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1455
Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg completed the printing of the Bible, which was the first book printed in the West using movable type. Gutenberg’s printing press led to an information explosion in Europe. -
Period: to
Photography
In the early 1820s, Nicéphore Niépce became interested in using a light-sensitive solution to make copies of lithographs onto glass, zinc, and finally a pewter plate. He then had the great idea to use his solution to make a copy of an image in a camera obscura (a room or box with a small hole in one end through which an image of the outside is projected). In 1826 or 1827, he made an eight-hour-long exposure of the courtyard of his house, the first known photograph. -
Telegraph
Samuel Morse was a successful painter who became interested in the possibility of an electric telegraph in the 1830s. He patented a prototype in 1837. In 1844 he sent the first message over the first long-distance telegraph line, which stretched between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. The message: “What hath God wrought.” -
Telephone
While Italian innovator Antonio Meucci (pictured at left) is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, and Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a phone in 1854, Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. -
Radio
Guglielmo Marconi proved the feasibility of radio communication. He sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. By 1899 he flashed the first wireless signal across the English Channel and two years later received the letter "S", telegraphed from England to Newfoundland. This was the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902. -
Television
After the development of radio, the transmission of an image was the next logical step. Early television used a mechanical disk to scan an image. In 1922 the 16-year-old Farnsworth worked out a plan for such a system, but it wasn’t until 1927 that he made the first electronic television transmission, a horizontal line. -
Computer
Iowa State mathematician and physicist John Atanasoff designed the first electronic digital computer. It would use binary numbers and its data would be stored in capacitors. In 1939 he and his student Clifford Berry began building the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). -
Personal Computer
A small firm named MITS made the first personal computer, the Altair. This computer, which used Intel Corporation's 8080 microprocessor, was developed in 1974. Though the Altair was popular among computer hobbyists, its commercial appeal was limited. -
Internet
Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn produced the TCP/IP, which describes how data can be broken down into smaller pieces called packets and how these packets can be transmitted to the right destination. TCP/IP became the basis for how data is transmitted over the Internet. -
Mobile Phone
Martin Cooper, the engineer from Motorola, developed the first hand-held phone that could connect over Bell's AMPS. Motorola launched the DynaTAC in 1984. It weighed over a kilogram and was affectionately known as The Brick, but it quickly became a must-have accessory for wealthy financiers and entrepreneurs. -
Smartphone
IBM announced the first smartphone in 1992, which wouldn't be available for purchase for two more years. Called the Simon Personal Communicator (SPC), it included many features familiar to modern smartphone users, such a touch screen – that required a stylus.