction transistor. All 3 received a Nobel Prize in 1956. The events are described in the 1997 book by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson: "Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age."
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(AP, 12/23/97)
1947 Bell Labs invented cellular phone technology.
(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)
1947 Raytheon introduced its 1st microwave oven, the Radarange.
(AH, 10/01, p.36)
c1947 Lawrence MacKenzie (d.2002), doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, was one of 3 men who discovered astatine, element 85, the 1st element to be synthetically manufactured. It was formed by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. He also helped build the 1st cyclotron.
(SFC, 7/22/02, p.B5)
1948 Jan 27, The 1st tape recorder sold.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1948 Apr 21, The 1st Polaroid camera was sold in US.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1948 Jun 19, The first successfully produced microgroove 33 1/3 rpm, long-playing, records were unveiled by Dr. Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records. Plans to phase out 78's followed. Unlike the average record which held 8 minutes of music, this new record could hold 45 minutes.
(Hartford Courant, 6/21/48, p.7)
1948 Jun 30, Bell Labs introduced the point-contact transistor in the New York Times on p.46 as a replacement for the vacuum tube. Bell Labs had kept it secret for six months. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated their invention, the transistor, for the first time. John Pierce (d.2002) proposed the name. Transistors, much smaller than vacuum tubes, allowed the creation of smaller electronic devices and became a key component of the integrated circuit, which are found in everything from radios to computers to any of a number of automated systems. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for the invention in 1956. William Schockley, co-developer of the transistor, founded Schockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Palo Alto. Two of his hires, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, later went on to start Intel Corp. Tim Jackson in 1998 published "Inside Intel." [see Dec 23, 1947]
(SFE, 10/1/95, p.D-5)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/13/98, p.A13)(HNQ, 12/23/99)(HN, 6/30/01)(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A18)
1948 Nov 23, Dr. Frank G. Back in NYC patented a lens to provide zoom effects.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1948 Albert Baez (1912-2007), Mexican-American physicist, and Paul Kirkpatrick co-invented the X-ray reflection microscope for the study of living cells.
(SSFC, 3/25/07, p.B3)
1948 Richard Bolt and Leo Beranek, professors at MIT, established a small acoustics consulting firm and soon added a former student of Bolt’s, Robert Newman. In 1949 BBN won its first major consulting contract, designing the acoustics for the UN General Assembly Hall. In 2008 Leo Beranek authored “Riding the Waves: A Life in Sound, Science and Industry."
(www.bbn.com/about/timeline/)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A13)
1948 George de Mestral (1907-1990), a Swiss inventor, began studying the burdock plant because of the plant’s ability to attach its seed to his clothes and dog’s fur. His analysis of the hook and loop system of plant led to the development of velcro, patented in 1955.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.18)(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091297.htm)
1949 Jan 10, RCA introduced the 45 RPM record.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1949 Feb 1, The 200" (5.08-m) Hale telescope was 1st used.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1949 Jun 16, A gas turbine, electric locomotive was demonstrated in Erie, Pa.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1949-1951 The Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown under the Atomic Energy Commission was the home of the only nuclear assembly plant in the US. Worker health was not monitored. Nuclear operations were moved to Texas in the 1970s.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A3)
1950 Sep 11, The 1st typesetting machine to dispense with metal type was exhibited.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1950 Mar 17, Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, which they named "californium."
(AP, 3/17/97)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr. John Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1951 Feb 1, The 1st X-ray moving picture process demonstrated.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1951 Apr 22, There was a ticker-tape parade for General MacArthur in NYC.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1951 Jul 5, Dr. William Shockley invented junction transistor at Murray Hill, NJ.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1951 Aug 18, The 1st transcontinental wireless phone call was made from SF to NYC by Mark Sullivan, president of PT&T, and H.T. Killingworth of AT&T.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.WB6)
1951 Dec 31, The 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical was announced.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1951 Dr. Charles Townes, head of Columbia Univ. Radiation laboratory, came up with a process for focusing packets of light energy, an idea 1st postulated by Einstein in 1917. This led to the 1953 development of the maser, microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, a forerunner to the laser. 2 Soviet scientists managed a maser with continuous output.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.25)
1952 Oct 3, The 1st video recording on magnetic tape was made in LA, Ca.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1952 Oct 7, The first patent for a bar code type product (US Patent #2,612,994) was issued to inventors Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm)
1952 Oct 31, The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. [see Nov 1]
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(HN, 10/31/98)
1952 Nov 1, The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, in a test at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. The element einsteinium was discovered in the debris of the 1st hydrogen bomb test. [see Oct 31]
(AP, 11/1/97)(NH, 7/02, p.35)
1952 Dec 11, Stanford scientist demonstrated the new $1,750,000 linear electron accelerator. Its 200-foot barrel fired electrons at 99.99% the speed of light.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.E16)
1952 Researchers at Bell labs developed the 1st system to recognize numbers spoken over a telephone.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.30)
1953 Oct 13, A burglar alarm using ultrasonic or radio waves was patented by Samuel Bagno.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1953 WD-40 was created by three technicians at the San Diego Rocket Chemical Company. The company sold the product to coat missiles and prevent rust. Consumers later discovered its use as a lubricant. In 1969 John Barry (1925-2000) became head of the company and soon renamed the firm after the product.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40)(SFC, 7/14/99, p.8)(SFC, 7/22/09, p.D5)
1953 Dr. Daniel Fox, a chemist at GE, invented Lexan polycarbonate resin, a hard plastic.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.B2)
1954 Jan 31, Edwin H. Armstrong (b.1890), US radio inventor of frequency modulation (1933), committed suicide.
(www.britannica.com)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1954 Feb 26, 1st typesetting machine (photo engraving) used at Quincy, MA.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Apr 18, The US held a nationwide test of its disaster radio system known as Conelrad. In SF a simulated 10-megaton bomb, exploding over Hunters Point, was estimated to kill 500,000 Bay Area citizens.
(SSFC, 4/12/09, DB p.43)
1954 Apr 25, Bell Labs in NYC announced the 1st solar battery.
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.E1)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL (Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Marc Gregoire, a French engineer, bonded aluminum with polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) and created the 1st nonstick pan.
(AARP, 5-6/04)
1955 Jan 31, RCA demonstrated the 1st music synthesizer.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1955 Mar 24, The 1st seagoing oil drill rig was placed in service.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1955 Jul 18, 1st electric power generated from atomic energy was sold commercially.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1955 Oct 25, Tappan sold its 1st home microwave oven for $1,295. It was in 1947 that the first commercial microwave oven hit the market. Amana introduced the Radarange, the first countertop, domestic oven in 1957. It was a 100-volt microwave oven, which cost just under $500 and was smaller, safer and more reliable than previous models.
(http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html)
1955 Dec 12, 1st prototype of hovercraft patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1955 Frederick Sanger sequenced the 1st protein, human insulin. He later developed methods for sequencing DNA.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1956 Apr 14, Ampex Corporation demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder.
(AP, 4/14/00)
1956 George Devol and Joseph Engelberger met and formed a partnership to develop robots.
(Hem., 2/96, p.91)
1957 Jan 3, The Hamilton Watch Company was the first to introduce an electric watch in Lancaster, Pa.
(http://rondeau.net/history.html)
1957 Feb 12, Researchers announced the development of Borazan, a substance harder than diamonds.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1957 Apr 25, The 1st experimental sodium nuclear reactor operated.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1957 Apr 29, The 1st military nuclear power plant was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Va.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1957 Nov, Gordon Gould (d.2005), a Columbia Univ. doctoral student under Dr. Townes, came up with a process for concentrating visible light as opposed to microwaves of a maser. He was the 1st to use the term laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1957 Hoover produced its best selling model, the Convertible (Model 65), an upright vacuum cleaner that could be converted with a hose for above the floor cleaning.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.F2)
1957 PG&E teamed with General Electric to establish the Vallecitos atomic energy plant, the world’s 1st privately owned and operated nuclear facility.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A5)
1958 Jan 24, After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms were bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1958 Mar 27, CBS Labs announced new stereophonic records.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1958 Jul 24, Jack Kilby (1923-2005) of Texas Instruments came up with the idea for creating the 1st integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. By September 12 he made a working prototype.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A5)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
1958 The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was formed in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik.
(SFC, 5/26/03, p.B1)
1958 An anti-trust court case forced AT&T to license its non-telephone related technology to anyone who asked.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.38)
1958 Haloid Corp. changed its name to Haloid-Xerox and produced a prototype of the 914 copy machine.
(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1958 The first incarnation of Super Glue, called Eastman 910, hit the market. Harry Wesley Coover Jr. (1917-2011) first happened upon the super-sticky adhesive, more formally known as cyanoacrylates, by accident when he was experimenting with acrylates for use in clear plastic gun-sights during World War II. An experimental accident in 1951 brought it back to his attention. Kodak was not able to capitalize commercially on Dr. Coover’s discovery and sold the business to National Starch in 1980.
(www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/business/28coover.html?_r=1)(SFC, 3/28/11, p.A4)
1958 Arnold Neustadter began marketing Rolodex, a rotary card filing system, invented by his employee Hildaur L. Neilsen. Neustadter had patented the system in 1956.
(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W7)
1958 Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes developed their laser, light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, while working at Bell labs. They received a patent in 1960.
(www1.bell-labs.com/history/laser/)(www.ipmall.info/about/user11.asp)
1958 The Goldstar electronics firm was founded in South Korea. It later became known as LG Electronics.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.70)
1959 Feb 1, Texas Instruments requested a patent for the IC (Integrated Circuit).
(MC, 2/1/02)
1959 Robert Noyce (1927-1990) of Fairchild Semiconductor constructed an integrated circuit. Both Texas Instruments and Fairchild claimed independent discovery of the IC. Noyce went on to found Intel Corp. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments had made a working prototype in 1958.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.B3)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)
1959 Pres. Eisenhower demonstrated the invention by Jerome Morse (d.2001 at 80) of the 1st miniaturized, portable nuclear power generator, used for space vehicles.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A25)
1959 Edward G. Zubler (d.2004), GE research chemist, developed the halogen lamp.
(SFC, 3/24/04, p.B7)
1959 Devol and Engelberger [see 1956] created Unimate, the world’s first industrial robot.
(Hem., 2/96, p.93)
1960 Jan 23, The Bathyscaphe "Trieste" reached bottom of Pacific at 10,900 m. Jacques Piccard (1922-2008) and US Navy Lt. Don Walsh descended for 20 minutes in the Trieste into the Mariana Trench, a 1,500 mile gash in the Earth’s crust east of the Philippines with a depth of 37,000 feet below sea level, nearly 7 miles.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A11)(SFEC, 11/17/96, BR p.4)(AP, 11/1/08)
1960 Mar 22, The 1st patent for lasers was granted to Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes. Schawlow and Townes developed their laser, light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, while working at Bell labs in 1958.
(www1.bell-labs.com/history/laser/)(www.ipmall.info/about/user11.asp)
1960 Mar, The Xerox model 914 plain-paper copier made its debut. It was invented by Chester Carlson and had been nursed along by Batelle research institute of Ohio and Haloid, a NY manufacturer of photographic paper. In 1961 Haloid became Xerox.
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.W8)(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1960 Apr 14, The 1st underwater launching of Polaris missile.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1960 Apr 27, The 1st atomic powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1960 Jun 27, Chlorophyll "A" was synthesized at Cambridge, Mass.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1960 Jul 20, The submarine George Washington became the 1st submerged sub to fire a Polaris missile.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1960 Aug 13, The first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1, a balloon satellite.
