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The timeline of historic inventions is a chronological list of particularly significant technological inventions and their inventors, where known.Template:Efn This page lists nonincremental inventions that are widely recognized by reliable sources as having had a direct impact on the course of history that was profound, global, and enduring. The dates in this article make frequent use of the units mya and kya, which refer to millions and thousands of years ago, respectively. Template:History of technology sidebar

PaleolithicEdit

Template:Further The dates listed in this section refer to the earliest evidence of an invention found and dated by archaeologists (or in a few cases, suggested by indirect evidence). Dates are often approximate and change as more research is done, reported and seen. Older examples of any given technology are often found. The locations listed are for the site where the earliest solid evidence has been found, but especially for the earlier inventions, there is little certainty how close that may be to where the invention took place.

Lower PaleolithicEdit

The Lower Paleolithic period lasted over 3 million years, during which there many human-like species evolved including toward the end of this period, Homo sapiens. The original divergence between humans and chimpanzees occurred 13 (Mya), however interbreeding continued until as recently as 4 Ma, with the first species clearly belonging to the human (and not chimpanzee) lineage being Australopithecus anamensis. Some species are controversial among paleoanthropologists, who disagree whether they are species on their own or not. Here Homo ergaster is included under Homo erectus, while Homo rhodesiensis is included under Homo heidelbergensis.

During this period the Quaternary glaciation began (about 2.58 million years ago), and continues to today. It has been an ice age, with cycles of 40–100,000 years alternating between long, cold, more glaciated periods, and shorter warmer periods – interglacial episodes.

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  • 900 kya – 40 kya: Boats<ref name="Plakias2010" >{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Middle PaleolithicEdit

The evolution of early modern humans around 300 kya coincides with the start of the Middle Paleolithic period. During this 250,000-year period, our related archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Denisovans began to spread out of Africa, joined later by Homo sapiens. Over the course of the period we see evidence of increasingly long-distance trade, religious rites, and other behavior associated with Behavioral modernity.

Template:Cite journal "we present dating results for three sites in Spain that show that cave art emerged in Iberia substantially earlier than previously thought. Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates on carbonate crusts overlying paintings provide minimum ages for a red linear motif in La Pasiega (Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso (Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales (Andalucía). Collectively, these results show that cave art in Iberia is older than 64.8 thousand years (ka). This cave art is the earliest dated so far and predates, by at least 20 ka, the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which implies Neandertal authorship."</ref>

Upper Paleolithic to Early MesolithicEdit

50 kya was long regarded as the beginning of behavioral modernity, which defined the Upper Paleolithic period. The Upper Paleolithic lasted nearly 40,000 years, while research continues to push the beginnings of behavioral modernity earlier into the Middle Paleolithic. Behavioral modernity is characterized by the widespread observation of religious rites, artistic expression and the appearance of tools made for purely intellectual or artistic pursuits.

  • 49 kya – 30 kya: Ground stone tools – fragments of an axe in Australia date to 49–45 ka, more appear in Japan closer to 30 ka, and elsewhere closer to the Neolithic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>"Prehistoric Japan, New perspectives on insular East Asia", Keiji Imamura, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Template:ISBN</ref>
  • 47 kya: The oldest-known mines in the world are from Eswatini, and extracted hematite for the production of the red pigment ochre.<ref>Swaziland Natural Trust Commission, "Cultural Resources – Malolotja Archaeology, Lion Cavern", Retrieved 27 August 2007, {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> The oldest known leather shoe dated to 5.5 kya was found in excellent condition in the Areni-1 cave located in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia.<ref name="National Geographic">Template:Cite news</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Medicine in a meaningful sense likely predates the human-chimpanzee split, as, for example, herbal medicine has been observed in other primates.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

  • 28 kya: Ceramics (direct evidence) and weaving (impressions left in the ceramics) in Moravia<ref>"The occupants used flint knives, made bone tools and modelled in baked clay – on which they left their fingerprints, along with imprints of reindeer hair and textiles." {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>"Several imprints of human fingers, animal hair and textile structures were incidentally produced as well" Template:Cite journal</ref> (Czech Republic) and Georgia. (The oldest piece of woven cloth found so far was in Çatalhöyük, Turkey and dated to about 9,000 years ago.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>)

