Technology Timeline

By Maddie C

  • William Gilbert publishes his great book De Magnete describing how Earth behaves like a giant magnet. It's the beginning of the scientific study of magnetism.

    Magnete

  • Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used to keep time).

    pendulum clocks
  • Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.

    Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.

    Piano

  • John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that enables sailors to measure latitude.

    satellite naigation
  • French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air balloon.

    French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air balloon.

    Hot air balloons

  • Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated cloth-weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns help to inspire programmable computers.

    History of compputers

  • Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.

    electricity generators electric motors hub motor

  • James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves must exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism.

    Radio
  • Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.

    Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.

    Typewriters

  • Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the first practical method of recording and playing back sound on metal foil.

    CD players MP3 players

  • Thomas Edison opens the world's first power plants.

    power plants
  • Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.

    Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.

    Car engine

  • Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals.

    LCD screens and displays

  • German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.

    X rays
  • Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.

    Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.

    clothes washer

  • Robert H. Goddard develops the principle of the modern, liquid-fueled space rocket.

    bullets space rockets

  • Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the maser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word "laser" and builds the first optical laser in 1958

    lasers

  • Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch the Sputnik space satellite.

    satellites

  • World's first solar power station opened in France.

    solar cells
  • James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuum cleaner.

    James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuum cleaner.

    vacuum cleaner
  • Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system

    Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system

    smart homes

  • Electronic voting plays a major part in a controversial US Presidential Election.

    touchscreens

  • Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the iPhone.

    cellphones touchscreens

  • Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad.

    computers touche screens

  • Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building miniature machines out of molecules.

    nanotechnology

  • Quantum computing shows signs of becoming a practical technology.

    quantum computers