(HN 8/13/97)
1960 Sep 27, Europe's 1st "moving pavement," (travelator), opened at Bank station.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1960 George Kozmetsky (d.2003 at 85) and Henry Singleton of Litton Industries formed Teledyne Corp. Kozmetsky and his wife Ronya formed the RGK Foundation in 1966.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
1960 Theodore Maiman, a physicist at the Hughes Research Labs in California, produced the 1st working laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1960 Stanford R. Ovshinsky and his wife Iris founded Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In the 1980s the company introduced a nickel-metal hydride battery (NiMH) for consumer use and made it available for automobiles in the early 1990s. The technology made hybrid vehicles possible. By 2006 sales for the solar division, United Solar Ovonic, reached $90 Million.
(WSJ, 10/13/04, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/27/06, p.A1)(Econ, 12/2/06, TQ p.33)
1960-1970 Genrich S. Altshuller (b.1926), Soviet engineer, developed his Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, or TRIZ.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
1961 Apr 25, Robert Noyce patented the integrated circuit.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1961 Jun 1, FM multiplex stereo broadcasting was 1st heard. (MC, 6/1/02)
1961 Jun 30, Lee de Forest (87), inventor of the 3-element vacuum tube (1906), died.
(SSFC, 6/26/11, DB p.42)
1961 Robert Rempel (1925-2005) co-founded Spectra-Physics, which became the 1st company to make lasers.
(SFC, 6/6/05, p.B3)
1962 Mar 28, The U.S. Air Force announced research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1962 Jun 22, The Hovercraft was 1st tested.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1962 Jul 10, The communications satellite Telstar, developed by Bell Labs, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, beaming live television from Europe to the United States.
(AP, 7/10/97)(HN, 7/10/98)(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)
1962 Ground was broken for the new Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca. Atom smashing began in 1966. [see Dec 11, 1952]
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)
1962 Corning Inc. invented an ultra-strong glass. In 1964 it developed a method called “fusion draw" to manufacture what it called “Gorilla glass." It only found strong commercial use with the development of LCDs for laptop computers and TVs.
(SFC, 8/2/10, p.D3)
1962 Nick Holonyak Jr., an engineer for General Electric, built the first light-emitting diode (LED). GE patented the discovery.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.B6)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.26)
1963 Feb 9, 1st flight of Boeing 727 jet.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1963 Jun 24, 1st demonstration of home video recorder was at the BBC Studios in London.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1963 Nov 16, Touch-tone telephone was introduced.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1963 Profs. Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks, engineers at the Univ. of Michigan, created the 1st working hologram. Pieter van Heerden of Polaroid Research Labs pioneered the holographic principle.
(MT, Summer/04, p.8)(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.28)
1963 Ray Dolby, while working in India, conceived of separating recorded sound into 2 channels as a means to strip away unwanted tape recording noise. His 1st prototype was completed in London in 1966.
(SFC, 3/29/04, p.D1)
1964 May 12, The reverse osmosis process for turning seawater and waste-water into potable stuff was patented in San Diego.
(Econ, 3/31/12, p.42)(www.google.com/patents/US4062782)
1964 May 21, The 1st nuclear-powered lighthouse began operations in the Chesapeake Bay.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1964 Jul 31, The American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted pictures of the moon's surface.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1964 Oct 1, Japan’s Bullet Train began operation between Tokyo and Osaka.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D_Shinkansen)(SFEC, 10/1/00, p.T5)
1964 Oct 14, Philips began experimenting with color TV.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1964 The US navy began its SeaLab experiments. SeaLab I was lowered off the coast of Bermuda to see if divers could be sustained on a helium-oxygen mix. The trial ended after 11 days. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1964 Robert Weitbrecht, a deaf person, invented the teletypewriter (TTY). It enabled deaf people to call each other and type conversations.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, Par p.4)
1964 General Electric began marketing a new hard plastic called Noryl.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.B2)
1964-1968 In India’s "green revolution" the wheat crop increased from 10 million to 17 million tons following the use of dwarfing genes and fertilizer to increase the grains on each stalk. Chidambaram Subramaniam, minister of agriculture, convinced Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to use new seeds, developed by Norman Borlaug in Mexico, for wheat production.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A26)
1965 Apr 27, RC Duncan patented "Pampers," a disposable diaper.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1965 C.P. Snow authored "The Two Cultures," on the chasm between the arts and sciences.
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)
1965 The US navy lowered SeaLab II was lowered off the coast of San Diego to see if divers could be sustained on a helium-oxygen mix. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1965 Kevlar was invented by Stephanie Kwolek, a chemist for DuPont, while experimenting with polymers for new ways to reinforce car tires. In 1970 Herbert Blades of DuPont developed a process for mass production. Marketing began in 1971. Soon after that Lester Shubin (1925-2001), a US Justice Dept. researcher, began developing Kevlar, into body armor for police and soldiers.
(SFC, 4/7/03, p.E2)(SFC, 11/28/09, p.C4)
1966 May 21, The new $114 million Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca., began smashing atoms.
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)(SFC, 9/26/07, p.B7)
1966 The bar code, a method of automatic identification and data collection, was first used commercially. It was soon realized that there would have to be some sort of industry standard set. By 1970 the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code or UGPIC was written by a company called Logicon Inc.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm)
1966 Hewlett-Packard introduced its first computer, the HP 2116A. The 9,000 person company had sales of around $200 million.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1966 Hewlett-Packard developed the first commercially available light-emitting diode (LED).
(SFC, 8/31/09, p.D1)
1966 Texas Instruments introduced its 1st hand-held calculator based on the integrated circuit developed by Jack Kilby in 1958.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
1966 John Linville (1919-2011), a Stanford engineering professor, patented his first version of the Optacon, a device to help blind people read. In 1970 he co-founded Telesensory Systems Inc., to manufacture and distribute the device worldwide.
(SFC, 3/12/11, p.C4)
1967 Jul 19, The 1st air conditioned NYC subway car was R-38 on the F line.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF the computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui), display editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and 2-way video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry Bardini authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing."
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC, 12/8/08, p.A1)
1968 James Watson, Nobel Prize winner, published "The Double Helix."
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the world’s 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) used for displays and traffic lights.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1968 Chester Carlson (62), inventor of the photocopy machine (1960), died. In 2004 David Owen authored “Copies In seconds."
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A8)
1969 Feb 9, World's largest airplane, Boeing 747, made its 1st commercial flight.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1969 Sep 2, The first Internet message was a packet switch delivered to UCLA from BBN Corp. (Bolt Beranek and Newman). The 1st 2 machines of ARPANET were connected at Prof. Len Kleinrock's lab at UCLA. The US Dept. of Defense’s Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a self-healing computer network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). By the early 1980’s the military component became a separate network and the true birth of today’s Internet is marked. By 2007 some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap the Internet and start over.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_hi_te/rebuilding_the_internet_8)(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.3)(SFC, 8/30/99, p.C10)(SFC, 9/3/99, p.C1)
1969 Oct 29, Researchers sent the first inter-node message between two sites on ARPAnet. The first e-mail message crossed the Arpanet as a team under Professor Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA communicated with a team under Douglas Englebart at Stanford. The US Dept. of Defense’s Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a self-healing computer network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) [see Sep 2].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET)(http://tinyurl.com/lpq766)(WSJ, 1/14/99, p.A1)
1969 The US navy lowered SeaLab III was lowered off San Clemente Island to see if divers could exit a submarine and walk on the sea floor. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1969 J. Robert Beyster (1924-2014), a physicist in southern California, founded Science Applications Inc. He retired in 2004 as the company numbered some 43,000 employees and annual revenue of over $6 billion. In 2007 he authored “The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company." In 2013 Science Applications Int’l. Corp. (SAIC) split in two.
(SFC, 12/24/14, p.E2)
1970 Jan 12, The Boeing 747 made its maiden voyage.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100 made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat 400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B5)(MC, 1/21/02)
1970 The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) of Xerox opened on the outskirts of Palo Alto. George Pake (1924-2004) ran the center until 1978. It was founded by Dr. Jacob Goldman (1921-2011).
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)(SFC, 3/11/04, p.C5)(SFC, 12/28/11, p.C5)
1970-1979 CAT Scan (Computer Assisted Tomography) technology was developed.
(MT, 10/94, p.9)
1971 Jan, Intel Corp. created the first microprocessor. The 4004, the world's first microprocessor, is signed with the initials F.F., for Federico Faggin, its designer. The 4004 was released in 16-pin CERDIP packaging on November 15, 1971.
(www.intel4004.com/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004)
1971 Jul 31, Apollo 15 astronauts took a drive on the moon in their land rover.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1971 The 1st laser printer was made at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, Ca.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1971 AT&T Bell Labs conducted its first cellular phone test in Chicago.
(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1972 Feb 1, Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, for $395.
(www.hp-collection.org/calculators/35a.html)(SFC, 8/31/09, p.D1)
1972 Apr 4, The 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage began operating.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1972 Hewlett-Packard introduced the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the slide-rule obsolete.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/index.html)
1972 The compact disc (CD) was introduced.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1973 Apr 3, In NYC Martin Cooper, a general manager for Motorola, called rival AT&T making the first cell phone call using a cell phone the size of a brick.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.C1)
1973 May 22, Robert Metcalf (b.1946), at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), circulated a memo about his Ethernet ideas to PARC colleagues. He later fixed this day as the birthdate of Ethernet. Metcalf had combined packet switching from the Arpanet and single wire broadcasting to lay the foundations for computer networks. Bob Metcalf described ethernet for the 1st time in a patent memo.
(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.23)(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A16)
1973 Aug 23, The Intelsat communications satellite was launched.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1973 The U.P.C. or Uniform Product Code, an update of the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code (UGPIC, bar code) was invented by George J. Laurer.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm)
1974 Jun 26, At the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, Sharon Buchanon became the 1st cashier to scan a Universal Product Code (UPC) code. The 59 black and white bar code was used on a 67 cent 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The scanner was a Spectra-Physics Model A. Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver (d.1962) had patented the 1st bar code scanner in 1952. In 1977 an int’l. version was created.
(SFC, 7/5/04, p.E3)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.B5)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.C3)
1974 Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf published a paper that outlined the protocols of the Internet. Their Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was updated in 1978. In 2004 they received the A.M. Turing Award for their work.
(SFC, 6/11/05, p.C1)
1975 By the end of the Vietnam war, Vietnamese SA-2 missile effectiveness had been reduced to a kill-ratio of less than 2 percent. Elint: Electronic Intelligence collected information on and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of all forms of hostile electronic transmissions. Focusing on the "Fan Song" radar system that acquired targets for and then guided the dreaded SA-2 SAM, Elint was able to identify four key weakness that pilots could use to defeat the missile.
(HNQ, 11/23/01)
1976 Jan, In SF Robert Swanson (28), a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, first met with Herb Boyer, a molecular biologist and co-discoverer of recombinant DNA. The 10 minute appointment extended to a few hours and the 2 men proceeded to found Genentech.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 12/14/99, p.A22)
1976 Apr 7, Robert A. Swanson (d.1999 at 52), a venture capitalist, and Herb Boyer, a UCSF molecular biologist and co-discoverer of gene-splicing in 1973, incorporated Genentech Inc. They planned to use gene splicing to create a genre of medicines.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.B1)
1976 The U. S. Copyright Act of 1976 declared unpublished materials to be in the public domain when the records are 100 years old or when the creator of the records has been dead for fifty years, whichever date comes first. The act also declared that records created before January 1, 1978 enter the public domain in 2002, provided that they are over 100 years old or the creator of the records has been dead 50 years.
(SAA, 4/19/99)
1976 H. Taylor Howard (d.2002 at 70) built a homemade satellite dish to capture TV signals. HBO refused to accept payment for his interceptions. He went on to found Chaparral Communications Inc. in San Jose.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A23)
1976 Positron Emission Tomography (PET), a body scanning technology, first came on the market. Dr. Michel Ter-Pogossian of St. Louis led a group that built the first successful prototypes between 1972-1974. In 1998 PET technology was combined with computed tomography (CT scans). PET/CT scanners hit the market in 2001.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.23)
1976 The first compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) hit the market.
(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
1977 Feb 26, The 1st flight of Space Shuttle atop a Boeing 747 took place.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1977 AT&T installed the 1st fiber optic cable.