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kashmir,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Germany,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Egypt.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

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Agricultural and proto-agricultural erasEdit

The end of the Last Glacial Period ("ice age") and the beginning of the Holocene around 11.7 ka coincide with the Agricultural Revolution, marking the beginning of the agricultural era, which persisted there until the industrial revolution.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Neolithic and Late MesolithicEdit

Template:Further During the Neolithic period, lasting 8400 years, stone began to be used for construction, and remained a predominant hard material for toolmaking. Copper and arsenic bronze were developed towards the end of this period, and of course the use of many softer materials such as wood, bone, and fibers continued. Domestication spread both in the sense of how many species were domesticated, and how widespread the practice became.

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="johnstone">The sea-craft of prehistory, p76, by Paul Johnstone, Routledge, 1980</ref>

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Evidence, c. 2800 BC, has also been found at Kalibangan, Indus Valley (modern-day India).<ref name="lal-ivc">B. B. Lal, India 1947–1997: New Light on the Indus Civilization</ref>

Bronze AgeEdit

File:Nippur cubit.JPG
The Nippur cubit-rod, Template:C., in the Archeological Museum of Istanbul, Turkey

The beginning of bronze-smelting coincides with the emergence of the first cities and of writing in the Ancient Near East and the Indus Valley. The Bronze Age starting in Eurasia in the 4th millennia BC and ended, in Eurasia, c.1200 BC.

  • Late 4th millennium BC: Writing – in Sumer and Egypt.<ref name="Radner">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"The world's earliest known writing systems emerged at more or less the same time, around 3300 bc, in Egypt and Mesopotamia (today's Iraq)."Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"Although it was once thought that the idea of writing came to Egypt from Mesopotamia, recent discoveries indicate that writing arose first in Egypt."Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"and examples of writing in Egypt have been found that very well may pre-date the earliest writing from Mesopotamia."Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 3300 BC: The first documented swords. They have been found in Arslantepe, Turkey, are made from arsenical bronze, and are about Template:Convert long.<ref>Frangipane, M. et al. (2010). "The collapse of the 4th millennium centralised system at Arslantepe and the far-reaching changes in 3rd millennium societies". ORIGINI XXXIV, 2012: 237–60.</ref><ref name=KAY>Template:Cite book</ref> Some of them are inlaid with silver.<ref name=KAY/>
  • 3300 BC: City in Uruk, Sumer, Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 3250 BC: One of the earliest documented hats was worn by a man (nicknamed Ötzi) whose body and hat found frozen in a mountain between Austria and Italy. He was found wearing a bearskin cap with a chin strap, made of several hides stitched together, resembling a Russian fur hat without the flaps.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

  • 3200 BC: Dry Latrines in the city of Uruk, Iraq, with later dry squat Toilets, that added raised fired brick foot platforms, and pedestal toilets, all over clay pipe constructed drains.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • 3200 BC: Earliest actual wheel ever found, the Ljubljana Marshes Wheel, made of wood, in Slovenia.<ref name=":4" />
  • 3000 BC: Devices functionally equivalent to dice, in the form of flat two-sided throwsticks, are seen in the Egyptian game of Senet.<ref name="Aruz">Template:Cite book</ref> Perhaps the oldest known dice, resembling modern ones, were excavated as part of a backgammon-like game set at the Burnt City, an archeological site in south-eastern Iran, estimated to be from between 2800 and 2500 BC.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Later, terracotta dice were used at the Indus Valley site of Mohenjo-daro (modern-day Pakistan).<ref>Possehl, Gregory. "Meluhha". In: J. Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996a, 133–208</ref>

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  • 2600 BC: Levee in Indus Valley.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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|CitationClass=web }}</ref> or Babylonia (modern-day Iraq).

