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4200 BCE
Don't Reinvent the Wheel
The wheel was invented in Mesopotamia around 4200 BC. It developed at a pottery tool but it's uses became evident quickly and the first records of four-wheeled vehicles comes from around 3500 BC. Through the years, there have been countless adaptations and advancements, but without the creative minds of our ancient ancestors, we would never have made it this far in the first place. -
3300 BCE
Bronze Metalworking Introduced
Around 3300 BC, Sumerians began adding tin to copper and discovered bronze. This allowed them to make a much harder metal which began replacing many tools and weapons. Eventually other civilizations around the world would begin using bronze but its origins lie in the Middle East. -
3000 BCE
Ancient Science and Technology
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500 BCE
Mayan Calender
The Mayan calendar was created around 500 BC and its use spread throughout Mesoamerica. It was based on astrological observations relying on planetary movement, the arrival and departure of constellations and the phases of the moon. -
300 BCE
Roman Aqueducts
The Roman Empire had many great innovations throughout its rule, but one advancement stands above the rest, their aqueducts. In order to bring fresh water into their growing cities, the Romans build incredibly durable and architecturally appealing aqueducts to transport water across large valleys on its way to feed public fountains and bathhouses. Wealthy people would utilize it for indoor plumbing, elevating their status above most common people. -
287 BCE
Archimedes Shouts "Eureka"
Archimedes of Syracuse has many great contributions to science and mathematics attributed to him. He discovered the principles of buoyancy while investigating a gold thief, calculated pi with relative accuracy for the first time, and invented Archimedes Screw which is still used today, 2500 years later. His vast array of knowledge was tragically lost when a Roman soldier ordered him to move, but Archimedes was so enthralled with a math equation, he ignored the soldier and was killed on the spot. -
10 BCE
The Birth of Hydropower
The water wheel has been used in various cultures dating back to 4000 BC, but the first modern design was described by Vitruvius of Rome. The design didn't get much use since slave labor was so abundant at the time, however, by the 4th century, many large mills were utilizing multi-wheel designs for large-scale operations. We continue to use the same basic design in our modern hydroelectric dams, proving Vitruvius a vital contributing member of the renewable energy future. -
800
Chinese Invention of Black Powder
During the Tang Dynasty, Chinese monks discovered that mixing saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal together in just the right ratio would cause an explosive reaction when ignited. They quickly applied this to their warfare tactics and easily conquered most of Eastern and Central Asia. The ratio of ingredients was closely guarded to protect their tactical domination. -
820
Muslim Trigonomitry
Al-Khwārizmī, a Muslim mathematician, described sine and cosine for the first time around 820 AD. This was an important discovery which precipitated due to their study of astronomy and architecture. This development allowed anyone to use a standard formula to identify unknown sides and angles in a right triangle, an advancement that would change the world as we know it. -
1450
Johannes Gutenburg and the Printing Press
No other invention prior to modern day computers helped facilitate the spread of knowledge more than the printing press. Before 1450, books were hand-written and took weeks, months, or years to transcribe. With the printing press, books could be produced en masse and purchased by anyone. This paved the way for the First Scientific Revolution. -
1543
Copernicus' Heliocentric Theory of the Solar System
Building on Aristarchus of Samos' and other great philosopher's work, Copernicus explained the heliocentric model in what we now use to describe the relationship between the sun and its solar system. He studied this relationship for most of his life but it wasn't published until the year he died. The First Scientific Revolution was kicked off in 1543 with this great discovery and the world was forever changed. -
1543
Scientific Revolution
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The Telescope is Introduced to the World
Although the first person to create the telescope is clouded in controversy, the first patent was applied for in 1608 by Hans Lippershey. In 1609, Galileo saw it and began working on his own design and after only a few days, he had built a telescope that could magnify objects 20 times their size and pointed it toward the heavens. The invention of the telescope is one of the greatest single events in history, opening up the stars to a scale the world had never seen before. -
Ole Roemer Accidently Discovers the Speed of Light
A Danish astronomer was studying Jupiter's moon, Io, and when he noticed that the timing of the eclipse changed based on Earth's relation to Jupiter, he correctly assumed the time difference must be equal to the speed of light. Roemer was close in his estimation, however a rudimentary understanding of Earth's orbit and imprecise timing devices threw his calculation off. His claim in 1676 was that light traveled at 131,000 miles per second but we know now, it moves at 186,000 m.p.s. -
Maria Kirch and Her Contribution to Astronomy
In the late 1600's, Maria Kirch became a renowned astronomer. She and her husband, Gottfried Kirch, published calendars and almanacs every year that identified lunar cycles, the position of the sun, and comet discoveries. She is, in fact, the first woman to identify a new comet, a claim that was taken from her by her husband. She would apply to replace her husband after his death as the Royal Astronomer for the Royal Berlin Academy of Sciences but was denied since only men held that position. -
Industrial Revolution
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The Steam Engine Drives the Industrial Revolution