(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.A12)
1978 Feb 14, G. W. Boone and M.J. Cochran of Texas Instruments received a patent for their Variable Function Programmed Calculator.
(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)
1978 Feb 16, The 1st Computer Bulletin Board System was Ward & Randy's CBBS in Chicago.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1978 May, The Bahrain Telephone Company began operating a commercial cellular telephone system. It probably marks the first time in the world that individuals started using what we think of as traditional, mobile cellular radio.
(http://tinyurl.com/36e848)
1978 Jun 11, Texas Instruments announced the first single-chip speech synthesizer.
(www.datamath.org/Speech_IC.htm)
1978 Jul, Advanced Mobile Phone Service started operating in North America. AMPS was operational in the Chicago, Illinois, area.
(http://tinyurl.com/36e848)
1978 A paper by Leonard Adleman, Ron Rivest, and Adi Shamir was published titled A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. It is widely known today by the group's initials RSA.
(Wired, 8/95, p.117)
1978 AT&T scientists conducted FCC-authorized cell-phone field trials in Chicago and Newark, NJ.
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/mobilephone.htm)
1978 Hewlett-Packard began development of the inkjet printer, which eventually became a commercials success.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1979 Jun, Robert Metcalf of Xerox Corp. started 3Com Corp., consulting company, and soon began producing Ethernet hardware. The company specialized in connecting computers using the Ethernet system, which he helped develop. The early Ethernet adapters sold for $5000. In 1994 they sold for $100.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.24)
1978 Intel Corp. introduced the 8086 microprocessor. It was a 16-bit microprocessor with 29,000 transistors.
(TAR, 1996, p.22)
1980 Apr 6, 3-M introduced Post-It Notes. In 2010 inventors, 3M scientists Arthur Fry and Spencer Silver, were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
(http://bookworm.typepad.com/blog/favorite_things/index.html)(AFP, 4/25/10)
1980 Luz International was founded in Israel. It became the first company to implement solar thermal technology on a commercial scale. Luz began building solar-thermal power stations in California’s Mojave desert in the mid 1980s.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.23)
1981 Jul 7, The 1st solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel flying 163 miles from Paris to Canterbury. It was created by Dupont and Paul MacCready.
(www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-054-DFRC.html)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
1981 Bill Rutter founded Chiron Corp., a biotech operation in Emeryville, Ca.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.B1)
1981 Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer and Christoph Gerber of IBM developed the scanning-tunneling microscope. It laid the groundwork for nanotechnology.
(Econ, 9/18/04, TQ p.17)
1982 Sep, 3Com under Robert Metcalf started shipping EtherLink adaptor cards for IBM’s new personal computer.
(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.24)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings, introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Apr 22, Walter Slezak (80), actor (Bedtime For Bonzo), committed suicide in NY.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1983 Apr 3, Martin Cooper, Motorola project manager, demonstrated the 1st mobile phone, the DynaTAC 8000x. It was designed by Rudy Krolopp. The 2½ pound cell phone was soon made available for $3,995.
(SFC, 4/12/00, p.D3)(SFC, 4/3/03, p.B1)(NW, 3/17/03, p.14)(SFC, 8/17/11, p.D1)
1983 Pres. Ronald Reagan made America’s military satellite navigation system, GPS, available to the world. President Ronald Reagan declassified the GPS system in response to a tragedy involving a civilian airplane. Korean Airline flight 007 got lost over Soviet territory and was shot down by Soviet fighters.
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.73)(www.maps-gps-info.com/gps-history.html)
1983 Louis Brus (b.1943) of Bell Labs published work that led to the development of new lighting based on quantum dots. He discovered the colloidal semi-conductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots.
(Econ, 3/6/10, TQ p.18)(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547879/)
1983 The General Conference on Weights and Measures defined the speed of light in a vacuum at 299,792,458 meters per second. This set the value of the meter as the path traveled by light in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
(NH, 2/05, p.24)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.79)
1983 Chuck Hull (b.1939) first came up with the for stereolithography when he was using UV light to harden tabletop coatings. His patent for “Three-Dimensional Objects by Stereolithography" was issued on March 11, 1986. Hull then co-founded 3D Systems to commercialize the procedure.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hull)(Econ, 4/21/12, SR p.14)
1984 Jan 17, The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Sony and ruled, 5 to 4, that the private use of home video cassette recorders to tape television programs did not violate federal copyright laws.
(AP, 1/17/02)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1984 Nov 26, The San Francisco Chronicle first reported on cellular phone technology. Cellular phone service came to the SF Bay Area in 1985 with phones costing between $1900 and $4100 for installation in a car with a $39 per month base price.
(SFC, 9/8/18, p.C1)
1984 Jan 24, Apple Computer Inc unveiled its Macintosh personal computer. It included sound-sampling technology that could play recorded sounds.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)(MC, 1/24/02)
1984 Jul 21, In Jackson, Michigan, a male die-cast operator (34) was pinned by a hydraulic Unimate robot. He died after 5 days. This was the 1st documented case of a robot killing a human in US.
(www.cdc.gov/niosh/FACE/In-house/full8420.html)
1984 The TED conference was founded. TED sprung from an observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between technology, entertainment and design. The Sapling Foundation (b.1996) bought the conference in 2001.
(SSFC, 2/07/04, p.E5)
1984 Mike Lazaridis, while a student at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, co-founded Research In Motion (RIM) with Douglas Fregin. In 1997 Lazaridis came up with the idea for a small thumb-using keyboard and RIM went on to produce the hand-held Blackberry e-mail device.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
1984 Hewlett-Packard introduced a printer using its ground-breaking thermal inkjet printing technology.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1984 Motorola introduced a brick-sized cell phone for $4,000. [see Apr 3, 1983]
(WSJ, 10/30/03, p.A1)
1985 Mar 23, Joshua Silver, Oxford physicist, began contemplating the development of self adjusting eyeglasses. By 2009 some 30,000 of Silver's specs had been distributed to the poor in 15 countries; his eventual target is 100 million pairs.
(SSFC, 1/11/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/96buv9)
1985 Michael S. Malone authored “The Big Score: The Billion-Dollar Story of Silicon Valley." The PBS documentary “Silicon Valley Boomtown" was based his book.
(http://malone-grove.com/html/malone.htm)
1985 The FCC decided to open several bands of wireless spectrum for communications use without a government license. Bands at 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz were made available.
(Econ, 6/12/04, Tech p.26)
1986 South Carolina-based 3D Systems introduced the first commercially available 3-D printer, pioneering the development of stereolithography.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.28)
1985 Tom Zimmerman, Chuck Blanchard, Young Harvill and Steve Bryson joined Jaron Lanier at his recently formed company VPL Research, and pioneered virtual reality. The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1990 and all its patents were sold to Sun Microsystems.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.26)
1986 Oct 4, In the Netherlands Queen Beatrix officially opened the Oosterscheldekering for use by saying the well-known words: De stormvloedkering is gesloten. De Deltawerken zijn voltooid. Zeeland is veilig. (The flood barrier is closed. The Delta Works are completed. Zealand is safe.) It was the world's largest movable flood barrier.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering)
1986 Honda began a robot program at a fundamental research center outside Tokyo.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A1)
1986 Danny Hillis (b.1956), an American inventor, entrepreneur and author, began thinking and working on a 10,000 Year Clock. After some years Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com provided assistance and the clock began taking shape inside a mountain in West Texas. The first prototype of the clock began working on December 31, 1999.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now)
1986 Chuck Hull co-founded 3D Systems to commercialize “stereolithography," a word he coined to describe a system he patented for making three-dimensional objects.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography)(Econ, 4/21/12, SR p.14)
1987 May 30, North American Philips Company unveiled compact disc video.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1987 GSM, a 2nd generation wireless technology, was mandated as a Europe-wide standard.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.66)
1987 Morris Chang founded the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). His was the first pure foundry making chips for designers with no factories.
(Econ, 7/27/13, p.54)
1988 Jan 23, Experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager, completed the 1st nonstop, round-the-world flight without refueling.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1988 Apr 12, The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for an animal life form.
(AP, 5/9/98)
1988 Dean Kamen, inventor, bought North Dumpling Island, 3 acres off the Connecticut coast. His inventions included the 1st portable insulin pump.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.B3)(http://tinyurl.com/2pntdd)
1989 Mar 23, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, Univ. of Utah scientists, claimed they had produced atomic fusion at room temperature.
(SS, 3/23/02)(WSJ, 9/5/03, p.B1)
1989 Garmin Ltd., an American multinational technology company formerly known as ProNav, was founded by Gary Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas, United States, with headquarters in Olathe, Kansas, to extend the Global Positioning System (GPS) beyond military use. In 2010 the company was incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin)(Econ, 12/1/12, TQ p.9)
1989 Dean Kamen, inventor, started a robotics competition for high-schoolers, for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST).
(NW, 4/24/03, p.44)(Econ, 6/12/10, TQ p.25)
1989 The nickel-metal-hydride battery appeared on the market.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1989 In Israel Dov Moran founded M-Systems, the original maker of USB flash drives (1999). He sold the business to SanDisk in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
(www.twst.com/notes/articles/lzt068.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Systems)
1990 The Human Genome Project began and planned to sequence all human DNA by 2005. The database did not just store sequences, but linked them with citations to enable new discoveries. James Watson served as its 1st head. His opposition to gene patents helped force him from the position in 1992.
(Wired, 8/96, p.198)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.10)
1991 Nov 6, Keck II became the biggest telescope in use at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1991 Cisco Systems, a network equipment company, sold for as low as $.06 per share. In 2001 a history of Cisco Systems, "Cisco Unauthorized: Inside the High Stakes Race to own the Future" by Jeffrey S. Young, was published.
(WSJ, 3/7/00, p.A20)
1991 Sony introduced the first commercial lithium-ion batteries in its CCD-TR1 camcorder. They had a capacity to overheat. In 2004 the US banned them as cargo on passenger planes. In 2006 Dell and Apple initiated recalls for laptop computers with recently manufactured, problematic lithium-ion batteries.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.52)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 8/12/17, p.16)
1991 Carbon nanotubules, formed from hexagonal arrays of carbon atoms, were first discovered by Sumio Iijima of NEC Fundamental Research Labs in Tsukuba, Japan. In 2001 IBM scientists assembled transistors using carbon nanotubules.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.B1,4)
1992 Jul 31, The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a problem-plagued scientific mission.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1992 The Audio Home Recording Act restricted the use of digital-recording tools and required makers of blank tapes an other copying devices to contribute to a royalty pool for musicians.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1993 Mar 22, Intel introduced its Pentium processor (80586): 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm#pentium)
1993 In Japan Shuji Nakamura, an employee of Nichia Corp., invented the blue light-emitting diode (LED). In 2001 Nakamura sued Nichia in a patent dispute that later settled for $7 million.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.27)
1995 Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen, researchers at Harvard Business School, invented the new term “disruptive technology" (disruptive innovation) to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_Technology)
1995 The US Predator surveillance drone was 1st used over Bosnia. In 2001 it was equipped with the hell-fire missile and used over Afghanistan. This unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew as slowly as a Cessna.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A12)(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.22)
1995 The US military Global Positioning System (GPS) became fully operational with 27 orbiting satellites and dual civilian use. It was conceived in the 1960s.
(WSJ, 3/24/03, p.B1)
1995 Marvell Techonolgy Group was founded In Santa Clara, Ca., by Weili Dai and brother Sehat and Pantas Sutardja, Indonesian-Chinese immigrants who had studied together at UC Berkeley. In 2009 the Sutardja Dai Hall, a 7-story science building, opened in their honor.
(SFC, 2/28/09, p.B3)
1995 A team including Ajay Bhatt worked on the Universal Serial Bus standard at Intel. The first integrated circuits supporting USB were produced by Intel in 1995.