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  • 1500 BC: Seed drill in Babylonia.<ref name="ReferenceA">History Channel, Where Did It Come From? Episode: "Ancient China: Agriculture"</ref>
  • 1500 BC: Prosthetic limb in India mentioned in vedas (warrior queen vishpala).
  • 1400 BC: Rubber,<ref name=":3" /> Mesoamerican ballgame.<ref name=":3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Shelton, pp. 109–110. There is wide agreement on game originating in the tropical lowlands, likely the Gulf Coast or Pacific Coast.</ref>

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Iron AgeEdit

The Late Bronze Age collapse occurs around 1200 BC,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> extinguishing most Bronze-Age Near Eastern cultures, and significantly weakening the rest. This is coincident with the complete collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation. This event is followed by the beginning of the Iron Age. We define the Iron Age as ending in 510 BC for the purposes of this article, even though the typical definition is region-dependent (e.g. 510 BC in Greece, 322 BC in India, 200 BC in China), thus being an 800-year period.Template:Efn

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File:Trispastos scheme.svg
With the Greco-Roman trispastos ("three-pulley-crane"), the simplest ancient crane, a single man tripled the weight he could lift than with his muscular strength alone.<ref>Hans-Liudger, Dienel; Wolfgang, Meighörner (1997): "Der Tretradkran", Technikgeschichte series, 2nd ed., Deutsches Museum, München, p. 13</ref>

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  • 500 BC: Lighthouse in Greece.<ref>Elinor Dewire and Dolores Reyes-Pergioudakis (2010). The Lighthouses of Greece. Sarasota: Pineapple Press. Template:ISBN, pp 1-5.</ref>

Classical antiquity and medieval eraEdit

5th century BCEdit

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4th century BCEdit

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3rd century BCEdit

File:Making Paper 4.PNG
An illustration depicting the papermaking process in Han dynasty China.

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File:Museum für Antike Schiffahrt, Mainz 02. Spritsail.jpg
The earliest fore-and-aft rigs, spritsails, appeared in the 2nd century BC in the Aegean Sea on small Greek craft.<ref name="Casson 1995, 243–245">Casson, Lionel (1995): "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", Johns Hopkins University Press, Template:ISBN, pp. 243–245</ref> Here a spritsail used on a Roman merchant ship (3rd century AD).

2nd century BCEdit

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1st century BCEdit

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  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}</ref> A paper form, i.e. the earliest newspaper, later appeared during the late Han dynasty in the form of the Dibao.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=if30>Irving Fang, A History of Mass Communication: Six Information Revolutions, Focal Press, 1997, p. 30</ref><ref>Lamont, Ian, "The Rise of the Press in Late Imperial China", 27 November 2007</ref>

  • 1st century BC: Arch dam (Glanum Dam) in Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Republic (see also List of Roman dams)<ref>Smith, Norman (1971): "A History of Dams", Peter Davies, London, Template:ISBN, pp. 25–49 (33–35)</ref><ref>Schnitter, Niklaus (1978): "Römische Talsperren", Antike Welt, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 25–32 (31f.)</ref><ref>Schnitter, Niklaus (1987): "Verzeichnis geschichtlicher Talsperren bis Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts", in: Garbrecht, Günther (ed.): Historische Talsperren, Verlag Konrad Wittwer, Stuttgart, Vol. 1, Template:ISBN, pp. 9–20 (12)</ref><ref>Schnitter, Niklaus (1987): "Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Bogenstaumauer", Garbrecht, Günther (ed.): Historische Talsperren, Vol. 1, Verlag Konrad Wittwer, Stuttgart, Template:ISBN, pp. 75–96 (80)</ref><ref>Hodge, A. Trevor (2000): "Reservoirs and Dams", in: Wikander, Örjan: Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, Vol. 2, Brill, Leiden, Template:ISBN, pp. 331–339 (332, fn. 2)</ref>
  • Before 40 BC: Trip hammer in China<ref name="needham volume 4 part 2 184" >Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 184.</ref>
  • 38 BC: An empty shell Glyph for zero, is found on a Maya numerals Stela, from Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas. Independently invented by Claudius Ptolemy, in the second century CE Egypt, and appearing in the calculations of the Almagest.
  • 37 BC – 14 BC: Glass blowing developed in Jerusalem.<ref name="Avigad">Avigad, N (1983). Discovering Jerusalem. Nashville. Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="Tattona">Tatton-Brown, V. (1991). "The Roman Empire". In H. Tait (ed.) Five Thousand Years of Glass. pp. 62–97. British Museum Press: London Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="Stern">Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Before 25 BC: Reverse overshot water wheel by Roman engineers in Rio Tinto, Spain<ref>Davies, Oliver: Roman Mines in Europe, Oxford (1935)</ref>
  • 25 BC: Noodle in Lajia in China<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

