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40,000 BCE
Humans learn to use fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.[1][a] Fire is hot because the conversion of the weak double bond in molecular oxygen, O2, to the stronger bonds in the combustion products carbon dioxide and water releases energy (418 kJ per 32 g of O2) -
5000 BCE
The wheel is invented
In its primitive form, a wheel is a circular block of a hard and durable material at whose center has been bored a hole through which is placed an axle bearing about which the wheel rotates when torque is applied to the wheel about its axis. -
3100 BCE
Writing systems are invented
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form of information storage and transfer. -
1290 BCE
Mechanical clock
A clock is a device used to measure, keep, and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units: the day, the lunar month, and the year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the millennia -
100 BCE
Paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically and/or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying. -
Galileo's microscope
Martens/Zacharias Janssen invention of the compound microscope (claim made in 1655). After 1609 — Galileo Galilei is described as being able to close focus -
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a type of railway locomotive that produces its pulling power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fuelled by burning combustible material—usually coal, wood, or oil—to produce steam in a boiler. -
Electric motor Faraday
principles of electric motor technology known as Faraday's law of induction, which in turn is named after English scientist Michael Faraday who discovered -
Morse telegraph
An electrical telegraph was a point-to-point text messaging system, used from the 1840s until better systems became widespread.[1] It used coded pulses of electric current through dedicated wires to transmit information over long distances. -
Telephone Meucci
history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone. Meucci set up a form -
Dynamite Nobel
Dynamite is occasionally used as an initiator or booster for AN and ANFO explosive charges. Dynamite was invented by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel in -
Radio Tesla
Nikola Tesla (/ˈtɛslə/; Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла; pronounced [nǐkola têsla]; 10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical -
X-ray Roetgen
tissue. For X-rays it is equal to the absorbed dose. The Roentgen equivalent man (rem) is the traditional unit of equivalent dose. For X-rays it is equal -
Vacuum tube Fleming
anode by the electric field in the tube. The simplest vacuum tube, the diode, invented in 1904 by John Ambrose Fleming, contains only a heated electron-emitting -
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation".[1][2][3] The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. -
First computer (ENIAC)
A computer is a machine that can be instructed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically via computer programming. Modern computers have the ability to follow generalized sets of operations, called programs. These programs enable computers to perform an extremely wide range of tasks