(Econ, 10/19/13, p.65)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus)
1995 VocalTec, an Israeli company, was the first company to release commercial PC-to-PC calling software, which it called Internet Phone. However, many competitors soon followed. In 2010 VocalTec merged with YMax Corp, maker of magicJack, an Internet phone gadget.
(AP, 8/14/10)
1996 Mar 1, New toll-free 888 area code was introduced.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Mar 1, Plans were approved allowing traffic cameras at High Harrington and Shap, England.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Aug 8, Frank A. Whittle (89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1996 Spanish chemist Pilar Mateo patented a microencapsulation technique that embedded pesticides into house paints.
(SSFC, 5/20/12, p.F3)
1997 Nov 20, It was reported that Lucent Tech.’s Bell Labs has developed a new tiny transistor that is 5 times faster and 1/4th the size of commercially available transistors.
(WSJ, 11/20/97, p.B4)
1997 Dec 11, From Austria scientists reported in Nature that they had demonstrated a form of tele-transportation. They teleported the physical condition of a photon using a phenomenon called entanglement.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A4)
1997 Anita Borg, computer scientist, founded the Institute for Women and Technology.
(SFC, 2/18/14, p.A6)
1997 Gary Hudson (47) bet everything he had on the Roton rocket, a reusable rocket tipped with rotor blades and some 100 fuel nozzles. It cost over $60 million and never reached over a mile in test flights. In 2002 Elizabeth Weil authored "They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus: An Incurable Dreamer Builds the First Civilian Spaceship."
(SSFC, 12/1/02, p.M3)
1997 The first (digital video disk) DVD players came on the market.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1997 Philippe Kahn, founder of Borland Software (1983), pioneered the camera phone when he connected his digital camera to a cell phone.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.C2)
1997 In Taiwan the High Tech Computer company was founded as a designer and manufacturer of products sold under other brand names. The company was later renamed HPC and created its own brand name. In 2007 it launched the HTC Touch, a touch screen device whose sales were boosted by the appearance of Apple’s first iPhone.
(Econ, 4/7/12, p.73)
1997 Taiwan’s MediaTek was founded and began making controllers for CD-ROMS. By 2004 the company was developing chops for mobile phones.
(Econ, 8/24/13, p.60)
1999 Mar 22, The Volantor, a flying car, was described. It was designed by Paul Moller of Davis, Ca., and estimated to have range of 900 miles.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A15)
1999 Apr, Personal Video Recorders (PVR) were introduced at a broadcaster’s convention in Las Vegas. and allowed users to skip through commercials. The cheapest model of TiVo’s digital video recorder (DVR) cost $499.
(Econ, 4/17/04, p.61)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.68)
1999 Jun 7, Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Labs reported the creation of elements 118 and 116 from krypton-86 and Lead-208. In 2002 Victor Ninov was accused of faking the data. Spurious data by Ninov was also reported on elements 110 and 112 from experiments in 1994 and 1996.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.A3)
1999 Jul 31, NASA controllers planned to send the $63 million Lunar Prospector crashing into the Mawson crater located in the south pole. They hoped to churn up some water vapor for possible detection. Evidence of the crash at 2:51 PDT was not detected.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.A4)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 12, The invention of a new rechargeable battery with a 50% longer life span was announced by researchers in Israel.
(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec, Two variants were adopted for the 1997 IEEE 802.11 standard on wireless communications: 802.11a for the 5.8GHz band and 802.11b for the 2.4GHz band. The technology was soon named Wi-Fi.
(Econ, 2/14/04, Survey p.27)
1999 Michael Hiltzik authored “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC in the Dwan of the Computer Age."
(SFC, 12/28/11, p.C5)
2000 Jun 16, Inacom Corp., once the world’s largest computer dealer, sent most of its 5,100 employees an e-mail directing them to a toll-free phone number with a recorded message that fired them.
(WSJ, 11/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 13, It was reported that physicist Humphrey Maris of Brown Univ. had reported findings in June to the Quantum Fluids and Solids Conference that challenged the indivisibility of electrons.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 30, It was reported that computer scientists had created a robot to design and build other robots almost entirely without human help.
(SFC, 8/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 18, It was reported that scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab had fashioned the smallest transistor using a buckyball, single molecule of carbon-60.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A6)
2000 Nov 16, The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers adopted 7 new domains: .aero for airports, .biz for businesses, .coop for business cooperatives, .info for general use, .museum for accredited museums, .name for individuals, and .pro for professionals.
(SFC, 11/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov, Honda introduced its 4-foot bipedal Asimo robot.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A8)
2000 Dec 13, It was reported that scientists had decoded the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, a common spindly weed, making it the 1st plant to have its genetic material fully described.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.A11)
2000 Dec 15, Under Estonian law the cryptographic signature became legally equivalent to a manual signature.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_ID_card)
2000 In Haines, Alaska, Dave Pahl created his Hammer Museum, a tribute to the oldest human tool. In 2007 he struggled to retain the name as the Armand Hammer Museum of Art changed its name to the Hammer Museum of Art and applied for a trademark to the name.
(WSJ, 10/5/07, p.A1)
2000-2006 The Interphone study on mobile the threat to human health from mobile phone use cost $30 million and involved some 50 scientists working in 13 countries. Results proved very confusing and inconclusive.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.93)
2001 Jan 26, Scientists announced that they had decoded the genetic blueprint of rice. It was the 1st important plant to have its genome decoded.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A7)
2001 Mar 26, It was reported that scientists had detected high-energy neutrinos for the 1st time in the Antarctic Muon and neutrino Detector Array (Amanda).
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr 23, It was reported that scientists in Chicago had connected a lamprey eel’s brain to microprocessors to steer a robotic device toward light.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr, Linus Torvalds, founder of Linux, authored "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary."
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.B2)
2001 Jun 4, Hewlett-Packard agreed to pay $400 million to Pitney Bowes to settle a 6-year-old patent dispute over printer technology.
(SFC, 6/5/01, p.C1)
2001 Jul 5, Scientists at Delft Univ. of Tech. in the Netherlands reported the creation of nanotechnology transistors built from a single molecule.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.B3)
2001 Aug 21, It was reported that nuclear waste researchers had developed a process, pyroprocessing, to remove long term radioactive elements from waste and transmute them to less radioactive elements.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 31, It was reported that scientists at Lucent Tech. achieved superconductivity with carbon-60 (buckyballs) at minus 249 degrees by combining the carbon molecules with compounds of chloroform and bromoform.
(SFC, 8/31/01, p.B3)
2001 Sep 3, It was reported that scientists at the Max Planck Inst. for Biochemistry in Germany had affixed snail neurons to transistor chips and demonstrated communication.
(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A4)
2001 Oct 3, Apple introduced the iPod, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket, at a cost of $399.
(www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/oct/23ipod.html)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.14)
2001 Oct 17, Researchers at Lucent’s Bell Labs reported the development of a tiny new transistor made of a simple cluster of organized molecules.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.D2)
2001 Nov 17, John M. Dawson, plasma physics expert, died at age 71. He is considered the father of computer-simulated plasma models and of plasma-based particle accelerators.
(SFC, 12/1/01, p.A19)
2001 Nov 20, Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm computer, was reported to hold that the brain works by anticipating and completing patterns more than it does through inputs and outputs of information.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 3, A test US anti-missile launched from Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands successfully hit a dummy warhead from Vandenberg Air Base in California, 4,800 miles away.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A4)
2001 Dec 3, Dean Kamen, inventor, unveiled his battery-powered, 12 mph Segway Human Transporter in NYC. Kamen had spent $100 million over the last decade to develop the vehicle. In 2003 Steve Kemper authored "Code Name Ginger," the story of the Segway's development.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A2)(WSJ, 6/17/03, p.D5)
2001 Dec 4, Edwin Huffine, US forensic scientist, launched a new DNA ID software program developed with a team of Bosnian experts at the Sarajevo-based Int’l. Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP). The program used kinship analysis.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 4, Kodak and Sanyo prepared to invest $350 million to make flat panel color displays using organic light-emitting diode technology for hand-held devices.
(WSJ, 12/4/01, p.B7)
2001 Dec 12, David Criswell, director of the Univ. of Houston Space Systems Operations, proposed a "Lunar Solar Power System" to collect solar energy on the moon, convert it to microwaves, and beam it to Earth for electrical power.
(SFC, 12/13/01, p.A5)
2001 The US National Institutes of Health began its Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project to isolate each of the estimated 30,000 human genes along with a full set of mouse genes.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.B1)
2001 John Deere, the world’s largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment, decided to fit its tractors and other mobile machines with global-positioning-system sensors.
(Econ, 6/11/16, TQ p.4)
2001 Ben Kacyra (b.1949), Iraqi-born founder of SF Bay Area firm Cyra Technologies, sold the company’s new laser mapping tool to Leica Geosystems of Switzerland. The device was created to produce digital blueprints of 3-dimensional objects.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.C3)
2001 Alexander Gorlov, a Russian civil engineer who worked on the Aswan High Dam, won the Edison patent for his invention of a turbine that could extract power from free-flowing currents.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.12)
2001 Tom Malzbender, a computer scientist at HPs laboratory in Palo Alto, Ca., developed a lighting method that came to be known as polynomial texture mapping (PTM). It was later found useful in illuminating details on ancient objects.
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.88)(www.hpl.hp.com/research/ptm/)
2001 Shi Zhengrong, a Chinese solar engineer, started Suntech to manufacture solar cells. In 2005 it became the first Chinese solar firm to go public. By 2007 the company was the world’s 3rd largest in the field. In 2013 it went bankrupt.
(Econ, 6/2/07, SR p.16)(Econ, 3/30/13, p.68)
2001 In Budapest, Hungary, a meeting on scientific publishing by the Open Society Institute (later the Open Society Foundation) coined the phrase “open access" as it sought to make scientific papers free to users. Open access publishing had already begin in 2000 with launch in Britain of BioMed Central and in America of the Public Library of Science (PLOS).
(Econ, 9/27/14, p.83)
2002 Mar 5, It was reported that a team of physicists claimed nuclear fusion utilizing a burst of ultrasound on a bubble of gases in a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. Details were to appear the journal Science.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A4)
2002 Aug 7, Ford Motor Co. and Canadian fuel cell developer Ballard Power Systems Inc. jointly unveiled a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine-driven generator they said could help pave the way toward the commercialization of fuel cell technology.
(Reuters, 8/7/02)
2002 Dec 31, In China a German-designed magnetic-levitation train hit 260 mph on its maiden run between Shanghai and Pudong airport.
(SFC, 1/1/03, p.A10)
2002 Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st rewritable DVD system compatible with standard DVD players.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
2002 The grid emerged as a linkage of many servers into a single system to tackle complex computing tasks. The system was created to do work previously possible only with supercomputers. The Global Grid Forum built on the Globus software developed by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
2002 The Auto-ID centre came up with a standard for a new, stripped-down RFID chip that stores 96 bits of information. Radio frequency identification quickly became commonplace for tagging retail items.
(Econ, 6/26/04, p.63)
2003 Jan 23, Graham Hawkes (54) took his Deep Flight Aviator, a winged submersible, on a demonstration run in SF Bay.
(SFC, 1/24/03, p.A21)
2003 Jan 30, Spencer Abraham, US Energy Secretary, said the US would rejoin the $5 billion int’l. project to build an experimental fusion reactor. The US had left the project in 1998.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A6)
2003 Jun 13, Scientists reported that the new hydrogen fuel cell technology could lead to greater destruction of the ozone layer that protects Earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays.
(AP, 6/13/03)
2003 Jul 17, A US company launched Mexican sales of microchips that can be implanted under a person's skin and used to confirm health history and identity.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Oct 13, It was reported that scientists in North Carolina had built a brain implant that lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Two books on the new nanotechnology: "Nanocosm" by William Illsey Atkinson and "The next Big Thing Is Really Small" by Jack Uldrich with Deb Newberry.