1st century ADEdit

2nd centuryEdit

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3rd centuryEdit

File:Römische Sägemühle.svg
Schematic of the Roman Hierapolis sawmill. Dated to the 3rd century AD, it is the earliest known machine to incorporate a crank and connecting rod mechanism.<ref name="Ritti, Grewe, Kessener 2007, 140, 161">Ritti, Tullia; Grewe, Klaus; Kessener, Paul (2007): "A Relief of a Water-powered Stone Saw Mill on a Sarcophagus at Hierapolis and its Implications", Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 20, pp. 138–163 (140, 161)</ref><ref name="Grewe 2009, 429">Grewe, Klaus (2009): "Die Reliefdarstellung einer antiken Steinsägemaschine aus Hierapolis in Phrygien und ihre Bedeutung für die Technikgeschichte. Internationale Konferenz 13.−16. Juni 2007 in Istanbul" Template:Webarchive, in: Bachmann, Martin (ed.): Bautechnik im antiken und vorantiken Kleinasien, Byzas, Vol. 9, Ege Yayınları/Zero Prod. Ltd., Istanbul, Template:ISBN, pp. 429–454 (429)</ref><ref name="Grewe 2010">Grewe, Klaus (2010): "La máquina romana de serrar piedras. La representación en bajorrelieve de una sierra de piedras de la antigüedad, en Hierápolis de Frigia y su relevancia para la historia técnica (translation by Miguel Ordóñez)", in: Las técnicas y las construcciones de la Ingeniería Romana, V Congreso de las Obras Públicas Romanas, pp. 381–401</ref>
  • By at least the 3rd century: Crystallized sugar in India.<ref>Shaffer, Lynda N., "Southernization", Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History edited by Michael Adas, pp. 311, Temple University Press, Template:ISBN.</ref>
  • Early 3rd century: Woodblock printing is invented in Han dynasty China at sometime before 220 AD. This made China become the world's first print culture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Late 3rd century – Early 4th century: Water turbine in the Roman Empire in modern-day Tunisia.<ref>Wilson, Andrew (1995): "Water-Power in North Africa and the Development of the Horizontal Water-Wheel", Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 8, pp. 499–510 (507f.)</ref><ref>Wikander, Örjan (2000): "The Water-Mill" in: Wikander, Örjan (ed.): Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, Vol. 2, Brill, Leiden, Template:ISBN, pp. 371–400 (377)</ref><ref>Donners, K.; Waelkens, M.; Deckers, J. (2002): "Water Mills in the Area of Sagalassos: A Disappearing Ancient Technology", Anatolian Studies, Vol. 52, pp. 1–17 (13)</ref>

4th centuryEdit

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  • 4th century: Roman Dichroic glass, which displays one of two different colors depending on lighting conditions.
  • 4th century: Simple suspension bridge, independently invented in Pre-Columbian South America, and the Hindu Kush range, of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. With Han dynasty travelers noting bridges being constructed from 3 or more vines or 3 ropes.<ref name="needham 1986 volume 4 part 3 187−189">Needham, Joseph. (1986d). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd. Template:ISBN, 187–189.</ref> Later bridges constructed utilizing cables of iron chains appeared in Tibet.<ref name="Peters">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"suspension bridge" in Encyclopædia Britannica (2008). 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.</ref>
  • 4th century: Fishing reel in Ancient China: In literary records, the earliest evidence of the fishing reel comes from a 4th-century AD<ref>Hucker (1975), 206.</ref> work entitled Lives of Famous Immortals.<ref>Ronan (1994), 41.</ref>
  • 347: Oil Wells and Borehole drilling in China. Such wells could reach depths of up to 240 m (790 ft).<ref name=ASTM>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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5th centuryEdit