James Watt and Andrew Bolton refined the steam engine in 1775 and paved the way for steam-powered life. Their engines were used in factories, trains, and mining operations. The easy-to-harness energy transformed the world in a very short period of time, creating the biggest boom in economy the world had ever seen, ushering in the Industrial Revolution. -
Henry Blair Streamlines Agriculture
Born in 1807, Henry Blair was an independent farmer and invented a corn planter in 1834 that dug a hole, planted the seed, and covered the hole all in one pass. He is the second black man in America to receive a patent for his invention, and his design gave much needed relief to slaves at the time, allowing corn to be planted with very little manual labor. He would go on to patent a cotton planting plow as well in 1836. -
Samuel Colt Introduces the Modern Firearm
The original firearm was invented by the Chinese with the discovery of black powder, however it took a thousand years before the technology to develop to what we know now. Samuel Colt revolutionized the gun by redesigning the cartridge to hold multiple rounds between reloading and improving ammunition to hold the primer, gun powder, and round in one complete package. Colt's new firearm changed warfare as we know it and allowed soldiers to be much more effective against their enemies. -
Sofya Kovalevskaya Opens the Door for Female Mathematicians
Sofya Kovalevskaya was a brilliant mathematician in Russia and eventually made her way to Germany to study at European universities. She wrote three papers for her doctorate on partial differential equations, Saturn's rings, and elliptic integrals. She was the first woman in Europe to earn a doctorate in mathematics and even has a theorem named after her. Despite the challenges she faced and the dismissal based on her gender, Kovalevskaya fought hard to pave the way for women all over the world. -
Lewis Latimer Revolutionizes the Light Bulb
As one of Thomas Edison's researchers, Lewis Latimer was closely involved with the invention of the modern day light bulb. After the patent was filed for by Edison in 1879, Latimer began refining the filament looking for the most efficient materials to use for a sustainable product. In 1882, he came up with a new manufacturing process for the carbon filament. He is haled as an integral part of modern light bulbs and recognized as one of the first black men in the Inventors Hall of Fame. -
The Father of Modern Radio Communications
Jagadish Bose was an Indian scientist and one of the first people on Earth to use radio waves to transmit communication. He had to invent most of the equipment he used for his observations and he selflessly didn't patent any of his inventions so anyone anywhere could replicate it for their own use. His contributions to microwave communication technology are unmatched and I use his work in my job every day as a satellite communications expert. -
Karl Landsteiner Discovers Blood Types
At the beginning of the 20th century, Karl Landsteiner discovered the different types of blood. He observed mixtures of blood sometimes clumping and other times mixing easily. His classification of three types of blood saved countless lives during transfusions and earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1930. Many studies have been done using his "ABO Classification" and we can see links dating back to the beginning of the human species. -
J Willard Gibbs and his Contribution Mathmatics
Gibbs was a professor at Yale for most of his life, publishing a number of books advancing the fields of thermodynamics, vector methods which improved astronomical accuracy, and modern statistics. He was a great thinker in his essence and focused on his work rather than gaining fame and fortune. Gibbs defined modern statistics in his book, Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics, and we still use his methods over 100 years later -
CV Raman Observes Light Scattering
An Indian physicist, CV Raman, observed a phenomenon that we now call, the Raman Effect. His contribution to the science of light behavior and the harmonic nature of musical acoustics earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. He was the first Asian and the first non-white person to be presented with the award. Using his discovery, other scientists were able to analyze materials based on how light traveled through them and observing the spectrum that came out the other side. -
The World's Most Important Accident
Sir Alexander Flemming was a Scottish researcher studying viruses and bacteria when his careless nature facilitated the discovery of penicillin. After a two week trip in 1928, he returned to his lab to discover a strange white growth on staphylococcus culture plate. The growth had stopped the advancement of the bacteria so naturally, Flemming began studying this new organism. Penicillin is now the most widely used antibiotic in the world, saving millions of lives since its discovery. -
Thermo King Saves the World
An orphaned black American, Frederick McKinley Jones, single-handedly tipped the scales in the Allies' favor during WW2. He invented the refrigerated truck which allowed food to be transported cold for much farther distances, giving the soldiers on the front lines fresh meat, dairy, and vegetables. Not only did Jones' invention bring much needed fresh food to soldiers, the grocery store was born with neighborhoods all over America selling fresh food delivered in one of Jones' Thermo King trucks. -
Space and Information Age
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Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Theory
There had been debates about the existence of black holes but it wasn't until Hawking's theory combined with his knowledge of quantum mechanics that anyone took them seriously. He claimed there were vast areas in space with massive gravitational fields that had so much mass that not even light could escape. His theory was proven true in 2019 when the Event Horizon Telescope captured the first images of one at the center of Messier 87.