(WSJ, 5/23/03, p.W14)
2003 Pres. Bush signed the National Nanotechnology Initiative into law. The current market value of the industry was about $1 billion.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.52)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 A report from Texas A&M Univ. showed that ionization fire detectors (smoke alarms) take 15 minutes longer or more than photoelectric fire detectors to detect smoldering fires. About 90% of US homes at this time contained the ionization type, which were about $5 cheaper than the photoelectric type.
(SSFC, 8/15/10, p.A12)
2003 Scientists at the Univ. of Texas found a way to spin nanotubes into fibers to make the world’s toughest polymer.
(Econ, 1/1/05, Survey p.5)
2003 Near-field communications (NFC) was finalized as an industry standard. The wireless technology operated over very short ranges measured in centimeters.
(Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.22)
2003 The first cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) debuted about this time.
(SSFC, 7/25/10, p.L5)
2004 Jan 1, China began running the world's 1st commercially operated maglev train in Shanghai. The German-built system spanned 18 miles.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.E4)
2004 Jan 28, Scientists said they had created a new form of matter, called a fermionic condensate, and predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications. It is the sixth known form of matter, after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995.
(Reuters, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 30, In Japan a judge ruled that Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue light-emitting diode (LED), should share in the profits of his former employers. He was awarded $190 million in a case against Nichia Corp.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)
2004 Mar 13, In the first DARPA Grand Challenge robotic vehicles began a 200-mile road race near Barstow, California. The Pentagon sponsored race ended without a winner, as none of the autonomous vehicles built by the 15 qualifying teams was able to travel farther than 7 miles from the starting line.
(SFC, 3/13/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/14/04)
2004 Apr 13, The FDA approved a clinical trial by Cyberkinetics on implants in humans for a brain-computer interface.
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
2004 Jun 12, It was reported that engineers had created a “metal-rubber," a substance that conducts electricity like metal, but also stretches like rubber up to 250% of its original length.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.14)
2004 Jun 24, In Japan Cyberdyne was founded by Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at the University of Tsukuba as a venture company to develop his ideas for an exoskeleton suit.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdyne_Inc.)
2004 Oct 13, The US government approved a microchip that can be implanted under the skin to provide doctors with patient data. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Tommy Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options. In 2007 it was reported that a series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
(SFC, 10/14/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/9/07)
2004 Dec 15, A walking, talking child-size robot from Honda Motor Co. managed an easy, although comical, jog in the Japanese automaker's latest quest to imitate human movement.
(AP, 12/15/04)
2004 In 2004 David V. Herlihy authored “Bicycle: The History."
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.W5)
2004 Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, co-founded Palantir Technologies in Palo Alto, Ca., to build software that ties databases together to make it easier to search and analyze information.
(SFC, 6/25/15, p.C6)
2004 University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom thick but more than 100 times stronger than steel, and showed it has exceptional properties, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.
(AP, 10/5/10)(Econ, 12/5/15, TQ p.9)
2004 Hong Kong-based Ruyan, which means "like smoking," introduced the world's first electronic cigarette. It patented its ultrasonic atomizing technology, in which nicotine is dissolved in a cartridge containing propylene glycol, the liquid that is vaporized in smoke machines in nightclubs or theaters and is commonly used as a solvent in food.
(AP, 2/2809)
2004-2005 In Canada Mike Lazaridis, co-founder of Research In Motion (RIM), founded the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at Ontario’s Univ. of Waterloo. He linked the institute to the university’s nanotechnology program and provided donations totaling C$50 million.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
2005 Feb 1, HP researchers introduced groundbreaking nanotechnology that could replace traditional transistors on computer chips.
(SFC, 2/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 17, Researchers demonstrated a robot that used a “passive-dynamic design" to learn walking step by step like a toddler.
(SFC, 2/18/05, p.A2)
2005 Mar, The Y Combinator company, an American startup incubator (accelerator) for tech companies, was founded by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, and Jessica Livingston.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator_%28company%29)
2005 Apr, Moshe Alamaro of MIT proposed the creation of small, man-made cyclones to cool the ocean and prevent large natural hurricanes.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.8)
2005 Neil Gershenfeld authored “Fab: The coming Revolution on Your Desktop--From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication."
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.37)
2005 High Impact Technology (HIT), a small Oregon firm, proposed using lightweight plastic to protect fuel trucks from bullets. It developed a polyurethane material that when sprayed onto a fuel tank would dry to a rigid plastic. Fuel spurting out a bullet hole would react with a catalyst in the polyurethane causing it to absorb fuel and expand, this plugging the leak in seconds.
(Econ, 9/7/13, TQ p.7)
2005 Universal Robots was founded in Denmark to make robot arms that were light and easily programmed.
(Econ, 3/29/14, SR p.6)
2006 Mar 15, It was reported that Japanese scientists had unveiled a robotic fish that could one day be used to observe fish in the ocean or survey oil platforms for damage.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
2006 Apr 22, The 2-day Maker Faire began in San Mateo, Ca., as a gathering of tinkerers to display their gadgets.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.87)(http://makezine.com/faire/2006/)
2006 Sep 18, Researchers at Intel and UC Santa Barbara announced new technology using lasers on silicon chips for optical computing. Practical use was thought to be 5-7 years away.
(SFC, 9/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 13, Peter McColough (b.1922), former CEO of Xerox (1968-1982), died. He funded the fabled Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1969.
(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.A6)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced the 1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb, Estonia became the first country in the world to institute electronic voting for parliamentary elections.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_ID_card)
2007 Mar 2, Checkpoint Systems Inc. said it will provide Reno GmbH with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and store tagging systems. Reno GmbH plans to embed wireless chips in shoes sold at hundreds of stores across the continent.
(http://tinyurl.com/2cpo45)
2007 Mar 26, Intel Corp. announced it will build a $2.5 billion chip factory in China, giving the US company a bigger presence in the booming Chinese market and boosting Beijing's efforts to attract high-tech investment. Intel also unveiled a prototype chip that uses optical connections to increase speed. Products using the technology were expected to appear within 3 years.
(AP, 3/26/07)(WSJ, 3/26/07, p.B6)
2007 Apr 15, Scientists unveiled the world’s tiniest eyedropper, capable of squeezing out zeptoliter droplets.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A9)
2007 Jun 15, The US Patent and Trademark office launched a one-year pilot program for a peer review of patent applications using an internet-based collaboration process.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.28)
2007 Jun 26, A Japanese robot maker unveiled what it called the world's first prototype of an artificial hand with "air muscles" that can do even delicate work like picking up a raw egg.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jul 24, Intel Corp. said it has fabricated the first modulator made from silicon that can encode data onto a beam of light at a rate of 40 billion bits per second (gigabits). Such speeds represented a rate 40 times faster than most corporate data networks.
(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.B4)
2007 Aug 14, It was reported that Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute had developed a flexible battery using carbon nanotubes and cellulose.
(www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-08-14-2925644111_x.htm)
2007 Aug 31, Leading Japanese mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it will tie up with broadband provider ACCA Networks to introduce ultra-fast mobile WiMAX technology.
(AFP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 10, It was reported that John Kanzius of Erie, Pa., had accidentally discovered a way to burn salt water when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
(AP, 9/10/07)
2007 Oct 31, Physicists at UC Berkeley said they had produced the world’s smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than human hair. They had it play “Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and said it could also function as a transmitter.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct, The first commercial wave farm was set up off the coast of Portugal. The system was created at Pelamis Wave Power, a firm based in Scotland.
(Econ, 6/7/08, TQ p.22)
2007 Nov 12, A new study said US researchers have developed a method of producing hydrogen gas from biodegradable organic material, potentially providing an abundant source of this clean-burning fuel. The method used by engineers at Pennsylvania State University combines electron-generating bacteria and a small electrical charge in a microbial fuel cell to produce hydrogen gas.
(AFP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 19, Amazon.com began selling its Kindle electronic book reader, the size of a paperback, for $399. It was able to hold 200 volumes.
(WSJ, 11/20/07, p.B1)(Econ, 10/25/08, SR p.11)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Bruce D. Abramson authored “The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court Where the Rules of the Information Age Unfold," a discussion of the American patent system.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M3)
2007 Planar Energy of Orlando, Florida, was spun off from America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The company went on to develop a process for printing lithium-ion batteries onto sheets of metal or plastic. A pilot production facility opened in 2011.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.77)
2008 Feb 11, It was reported that Ronald Fearing, Berkeley professor in electrical engineering, has invented a tape-like substance based on the physics used by geckos to scoot upside-down across ceilings.
(SFC, 2/11/08, p.C1)
2008 Feb 19, Japan’s Toshiba Corp. announced it would no longer develop, make or market high-definition HD DVD players and recorders, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2008 May 20, Scientists delivered a warning about nanotechnology after tests on lab rodents found that microscopic, needle-like fibers that are already in commercial use led to lesions similar to those caused by asbestos.
(AFP, 5/20/08)
2008 Jun 6, Pres. Bush signed a transportation bill that freed $45 million for environmental studies for a levitating train planned to run from Disneyland to Las Vegas.
(SFC, 6/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Aug 12, It was reported that Akron inventor Charlie Grispin, chief technical officer of PolyFlow Corp., had developed a new process to recycle plastic and that a demonstration plant in Akron showed how the process broke all manner of plastics into their base chemicals.
(http://tinyurl.com/6xfw5s)(www.polyflowcorp.com/)
2008 Aug 21, Intel showed off a wireless electric power system at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco. Analysts said it could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Geneva the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle collider, passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe. On Sep 19 it started leaking helium and had to be turned off. The technical problems delayed for at least two months the quest for scientists to learn more about the nature of the universe and the origins of all matter.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.96)
2008 Sep 22, It was reported that SanDisk, a maker of flash memory, was teaming with 4 top music labels to roll out a new music medium based on its microSD cards, which would feature pre-loaded albums and additional content and compete with the declining CD market.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 23, Google and T-Mobile unveiled the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to use the Google’s Android operating system.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct, Solyndra, a Fremont, Ca., company, launched a new type of solar panel using lightweight glass tubes. It expected installation costs to be half that of conventional panels.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.110)
2008 Oct 30, The Economist magazine presented its annual innovation awards. Winners included Martin Evans, for stem cell research at Cardiff Univ.; Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia for the promotion online public collaboration; Matti Makkonen, a Finnish engineer, for the development of Short Message Service (SMS), better known as text messaging; Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube, for the creating of an easy way to share video; Arthur Rosenfeld of Lawrence Berkeley for his promotion of energy efficiency; Sumio Iijima for the discovery of carbon nanotubes; Bill and Melinda Gates for the developing a philanthropic support platform; and Nokia Corp. For its ability to respond to social and technological trends.
(Econ, 12/6/08, TQ p.13)
2009 Jan 29, India began a plan to issue a new biometric identity card to its whole 1.2 billion population. On June 25 Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of Infosys, was given ministerial status and appointed to run the scheme.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.36)(http://tinyurl.com/nvfahh)
2009 Feb 11, BrightSource Energy of Oakland, California, announced that it will sell southern California Edison 1,300 megawatts of electricity from 7 large solar plants planned for the California desert. This was believed to be the world’s largest solar deal to date.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A1)
2009 Feb 16, In Spain Samsung of South Korea unveiled the world's first solar-powered mobile phone at an industry show where the sector is showcasing the new technology it hopes will drive demand through the economic crisis.
(AFP, 2/16/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported the Behrad Khamesee and colleagues at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, have built a micro-robot with gripper arms that levitates.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.85)
2009 May 13, A new, 2-person, research submarine, the Deep Flight Super Falcon, was unveiled at the California Academy of Sciences in SF. It was designed by marine engineer Graham Hawkes. Its $1.5 million cost was underwritten by venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It was scheduled to begin exploring Monterey Bay in June.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B5)
2009 May 18, It was reported that South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 31, A robotic vehicle named Nereus, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, made the deepest ocean dive ever - 6.8 miles (10,902 meters). At this depth, Nereus was able to explore the Challenger Deep, the ocean's lowest point, located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.
