-
One of the first known maps was made on a clay tablet about 2300 B.C. in ancient Sumeria.
-
The USGS created it's first map in 1879, that same year it was found by Congress for the purpose of the "classification of the public lands."
-
Despite the drawbacks, plane-table surveying remained the main method of mapping until the 1940's, when a new technology arrived. The invention of radar gave cartographers another tool. Radar could "see" right through the clouds.
-
In the 1950's, people used Aerial Photograohy to take pictures during flights.
-
In 1972, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the first Landsat satellite.
-
In 1999, a team of scientists from the American Museum of Natural History used Landsat images to find a new site of dinosaur and early mammal fossils in the Gobi Desert.
-
In 1999, NASA launched another satellite, the Earth Observing System. (EOS)
