-
Benjamin Franklin conducts his famous kite experiment in Philadelphia. He successfully extracts electrical sparks from a cloud.
-
Michael Faraday invents the first electric motor, and Thomas Davenport creates a version of it in the United States.
-
Baltimore, Maryland is the first city int he United States to light its street lights with fuel produced from coal.
-
George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig on a well drilled especially to produce oil, at a site on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania.
-
Standard Oil, an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company, was created. At the time, it was the largest oil refiner in the world
-
The world's first hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. The plant was later named the Appleton Edison Light Company.
-
The world's first Liquified Natural Gas Plant opens in West Virginia in 1912 and begins operation in 1917.
-
The East Texas Oil Field is discovered. It is the largest oil field to date in the lower 48 states of the US.
-
The first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States, Shippingport Nuclear Power Plant, was opened by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of his Atoms for Peace program.
-
Congress passes the Natural Gas Act, which allows the Federal Power Commission to regulate the rates for interstate natural gas sales and to restrict interstate pipeline construction.