(www.livescience.com/environment/090603-ocean-abyss.html)
2009 Jun 6, Palm Inc. introduced its new smart phone called Pre. Two days later Apple unveiled updated versions of its popular iPhone.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Aug 28, Denmark announced the 5 winners of its biennial Index design awards. The winners included: Kiva.org, of the SF Bay Area for bringing money and intellectual capital to the working poor; Better Place, of the SF Bay Area for a clean energy system for all-electric cars; the Freeplay fetal heart rate monitor; Philip Design for its India-team designed safe kitchen stove for one-room homes; and Rotterdam-based Pig 05049 for its list of 185 good and bad products made from a single pig.
(SFC, 8/29/09, p.E1)
2009 Oct 1, Mattel planned to release its Mindflex toy, which allowed users to lift a ball and send it through an obstacle course using brain control interface technology.
(SSFC, 9/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Sep 18, South Korean scientists said they had developed a new transistor which moves faster and consumes less energy than existing semiconductors, a technology opening the way for no-booting computers.
(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Nov 19, In Silicon Valley, California, the Tech Awards, a humanitarian program recognizing technological solutions aimed at worldwide challenges, honored 5 winners for their work in the environment, economic development, education, equality and health.
(SFC, 11/20/09, p.D1)
2009 Dec 2, An Italian-led team of scientists said a robotic hand has been successfully connected to an amputee, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts. A video was shown of Pierpaolo Petruzziello (26) as he concentrated to give orders to the hand placed next to him.
(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Dec 5, The Defense Advance Research projects Agency (DARPA) conducted an experiment challenging teams around the country to locate the submit the correct geographic coordinates of 10 weather balloons in return for a $40,000 cash prize. Over 4,000 teams participated and the winning answer came after 8 hours and 56 minutes. Social networking sites played a major role in the game theory simulation. Riley Crane, a post doc research fellow at MIT’s media lab, led the winning team using an elaborate information gathering pyramid.
(SFC, 12/7/09, p.A9)
2009 Dec 7, Scientists at Stanford University in California reported that they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a "paper battery" that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage.
(Reuters, 12/10/09)
2009 Dec 26, China unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world, a train connecting the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 350 km (217 miles) an hour.
(AFP, 12/26/09)
2009 Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich authored the online book: “Seasteading: Homesteading the High Seas." Backed by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, they planned to begin creating a floating colony 12 miles off the coast of San Francisco in 2012.
(SFC, 6/1/11, p.A14)(http://seasteading.org/mission/faq)
2009 The first perovskite solar cells were made. They converted 3.8% of the light falling on them into electricity. By 2015 the conversion was pushed up to about 20%.
(Econ, 5/16/15, p.71)
2010 Jan 7, Intel CEO Paul Otellini introduced a technology called Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) that allows a user to beam the contents of a computer screen to a TV.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Jan 8, It was reported that YMax Corp., the company behind the magicJack, the cheap Internet phone gadget that's been heavily promoted on TV, has made a new version of the device that allows free calls from cell phones in the home, in a fashion that's sure to draw protest from cellular carriers.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 9, A company called TrueCompanion premiered the "lifelike" sex robot, Roxxxy on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb7w8gr)(Econ, 4/2/11, p.65)
2010 Jan 23, The British Department for Business Innovation and Skills halted the export of the ADE651 after a Jan 22 BBC Newsnight investigation challenged the claims of the company, ATSC. The broadcaster took the key aspects of the device to a laboratory, which concluded that a component intended to detect explosives contained technology used to prevent theft in stores. The government banned its export to Iraq and Afghanistan because of the risk that it could hurt British and allied forces.
(AP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan, It was reported that German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology in Chemnitz have found a way to use electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) to punch holes into steel.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.80)
2010 Feb 11, The US military used a laser gun aboard a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to shoot down a missile near Point Mugu, Ventura County, Ca. The airborne laser program began in 1996 and has cost billion of dollars.
(SFC, 2/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 15, In Spain, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Apple announced its new Windows Phone 7 software. Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile handsets, said it would merge its Linux Maemo software platform, used in its flagship N900 phone, with Intel's Moblin, which is also based on Linux open-sourced software, to create a new platform, MeeGo. The software deal was set to boost Intel's chances of getting its chips into the cellphones of the Finnish company, which controls around 40% of the global phone market.
(Reuters, 2/15/10)(SFC, 2/16/10, p.D1)
2010 Feb 18, US researchers unveiled a vehicle that earns money for its driver instead of guzzling it up in gasoline and maintenance costs. The presentation of the box-like, unassuming looking Scion was the researchers' way of introducing the "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G) concept as it begins to gain momentum in the United States and around the world.
(AFP, 2/19/10)
2010 Feb 24, In San Jose, Ca., stealth start-up Bloom Energy publicly unveiled an innovative fuel cell that promises to deliver affordable, clean energy to even remote corners of the world.
(AFP, 2/25/10)
2010 Mar 16, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said she is freezing funding for the SBInet project, the virtual border fence along the US-Mexican border, due to cost overruns and missed deadlines by Boeing Corp. The project has cost $2.4 billion between 2005 and 2009.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100317/ts_csm/288327)
2010 Apr 2, It was reported that researchers, at Israeli weapons maker Rafael, were putting the final touches on a tank-mounted miniature anti-missile system, Trophy, that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach tanks equipped with the system.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 12, China eased requirements for companies to qualify for government purchasing of technology after a plan to favor domestic technology was met with heavy criticism from other countries and business groups.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 May 16, Israel inaugurated a huge new desalination facility on its Mediterranean seashore, with a network of pipes beneath the beach reaching far into the ocean. The $425 million Hadera plant is the world's largest using reverse osmosis technology.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 27, In Florida a Delta 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral carried a new generation GPS satellite into space. A dozen such Boeing-built satellites will be launched over the next several years to replace the 20-year-old systems now in service.
(SFC, 5/29/10, p.A4)
2010 Jun 9, The Technology Academy of Finland awarded Michael Graetzel of Switzerland, a German-born chemist, the international Millennium Technology Prize for inventing low-cost solar cells used in renewable energy. The prize included euro800,000 ($960,000).
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 Jun 23, Russia’s Pres. Medvedev visited Silicon Valley and met with executives at Apple, Cisco and Twitter as he sought to advance Russia as a global leader in technology.
(SFC, 6/24/10, p.D1)
2010 Jul 1, D.light, a solar powered lantern that could provided light for up to 12 hours after charging in sunlight for one day, won the Ashden award for sustainable energy. It was designed by an Indian company in California and marketed successfully in India.
(www.dlightdesign.com/dataDoc/media/International_winners_Ashden2010_final.pdf)
2010 Aug 6, Saudi Arabia suspended BlackBerry messaging services, as concerns spread across the Middle East and parts of Asia over security issues with the popular smartphones.
(AFP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 24, In Eastport, Maine, the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) launched a $2.5 million prototype, tidal grid-compatible power system.
(Econ, 10/9/10, p.48)(www.oceanrenewablepower.com/home.htm)
2010 Sep 11, Japan launched a rocket carrying a satellite intended to improve global positioning systems.
(AFP, 9/11/10)
2010 Oct 4, Tokyo-based Toshiba unveiled the world's first high definition liquid crystal display 3-D television that does not require special glasses, one of the biggest consumer complaints about the technology.
(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 5, Two Russian-born scientists shared the Nobel Prize in physics for groundbreaking experiments with ultrathin carbon. In 2004 University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom thick but more than 100 times stronger than steel, and showed it has exceptional properties, the strongest and thinnest material known to mankind.
(AP, 10/5/10)(Econ, 12/5/15, TQ p.9)
2010 Oct 8, Pres. Obama signed a law on providing the disabled easier access to technology.
(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 11, Microsoft unveiled a new mobile phone operating system as it seeks to regain ground lost to the iPhone, Blackberry and devices powered by Google's Android software.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 21, In Austria Christian Kandlbauer (22), man who was able to drive because of an innovative high-tech artificial arm, died. He had been in intensive care since Oct 19 after his vehicle veered off the road and into a tree. It was unclear whether the crash was caused by problems with Kandlbauer's artificial arms.
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Nov 4, Microsoft released Kinect, a motion-tracking peripheral for the Xbox console. Scientists soon found uses multiple other uses for the device.
(SFC, 1/10/11, p.D1)
2010 Dec 28, South Korean education officials said almost 30 robots have started teaching English to youngsters in a South Korean city, in a pilot project designed to nurture the nascent robot industry.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 William Rosen authored “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention," a study of the process of tinkering with an existing mechanism to make it better.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.70)
2010 Fourth-generation networks embraced internet protocol providing mobile devices with broadband access to the internet. The first generation of cellular phones began around 1980 and relied on analogue technology. The 2nd generation arrived in 1991 and wireless networks began to go digital. By 2001 the 3rd generation dumped circuit-switching for more efficient packet-switching.
(Econ, 5/30/15, TQ p.10)
2010 The AR drone built by Parrot, a French company, became a best seller. The easy-to-fly quadcopter was able to beam video back to a smartphone.
(Econ, 9/26/15, p.80)
2011 Feb 7, France-based Alcatel-Lucent unveiled technology that reduces the filing cabinet size of a wireless base station to that of Rubik’s cube.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.70)
2011 Feb 24, In Japan the world's first robot marathon kicked off in Osaka, with five two-legged participants racing on an indoor track. The race was expected to last through Feb 27.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 28, It was reported that California's AeroVironment has built the world's first hummingbird spy plane. The Pentagon had asked them to develop a pocket-sized aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance that mimicked biology.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Mar 3, Japanese researchers said they have developed a human-shaped mobile phone with a skin-like outer layer that enables users to feel closer to those on the other end.
(AFP, 3/3/11)
2011 Apr 13, The US navy said it successfully tested a high energy laser from a ship last week. The laser beam could set on fire boat engines, such as those used by Somali pirates.
(SFC, 4/14/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 19, It was reported that a US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.
(www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458.asp)
2011 Apr, The American Navy successfully tested a prototype of its Maritime Laser. The device of just over 100 kilowatts integrated with a ship’s radar and other systems for use to destroy a target at sea.
(Economist, 9/1/12, TQ p.12)
2011 May 30, Australian robots have begun talking to each other in a language of their own devising. Two "Lingodroids," developed by the University of Queensland, have picked up their shared language by playing location games that led them to construct a shared vocabulary for places, distances and directions.
(Reuters, 5/30/11)
2011 May 30, European anti-trust regulators launched in-depth probes into proposed US takeovers of South Korean and Japanese businesses manufacturing computer hard disk drives (HDD). The planned acquisitions of the hard disk drive operations of South Korean electronics giant Samsung by Seagate Technology, and the storage business of Japan's Hitachi by Western Digital Corporation in a sector with just five manufacturers worldwide have raised concerns. Brussels officials have until October 10 to decide what action if any they will take.
(AFP, 5/30/11)
2011 Jun 18, A five-hour computer outage virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and early Saturday, a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.
(AP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 23, Japanese inventors were reported to have pushed the frontiers of technology with the ultimate companion for lonely singles, a wired torso-shaped device that you can hug and that hugs you back.
(AFP, 6/23/11)
2011 Jul 26, China’s Jiaolong undersea craft, named after a mythical sea dragon, reached 5,057 meters (16,591 feet) below sea level in a test dive in the northeastern Pacific. In 1960 the US Navy reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the world's oceans at 11,000 meters. Dr. Cui Weicheng, founder and director of the Hadal Science and Technology Research Center (HAST) had organized the construction of the craft.
