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Prehistory is the period of human activity between the use of the first stone tools around 3.3 million years ago and the invention of writing systems, the earliest of which appeared around 5300 years ago. Technology that predates recorded history. About 2.5 million years before writing was developed, technology began with the earliest hominids who used stone tools, which they may have used to start fires, hunt, cut food, and bury their dead.
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Cave paintings (also known as “parietal art“) are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings.
The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings is not known. Evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. Some theories hold that cave painting may have been a way of communicating with others, while other theories ascribe a religious or ceremonial purpose to them. -
Papyrus is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant.
Papyrus is first known to have been used in Egypt, as the papyrus plant was once abundant across the Nile Delta. It was also used throughout the Mediterranean region and in the Kingdom of Kush. Apart from a writing material, ancient Egyptians employed papyrus in the construction of other artifacts, such as reed boats, mats, rope, sandals, and baskets. -
Clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
The artistic endeavors were created by a species of man, namely the homo sapiens. The method involved creating pigments made from the juice of fruits and berries, colored minerals, or animal blood. -
This ancient Chinese gazette was a type of publication issued by central and local governments in imperial China, which was the only official government newspaper published by the ancient Chinese central government in different dynasties. Dibao contained official political edicts, announcements, and news from the Chinese imperial central government or local governments, which were intended to be seen only by bureaucrats. -
Acta Diurna were daily Roman official notices, a sort of daily gazette. They were carved on stone or metal and presented on message boards in public places like the Forum of Rome.
Their original content included results of legal proceedings and outcomes of trials. Later the content was expanded to public notices and announcements and other noteworthy information such as prominent births, marriages, and deaths. After a couple of days, the notices were taken down and archived. -
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220 AD. Woodblock printing existed in Tang China by the 7th century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images until the 19th century. -
Maya codices are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. Such codices were the primary written records of Maya civilization, together with the many inscriptions on stone monuments and stelae that survived. -
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium such as paper or cloth, transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium. The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg based on existing screw presses. The arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication. -
The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published. The London Gazette claims to be the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK, having been first published on November 7, 1665, as The Oxford Gazette. -
The Industrial Age is a period of history that encompasses the changes in economic and social organization that began around 1760 in Great Britain and later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines such as the power loom and the steam engine, and by the concentration of industry in large establishments.
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While the invention of the camera draws on centuries of contributions, historians generally agree that the first photographic camera was invented in 1816 by Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niépce developed photographic images onto paper lined with silver chloride, and a photograph he produced in roughly 1826 stands as the oldest surviving photograph. This first photograph remains on display at the University of Texas in Austin. -
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. The first typewriter to be commercially successful was patented in 1868 by Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. -
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a patent for the device. -
A punched card is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to directly control automated machinery. Punched cards were widely used through much of the 20th century in the data processing industry, where specialized and increasingly complex unit record machines used punched cards for data input, output, and storage. -
The Lumière brothers invented the first successful movie projector. They made their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, in 1894, which was publicly screened at L'Eden, La Ciotat a year later. The first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films happened in Paris on 28 December 1895. The cinematograph was also exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. At the Exhibition, films made by the Lumière Brothers were projected onto a large screen measuring 16 by 21 meters. -
Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi first developed the idea of a radio, or wireless telegraph, in the 1890s. His ideas took shape in 1895 when he sent a wireless Morse Code message to a source more than a kilometer away. He continued to work on his new invention, and in 1897 he received the official British patent for the radio – which was really a wireless telegraph system at first. -
Television is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in black-and-white or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a television set, a television show, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. -
The invention of the transistor ushered in the electronic age. People harnessed the power of transistors that led to the transistor radio, electronic circuits, and early computers. In this age, long-distance communication became more efficient. This is a period of transition from traditional industry to an economy based on information computerization.
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A mainframe computer is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing. A mainframe computer is large and has more processing power than some other classes of computers, such as minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers. Mainframe computers are often used as servers. -
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following the invention of the transistor in 1947—which revolutionized the field of consumer electronics by introducing small but powerful, convenient hand-held devices—the Regency TR-1 was released in 1954 becoming the first commercial transistor radio. Transistor radios are still commonly used as car radios. -
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. -
Digital Age or Informational Age is a period in human history characterized by the shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based on information computerization. The internet paved the way to advance the use of microelectronics with the invention of personal computers, devices wearable technology. Moreover, voice, image, sounds, and data are digitalized.
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The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Originally funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET used packet switching to allow multiple computers to communicate on a single network. -
British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee created the first web server and graphical web browser in 1990 while working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland. He called his new window into the internet “WorldWideWeb.” It was an easy-to-use graphical interface created for the NeXT computer. For the first time, text documents were linked together over a public network—the web as we know it. -
Blog is discussion or informational website published on World Wide Web made up of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries.The first recognized blog was created in 1994 by Justin Hall called “Links.net” though word “blog” was coined in 1999 by Peter Merholz. Most popular blogs are Huffington Post, Business Insider, Mashable and Gizmodo. *Blogs are important because they are used not just to share thoughts, feelings, opinions or experiences but also promote businesses of many companies. -
Social network is a dedicated website or application that enables users to communicate by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc.The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. The most popular social networking sites or apps are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. -
A smartphone is a portable device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which facilitate wider software, internet, and multimedia functionality, alongside core phone functions such as voice calls and text messaging.