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6th centuryEdit

7th centuryEdit

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8th centuryEdit

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9th centuryEdit

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File:Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba.jpg
A Mongol bomb thrown against a charging Japanese samurai during the Mongol invasions of Japan after founding the Yuan dynasty, 1281.
  • 9th century: Gunpowder in Tang dynasty China: Gunpowder is, according to prevailing academic consensus, discovered in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality.<ref name="Jack Kelly 2005">Jack Kelly Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World, Perseus Books Group: 2005, Template:ISBN, 9780465037223: pp. 2-5</ref> Evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (618–907).<ref>Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 8–9, 80–82.</ref> The earliest known recorded recipes for gunpowder are written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the Wujing Zongyao, a military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song dynasty (960–1279).<ref>Needham (1987), Volume 5, Part 7, 70–73, 120–124.</ref><ref name="gernet 1996 311">Gernet (1996), 311.</ref><ref>Day & McNeil (1996), 785.</ref>
  • 9th century: Playing card in Tang dynasty China<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="wilkinson">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="lo 2000 390">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb "it is also now rather well-established that dominoes and playing-cards were originally Chinese developments from dice."</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb "Numbered dice, anciently widespread, were on a related line of development which gave rise to dominoes and playing-cards (+9th-century China)."</ref>

10th centuryEdit

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11th centuryEdit

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  • 11th century: Early versions of the Bessemer process are developed in China.
  • 11th century: Endless power-transmitting chain drive by Su Song for the development an astronomical clock (the Cosmic Engine)<ref name="needham volume 4 111">Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 111.</ref>
  • 11th century: Calico was developed in Calicut, India.<ref name="eb-calico2">Encyclopædia Britannica (2008). "calico".</ref>
  • 1088: Movable type in Song dynasty China: The first record of a movable type system is in the Dream Pool Essays, which attributes the invention of the movable type to Bi Sheng.<ref>Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 201–202.</ref><ref name="gernet 1996 335">Gernet (1996), 335.</ref><ref name="bowman 2000 599">Bowman (2000), 599.</ref><ref name="day mcneil 70">Day & McNeil (1996), 70.</ref>

12th centuryEdit

13th centuryEdit

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  • 13th century: Rocket for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 13th century: The earliest form of mechanical escapement, the verge escapement in Europe.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 13th century: Buttons (combined with buttonholes) as a functional fastening for closing clothes appear first in Germany.<ref>Lynn White: "The Act of Invention: Causes, Contexts, Continuities and Consequences", Technology and Culture, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Autumn, 1962), pp. 486–500 (497f. & 500)</ref>
  • 13th century: Explosive bomb in Jin dynasty Manchuria: Explosive bombs are used in 1221 by the Jin dynasty against a Song dynasty city.<ref name="Connolly">Template:Cite book</ref> The first accounts of bombs made of cast iron shells packed with explosive gunpowder are documented in the 13th century in China and are called "thunder-crash bombs",<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 170–174.</ref> coined during a Jin dynasty naval battle in 1231.<ref name="needham volume 5 part 7 171">Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 171.</ref>
  • 13th century: Hand cannon in Yuan dynasty China: The earliest hand cannon dates to the 13th century based on archaeological evidence from a Heilongjiang excavation. There is also written evidence in the Yuanshi (1370) on Li Tang, an ethnic Jurchen commander under the Yuan dynasty who in 1288 suppresses the rebellion of the Christian prince Nayan with his "gun-soldiers" or chongzu, this being the earliest known event where this phrase is used.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 293–294.</ref>
  • 13th century: Earliest documented snow goggles, a type of sunglasses, made of flattened walrus or caribou ivory are used by the Inuit peoples in the arctic regions of North America.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Inuit hero Nanook from the silent documentary film Nanook of the North (1922) wearing whale bone snow-goggles Template:Webarchive Retrieved December 5, 2014</ref> In China, the first sunglasses consisting of flat panes of smoky quartz are documented.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Vision">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • 13th century - 14th century: Worm gear cotton gin in India.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • 1277: Land mine in Song dynasty China: Textual evidence suggests that the first use of a land mine in history is by a Song dynasty brigadier general known as Lou Qianxia, who uses an 'enormous bomb' (huo pao) to kill Mongol soldiers invading Guangxi in 1277.<ref>Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 175–176, 192.</ref>
  • 1286: Eyeglasses in Italy<ref>Vincent Ilardi, Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Philosophical Society, 2007), page 5.</ref>