(AFP, 7/26/11)(Econ, 8/27/16, p.61)
2011 Sep 7, It was reported that New Mexico plans to build a $200 million, 20-square mile model metropolis to test renewable energy innovations, intelligent traffic systems and new wireless networks. It would model a typical American town of 35,000 people.
(SFC, 9/7/11, p.A6)
2011 Oct 4, Apple Inc. unveiled a faster, more powerful iPhone, the iPhone 4S, in its first major product event in years without Steve Jobs presiding. The device included Siri, a personal assistant application.
(AP, 10/4/11)(SFC, 1/23/15, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri)
2011 Nov 18, Findings detailed in today’s issue of the journal Science tell how scientists have devised ultra-lightweight, low-density metallic lattices with orderly structures. These possess higher levels of stiffness, strength and conductivity of conventional forms of their parent materials.
(http://tinyurl.com/73h5bh4)
2011 Dec 17, In Afghanistan the US military began testing Kaman K-MAX helicopters, a revolutionary new drone for its arsenal. The pilotless helicopters will fly cargo missions to remote outposts where frequent roadside bombs threaten access by road convoys.
(AP, 1/7/12)
2011 The Chinese company Megvii, an artificial intelligence firm, was founded and developed face recognition technology. The name stands for mega vision.
(Econ, 9/9/17, p.59)
2012 Mar 13, British chip designer ARM unveiled what it said was the world's most energy-efficient microprocessor design that will help devices ranging from fridges to medical equipment to parking meters to communicate with other devices.
(Reuters, 3/13/12)
2012 Jan 8, The Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas. South Korea-based Samsung and LG introduced their new 55-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) HDTVs.
(SFC, 3/15/12, p.D2)
2012 Apr 22, A prize-winning, super-energy-saving 10-watt LED bulb from Dutch electronics giant Philips, went on sale to coincide with Earth Day. The bulb, said to last over 20 years, has won the US Department of Energy's "Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize" and was now available from retailers for $50, down from an initial $60 price tag.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Jun 24, A manned Chinese submersible, the Jiaolong, broke through the 7,000-meter mark for a new national deep water dive record in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean on its fourth dive since arriving in the area earlier this month. The dive came on the same day China successfully completed its first manual space docking.
(AFP, 6/24/12)
2012 Jun 28, US scientists reported the development of a paint that can store and deliver electrical power just like a battery.
(Reuters, 6/28/12)
2012 Aug 14, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced the winners of its $100,000 Reinventing the Toilet Challenge. The winning toilet was developed by Michael Hoffman of the California Institute of Technology.
(Economist, 9/1/12, TQ p.10)
2012 Aug 16, A solar powered toilet that turns urine and feces into hydrogen and electricity won a $100,000 first prize in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge in Seattle, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
(SFC, 8/17/12, p.A8)
2012 Oct 19, British engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, said they have produced 5 liters of synthetic petrol over a period of three months. AFS said it has developed a way to create petrol from air and water.
(AP, 10/19/12)
2012 Oct, A robot called Baxter, developed by Rethink Robotics, went on sale. The company was founded by Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.86)
2012 Brad Feld, co-founder of the TechStars accelerator network, authored “Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City," a to do list for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
(Econ, 1/18/14, SR p.10)
2012 Michigan doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of Kaiba Gionfriddo, a 3-month-old Ohio baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.
(AP, 5/22/13)
2012 Scientists at the Harvard robotics laboratory performed a successful flight of hovering robots the size of crane flies.
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.77)(http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/110/)
2012 Memoto, a Swedish startup, raised over $500,000 on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. The company also raised €500,000 in seed funding enabling it to build a stamp-sized wearable camera that takes pictures every 30 seconds. The company later moved to San Francisco and in 2016 introduced the narrative Clip 2, a body cam for civilians.
(Econ, 5/11/13, p.69)(SFC, 4/22/16, p.C1)
2013 Jan 23, Pebble Technology, an American maker of smart watches, began shipping it’s $150 digital wrist watches that can show e-mail, text and Facebook messages. Eric Migicovsky's company launched a Kickstarter campaign on April 11, 2012, with an initial fundraising target of $100,000. On May 18, 2012, funding closed with $10,266,844 pledged by 68,928 people.
(Econ, 1/26/13, p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_%28watch%29)
2013 Mar 13, Shares of Silver Spring Networks (SSNI) of Redwood City, Ca., closed at $22 in an IPO of 4.75 million shares on the NYSE. The maker of smart meter technology jumped nearly 30% from the $17 offer.
(SFC, 2/14/13, p.C1)
2013 Mar 18, The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was awarded to Marc Andreessen, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn and Louis Pouzin, for their efforts in the development of the Internet.
(Econ, 3/23/13, p.84)
2013 Apr 11, Netherlands-based Royal Philips NV said it has developed a working prototype of an LED lamp that will confine the fluorescent bulb to the recycling bin of history.
(AP, 4/11/13)
2013 May 2, An experimental US aircraft, the unmanned X-51A WaveRider sped over 3,000 mph in a test flight above the Pacific Ocean. It used a scramjet engine and reached Mach 5.1 riding its own shock wave before plunging into the ocean as planned.
(SFC, 5/4/13, p.A10)
2013 May 16, Heinrich Rohrer (79), Swiss physicist and Nobel Prize winner (1986), died in Switzerland. He is regarded as the father of nanotechnology.
(Econ, 6/1/13, p.90)
2013 Jun 10, Apple Corp. said it will equip its new iPhones with a “kill switch" that will render the devices useless if stolen.
(SFC, 6/11/13, p.A1)
2013 Jun 11, Google announced the acquisition of Waze, the Israeli creator of a traffic and navigation app for smartphones.
(Econ, 6/15/13, p.68)
2013 Aug 12, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, proposed to revive the old science-fiction vac-train concept to carry passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles at over 1,200kph.
(Econ, 8/17/13, p.65)
2013 Sep 4, South Korea’s Samsung set the price of its new Galaxy Gear wristwatch at $299 with sales to begin Sep 25.
(SFC, 9/5/13, p.C3)
2013 Oct 15, The European Space Agency said it has developed a technology that allows metal parts for spacecraft and nuclear reactors to be "printed" as a single piece.
(AP, 10/15/13)
2013 Nov 4, It was reported that Britain's biggest retailer Tesco plans to install screens at its petrol stations that scan customers' faces so that advertising can be tailored to their age and gender.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Nov 4, South Korea's spy agency said that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralyzing military electronic equipment south of the border.
(AFP, 11/4/13)
2013 Dec 20, In Florida 17 teams competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge at a speedway track near Miami. Only one robot, SCHAFT, made it to the top of a nine-step aluminum ladder. It was created by a Japanese startup owned by Google.
(Econ, 3/29/14, SR p.3)(http://tinyurl.com/lsbfd5n)
2013 Clive Hamilton authored “Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering."
(Econ, 11/23/13, p.80)
2013 Evgeny Morozov authored “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism."
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.D1)
2013 Fred Vogelstein authored “Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution."
(SSFC, 12/8/13, p.F5)
2013 Chris Sheldrick founded the British firm What3Words. The company created a geocoding system for the simple communication of locations with a resolution of three meters.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words)(Econ, 7/2/16, p.71)
2013 The Chinese firm DJI introduce the Phantom drone. It brought professional quality aerial photography within the reach of general users.
(Econ, 9/26/15, p.80)
2014 Jan 27, Google said that it had agreed to buy British artificial intelligence start-up company DeepMind. The company, co-founded Demis Hassabis, was purchased for $400 million.
(AFP, 1/27/14)(Econ, 6/25/16, SR p.4)
2014 Apr 9, Stuart Parkin (58) won the Finnish 1 million-euro ($1.3 million) Millennium Technology Prize for discoveries leading to a thousand-fold increase in digital data storage on magnetic disks. The British-American physicist directed the IBM-Stanford spintronic science center in California.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 15, The wireless industry said that smartphones will offer optional, reversible “kill switches" starting next year as a way to deter thieves.
(SFC, 4/16/14, p.A1)
2014 May 9, The Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle Nereus, operated by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was lost during its dive to the Kermadec Trench off the coast of New Zealand. It was being operated as part of the Hadal Ecosystems Studies (HADES) Program funded by the US National Science Foundation.
(AP, 5/11/14)
2014 May 9, In Germany SLM Solutions, a pioneer in making selective laser melting equipment, i.e. 3D printers, used in factories, began trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Here additive manufaturing was used to describe one aspect of 3D printing.
(Econ, 5/3/14, p.56)
2014 Jun 5, In Japan billionaire Masayoshi Son's mobile phone company Softbank unveiled a robot dubbed Pepper that can decipher emotions. It will go on sale in Japan in February for 198,000 yen ($1,900). Overseas sales plans are under consideration but undecided.
(AP, 6/5/14)
2014 Jun 19, San Francisco DA George Gascon said Google and Microsoft will incorporate kill switches into the next versions of of their operating systems for mobile devices.
(SFC, 6/20/14, p.A1)
2014 Jul 14, MakerBot, now owned by Stratasys Inc., and Home Depot announced a new partnership to bring 3D printing capabilities to the masses. The MakerBot Replicator Mini was priced at $1,375.
(http://tinyurl.com/q3atfda)(SFC, 7/16/14, p.C1)
2014 Aug 8, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Japan and the United States will jointly develop a fuel-cell powered submarine that can run for a month under the sea on a single charge an unmanned. The 10-meter (33-feet) long sub would be able to chart a pre-programmed course before returning to base.
(AFP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 20, Siluria Technologies of California said a $30 million fundraising round was led by Saudi Aramco. Siluria said it can make gasoline from gas for about $1 per gallon.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.C1)
2014 Sep 9, Apple unveiled a $349 watch, two larger iPhones and the mobile payments service Apple Pay. Apple Inc will reportedly charge fees from banks every time consumers use their iPhone to make purchases, a move that will give the company a cut of the growing mobile payments market.
(Reuters, 9/9/14)(Econ, 9/13/14, p.73)
2014 Oct 15, Lockheed Martin Corp said it has made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.
(Reuters, 10/15/14)
2014 Nov 2, China’s state media said China has successfully tested a self-developed laser defense system against small-scale low-altitude drones.
(Reuters, 11/2/14)
2014 Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee authored “The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.71)
2014 In Canada Ian Goodfellow, a student at the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA), introduce a generative adversarial network (GAN), a type of machine-learning algorithm.
(Econ 7/1/17, p.70)
2015 Jan 6, The Intl’. Consumer Electronics Show opened in Las Vegas.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.48)
2015 Mar 8, China-based Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) launched its new Phantom 3 range of drones with prices starting at $1,000.
(SFC, 5/14/15, p.58)
2015 Mar 9, Apple Corp. CEO Tim Cook presented the company’s new smartwatch at a show in San Francisco’s Y’s Yba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. Prices for the watch started at $349.
(SFC, 3/10/15, p.D1)
2015 Apr 21, Japan’s maglev train set a world speed record during a test run near Mount Fuji, clocking 375 mph.
(SSFC, 4/26/15, p.A4)
2015 Apr 30, Tesla Motors Inc. unveiled Tesla Energy for storage systems or batteries for homes, companies and utilities that will expand its business beyond electric vehicles and tap into a fast-growing area of the energy industry. The smallest 10kWh Powerwall model was priced at $3,500.
(Reuters, 5/1/15)
2015 Jun 3, Britain’s Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay plc (TLSB) named China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) as preferred bidder for a £300 million ($548 million, 412 million euros) contract the world's first artificial tidal lagoon.
(AFP, 6/3/15)
2015 Jun 6, At the finals for the DARPA Robotic Challenge in Pomona, Ca., a robot named Hubo, developed at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, (KAIST) won the $2 million first place prize.
