-
Thomas Newcomen invents the first steam engine. The big idea to us steam was to make machines work.
-
James Hargreaves, a British carpenter and weaver, invents the spinning jenny. The machine spins more than one ball of yarn or thread at a time, making it easier and faster to make cloth.
-
James Watt from Scotland designs a more efficient steam engine. One of the most important inventions of the Industrial Revolution, steam engines power the first trains, steamboats, and factories.
-
Eli Whitney creates a machine that makes it much easier to separate cotton seeds from cotton fiber. It greatly reduces the time it takes to clean cotton and helps the southern states make more money from cotton crops.
-
Samuel Morse invents the telegraph, which allows messages to be sent quickly over a wire. By 1860, telegraph wires stretch from the east coast of the United States west of the Mississippi River.
-
At a time when people had to make their own clothes at home or pay someone else to sew them by hand, Elias Howe invents the sewing machine. Now clothes can be made in large factories.
-
Elevators were already invented by 1853, but people worried about elevator cars falling. Elisha Otis invents a safety break to prevent them from falling if a cable breaks, making people feel more confident about using elevators in tall buildings.
-
Henry Bessemer invents a process for making steel out of iron. Having a way to make steel more quickly and more cheaply helps the production of building and leads to the growth of cities.
-
Alfred Nobel invents dynamite, which is a safer way to blast holes in mountains or the ground than simply lighting black powder. Dynamite is important in clearing paths to build things such as roads and railroad tracks.
-
A chemist named Louis Pasteur believed that germs caused disease. Using this information, he created vaccines that helped prevent many common diseases, which helped people live longer.
-
He may not have invented the telephone, but Alexander Graham Bell was the first to get a patent for it. Being able to speak to people over a telephone wire greatly changes the way the world communicates.
-
Not the first man to create a light bulb, Thomas Edison created a light bulb that lasted longer than other designs and showed it off by lighting a lamp. Edison's light bulbs allow people to do many things at night, such as work, that used to only happen during the day.
-
Its going to tell you what happened during the industral revolution.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4joqYycnqM
