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According to the report of an early missionary to China, coal was already being burned there for heating and cooking, and had been so for up to 4000 years.
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The vertical waterwheel, invented perhaps two centuries before the time of Christ, spread across Europe within a few hundred years. By the end of the Roman era, waterwheels powered mills to crush grain, full cloth, tan leather, smelt and shape iron, saw wood, and carry out a variety of other early industrial processes.
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In the tenth century, windmills were turning in the blustery Seistan region of Persia. These primitive, vertical carousel-type mills utilized the wind to grind corn, and to raise water from streams to irrigate gardens. Their use soon spread to India, other parts of the Muslim world, and China, where farmers used them to pump water, grind grain, and crush sugarcane.
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The mill reached its greatest size and its most efficient form in the hands of the Dutch engineers toward the end of the sixteenth century. The Dutch provinces developed the windmill to the fullest possible degree by making it grind the grain produced on the rich meadows, saw the wood, and grind the spices.
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In 1701, coal was found by settlers on the James River in what is now Richmond, Virginia. By 1736, several 'coal mines' were shown on a map of the upper Potomac River near what is now the border of Maryland and West Virginia. In 1748, the first commercial coal production began from mines around Richmond, Virginia. Coal was used to manufacture shot, shell, and other war material during the Revolutionary War.
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In 1821, the first natural gas was found in Fredonia, New York, by William Hart. After noticing gas bubbles rising to the surface of a creek, Hart dug a 27 foot well to try and obtain a larger flow of gas to the surface. Hart is regarded by many as the 'father of natural gas' in America.
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Charles F. Brush develops the world's first windmill that can generate electricity. The speed of the dynamo at full load is 500 revolutions per minute, and its normal capacity at full load is 12,000 watts.
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Through the later half of the 19th century, Pennsylvania had been the most oil-productive state in the country, but all of that changed on January 10th, 1901 when the modern oil industry was born on a hill in southeastern Texas as 'Black Gold' erupted from a height greater than 150 feet. It was not brought under control for 9 days.
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Hoover Dam is completed on the Colorado River in Arizona in 1935, four years after construction began in 1931. At the time of its completion, the Hoover Dam was the largest hydroelectric producer in the world. The dam remained the largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world until 1948.
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Early on Good Friday, March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound. The grounding ripped the bottom of the single-hulled vessel, resulting in the rupture of 11 of the vessel’s crude oil tanks and the release of nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into the environment. It was, and still is, the largest oil spill in United States waters.