(Econ, 6/13/15, p.77)
2015 Aug 1, HitchBOT, the adorable hitch-hiking robot cobbled together from household odds-and-ends, prematurely ended its summer travels across America, after being destroyed by vandals and abandoned on the side of a road in Philadelphia. The little talking automaton had hitchhiked unscathed last summer across thousands of miles in Canada, and had traversed parts of Europe as well without so much as a scratch. Canadian creators Frauke Zeller and David Smith considered rebuilding it.
(AFP, 8/3/15)(SFC, 8/3/15, p.A4)(SFC, 8/4/15, p.A3)
2015 Oct 25, It was reported that carbon nanotubes have been found in the lung fluid of asthmatic children living in Paris. The nanomaterial has only recently been used to manufacture items such as bicycle parts, sporting goods and wind turbines.
(SSFC, 10/25/15, p.D16)
2015 The phrase Fourth Industrial Revolution was first introduced by Klaus Schwab, the executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in a 2015 article in Foreign Affairs. "Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution" was the theme of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. On October 10, 2016, the Forum announced the opening of its Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. This was also subject and title of Schwab's 2016 book. Schwab includes in this fourth era technologies that combine hardware, software, and biology (cyber-physical systems), and emphasizes advances in communication and connectivity. Schwab expects this era to be marked by breakthroughs in emerging technologies in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the internet of things, the industrial internet of things, decentralized consensus, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G), 3D printing and fully autonomous vehicles.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3ky6csv)
2016 Jan 19, Amnesty International said cobalt mined dangerously by children in the Democratic Republic of Congo could end up in the lithium batteries of smartphones and electric cars made by Apple, Samsung or Sony.
(AFP, 1/19/16)
2016 Mar 10, In Nevada a drone made by Flirtey successfully delivered a package to a residential location in Hawthorne in what was reportedly the first fully autonomous urban drone delivery in the US.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Apr 4, In California work began on the new Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS-II) at the Dept. of Energy’s SLAC national Accelerator Center three miles west of Stanford Univ. Beams from the x-ray laser will reveal the atomic structure of matter and show the molecular movements of living matter such as viruses. The ultimate cost was estimated at $1 billion.
(SFC, 4/8/16, p.D3)
2016 Sep 25, In China the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest radio telescope, began working in the mountainous region of Guizhou.
(AFP, 9/25/16)
2016 Dec 7, Amazon completed its first delivery by drone, in what the global online giant hopes will become a trend in automated shipments by air. The delivery was made to a customer near Cambridge, England.
(AFP, 12/14/16)
2016 Dec 15, Malawi launched Africa's first drone-testing corridor as developing countries explore how drones could be used during humanitarian crises such as floods, or to deliver blood for HIV tests.
(AFP, 12/15/16)
2017 Feb 26, In Spain Chinese telecoms giant ZTE unveiled what it said is the world's first smartphone compatible with the lightening-fast 5G mobile internet service on the eve of the start of the Mobile World Congress. Networks expect to have 5G up and running by 2020.
(AFP, 2/26/17)
2017 May 20, Softbank, a Japanese telecoms group, along with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and smaller investors including Apple and Sharp, launched the world’s largest technology investment fund, worth nearly $100 billion.
(Econ 5/27/17, p.59)
2017 Jul 26, It was reported that Wisconsin-based tech company Three Square Market will begin offering employees the implantation of RFID microchips under the skin between their thumb and index finger as of August 1. This will allow employees to perform tasks such as entering the office, and paying for food with a wave of the hand.
(SFC, 7/26/17, p.C5)
2017 Sep 1, In Germany the world's largest X-ray laser wen t online and will help them capture images of structures and processes at an atomic level. Scientists hoped the European XFEL project will open up new areas of research.
(AP, 9/1/17)
2017 Oct 3, London-based DeepMind, the Google sibling focusing on artificial intelligence, announced the launch of an "ethics and society" unit to study the impact of new technologies on society.
(AP, 10/4/17)
2017 Oct 13, It was reported that a recent report by JPMorgan Chase estimated that just 10% of daily stock trading is done by human stock pickers.
(SFC, 10/13/17, p.A1)
2017 Oct 19, Google began selling its 2nd generation Daydream View, a virtual reality viewer, for $99.
(SFC, 10/20/17, p.C1)
2017 Dec 25, India's capital launched a metro train with driverless technology, though officials said it would operate with a driver for at least a year or two.
(AP, 12/25/17)
2017 Franklin Foer authored “World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech."
(Econ, 9/16/17, p.77)
2017 Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson authored “Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing our Digital Future."
(Econ 7/15/17, p.72)
2017 Japanese researcher Yu Yanagisaw at the University of Tokyo developed -- by accident-- a new type of glass that can be repaired simply by pressing it back together after it cracks.
(AP, 12/28/17)
2018 Jan 18, A pair of Australian swimmers became the first people to be rescued in the ocean by a drone when the aerial lifesaver dropped a safety device to distressed teens caught in rough seas.
(AFP, 1/18/18)
2018 Feb 4, Australia’s South Australia state government said some 50,000 homes will receive solar panels and Tesla batteries, in a landmark plan to turn houses into a giant, interconnected power plant.
(AFP, 2/4/18)
2018 Aug 6, Singapore's immigration authority said it has started scanning travelers' eyes at some of its border checkpoints, in a trial of expensive technology that could one day replace fingerprint verification.
(Reuters, 8/6/18)
2018 Aug 22, A man (26) in Germany died after a AA battery-charging device exploded, firing an object into the man's chest.
(AP, 8/23/18)
2018 Aug 27, In Switzerland a weeklong gathering opened in Geneva to discuss ways to define and deal with "killer robots," futuristic weapons systems that could conduct war without human intervention.
(AP, 8/27/18)
2018 Sep 7, It was reported that two companies in the Lesotho's tiny capital Maseru are now using one of the world's first commercial 5G networks on the long-awaited 3.5 GHz spectrum.
(AFP, 9/7/18)
2018 Oct 20, The $1.5 million XPrize for Water Abundance was won by The Skysource / Skywater Alliance, based in Venice Beach, California for developing an easily deployable high-volume water generator. The winning team was led by David Hertz and his wife Laura Doss-Hertz.
(http://tinyurl.com/y93ras2c)(SFC, 10/26/18, p.A8)
2019 Jan 28, In Japan Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.
(AP, 1/28/19)
2019 Feb 15, The US government said it will lead an ambitious effort to develop technologies to recycle lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, cellphones and other sources to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of metals crucial to battery production in anticipation of soaring global demand and potential shortages.
(AP, 2/16/19)
2019 Feb 20, Samsung unveiled its new foldable smartphone in San Francisco. The Galaxy Fold will sell for $1980 when it is released on April 26.
(SFC, 2/21/19, p.D1)
2019 Feb 24, China's Huawei unveiled a new folding-screen phone on the eve of the 4-day MWC Barcelona show, joining the latest trend for bendable devices as it challenges the global smartphone market's dominant players, Apple and Samsung.
(AP, 2/24/19)
2019 Mar 8, In Hungary MTA President Laszlo Lovasz and Innovations and Technology Minister Laszlo Palkovics announced that they had reached an agreement to separate the science research network from the academy's teaching institutions. Staff members of the historic Hungarian Academy of Sciences said their academic freedom has been threatened by a new deal giving the nationalist government influence over its research institutions.
(Reuters, 3/9/19)
2019 Apr 24, Britain said it will allow Huawei Technologies a restricted role in building parts of its 5G network, seeking a middle way in a bitter dispute between the United States and China over the next generation of communications technology. Britain would block Huawei from all core parts of the 5G network and access to non-core parts would be restricted.
(Reuters, 4/24/19)
2019 Apr 24, China's government rejected accusations that it steals technology. A day earlier Xiaoqing Zheng, a former employee of GE's power division, and Zhaoxi Zhang, a businessman in northeastern China, were indicted in the US on charges of industrial spying.
(AP, 4/24/19)
2019 Jul 17, It was reported that a local government in southern China has handed out smart watches to nearly 17,000 primary school pupils, capable of pinging their real-time locations and emergency alerts to their parents.
(The Telegraph, 7/17/19)
2019 Aug 16, Huawei Technologies sent a letter to The Wall Street Journal, refuting the publication's bombshell report describing how China's tech giant allegedly helped the governments of two African nations spy on their political opponents.
(South China Morning Post, 8/17/19)
2019 Aug 21, The European Union took a stance against “killer robots" when the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for an international ban on the development, production and use of weapons that kill without a human deciding to fire. A Dutch report this week said Amazon, Microsoft and Intel are among leading tech companies putting the world at risk through killer robot development.
(http://tinyurl.com/y3f63vqh)(AFP, 8/22/19)
2019 Aug 30, It was reported that a Paris suburb is trying out a new system that can identify noisy vehicles, pinpoint their location and automatically ticket them. The device has been installed on a lamppost in the center of Villeneuve-le-Roi, a town next to Paris Orly airport.
(Reuters, 8/30/19)
2019 Sep 6, Qualcomm Inc said it will put fifth-generation, or 5G, technology into chips powering mid-priced mobile phones starting next year, expanding use of chips now found almost exclusively in pricey phones such as Samsung's $1,299 Galaxy S10 5G model.
(Reuters, 9/6/19)
2019 Sep 12, This year's Ig Nobel winners included: Dutch and Turkish researchers who figured out which nation has the yuckiest money, an Italian scientist who urges consumption of pizza for its health benefits, and an Iranian engineer who obtained a US patent for a diaper-changing machine.
(AP, 9/13/19)
2019 Nov 3, China launched a new high-resolution remote sensing satellite capable of providing stereoscopic imagery, marking another important step as Beijing seeks to reduce reliance on foreign technology in topographic mapping.
(Reuters, 11/3/19)
2019 Nov 14, IBM said it will launch a new weather forecasting system which will be able to predict conditions up to 12 hours in advance and cover parts of the world which have not had access to such detailed data. The Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (IBM GRAF) will run on a supercomputer and provide more detailed and higher quality forecasts.
(Reuters, 11/14/19)
2019 Dec 1, In China new rules came into effect making it a legal requirement for people signing up to new mobile phone and data plans to have their faces scanned, in a major growth of the surveillance state.
(The Telegraph, 12/1/19)
2019 Dec 9, Intel Corp announced a chip called "Horse Ridge" that is designed to take all the work being done by the wires in a quantum computer and shrink it down to a chip and electronics about the size of a tea cup saucer. The chip is named for one of the coldest spots in the state of Oregon, where many of its factories are located.
(Reuters, 12/9/19)
2020 Jan 24, London's Metropolitan Police said they will use facial recognition cameras to scan the faces of passersby to see if they are criminals, in a move that critics slammed as a massive expansion of surveillance.
(Business Insider, 1/24/20)
2020 Jan 28, It was reported that most major railway stations in India will use facial recognition to fight crime by the end of 2020. Digital rights campaigners warned the move could breach people's privacy in the absence of stringent laws.
(Reuters, 1/28/20)
2020 Feb 10, Arm Ltd, a semiconductor technology firm owned by SoftBank Group, unveiled a chip technology aimed at putting artificial intelligence functions on tiny devices such as sensors designed to detect patterns in human speech or other streams of data.
(Reuters, 2/10/20)
2020 Feb 28, Apple Inc agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle litigation accusing it of quietly slowing down older iPhones as it launched new models, to induce owners to buy replacement phones or batteries. The settlement calls for Apple to pay consumers $25 per iPhone, which may be adjusted up or down depending on how many iPhones are eligible, with a minimum total payout of $310 million. This still required approval by US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose.
(Reuters, 3/2/20)
2020 Mar 3, A Moscow court ruled that the city's facial recognition system does not violate the privacy of its citizens, a blow to activists who had hoped to ban the technology's use.
(Reuters, 3/3/20)
2020 Mar 27, Microsoft said it is pulling its investments from a facial-recognition startup that scans faces at Israeli military checkpoints, even though the tech giant couldn't substantiate claims that the startup's technology is used unethically.
(AP, 3/27/20)
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