14th centuryEdit

File:Handtiegelpresse von 1811.jpg
The 15th-century invention of the printing press with movable type by the German Johannes Gutenberg.<ref>See People of the Millennium for an overview of the wide acclaim. In 1999, the A&E Network ranked Gutenberg no. 1 on their "People of the Millennium" countdown. In 1997, Time–Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium Template:Webarchive; the same did four prominent US journalists in their 1998 resume 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking The Men and Women Who Shaped The Millennium. The Johann Gutenberg entry of the Catholic Encyclopedia describes his invention as having made a practically unparalleled cultural impact in the Christian era.</ref>

15th centuryEdit

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Early modern eraEdit

16th centuryEdit

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17th centuryEdit

File:Relation Aller Fuernemmen und gedenckwuerdigen Historien (1609).jpg
A 1609 title page of the Relation, the world's first newspaper (first published in 1605)<ref name="World Association of Newspapers"/><ref name="Weber 2006, 396f."/>

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18th centuryEdit

1700sEdit

1710sEdit

1730sEdit

1740sEdit

1750sEdit

1760sEdit

1770sEdit

1780sEdit

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1790sEdit

Late modern periodEdit

19th centuryEdit

1800sEdit

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1810sEdit

File:KarlVonDrais.jpg
Karl von Drais on his original Laufmaschine, the earliest two-wheeler, or hobbyhorse, in 1819
  • 1810: Nicolas Appert invents the canning process for food.<ref>Applied Nutrition and Food Technology, Jesse D. Dagoon, 1989; p. 2.</ref>
  • 1810: Abraham-Louis Breguet creates the first wristwatch.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1820sEdit

  • 1822: Thomas Blanchard invents the pattern-tracing lathe (actually more like a shaper). The lathe can copy symmetrical shapes and is used for making gun stocks, and later, ax handles.<ref name="Thomson 2009">Template:Cite book

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1830sEdit

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1840sEdit

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  • 1841: Alexander Bain devises a printing telegraph.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1850sEdit

  • 1850: William Armstrong invents the hydraulic accumulator.
  • 1851: George Jennings offers the first public flush toilets, accessible for a penny per visit, and in 1852 receives a UK patent for the single piece, free standing, earthenware, trap plumed, flushing, water-closet.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1860sEdit

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1870sEdit

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  • 1878: Henry Fleuss is granted a patent for the first practical rebreather.<ref name=rebreather_hx>Template:Cite journal</ref>
  • 1878: Lester Allan Pelton invents the Pelton wheel.
  • 1879: Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison both patent a functional incandescent light bulb. Some two dozen inventors had experimented with electric incandescent lighting over the first three-quarters of the 19th century but never came up with a practical design.<ref>Friedel, Robert, and Paul Palestine. 1986. Edison's electric light: biography of an invention. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. pages 115–117</ref> Swan's, which he had been working on since the 1860s, had a low resistance so was only suited for small installations. Edison designed a high-resistance bulb as part of a large-scale commercial electric lighting utility.<ref>Kenneth E. Hendrickson III, The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, Volume 3, Rowman & Littlefield – 2014, page 564</ref><ref>Maury Klein, The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America, Bloomsbury Publishing USA – 2010, Chapter 9 – The Cowbird, The Plugger, and the Dreamer</ref><ref>David O. Whitten, Bessie Emrick Whitten, Handbook of American Business History: Manufacturing, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990, pages 315-316</ref>

1880sEdit

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1890sEdit

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20th centuryEdit

1900sEdit

premiere fois dans la revue ` l'aerophile ´ dans un article intitule "Propulseur par reaction directe"...", accessed 7 July 2019</ref> – R. Lorin<ref name="Lorin">Lorin, René (1877–1933), Digital Mechanism and Gear Library, first contact for: "1913 – Lorin" (Margaret Connor) obtained via search criteria (google): "discovery of scramjet Frank Whittle", accessed 7 July 2019</ref><ref>R. Lorin (15 May 1913) – de la turbine a gaz au propulseur a reaction, pp.229–230, L'Aérophile; BnF Gallica, accessed 7 July 2019</ref><ref>Michael G. Smith (1 December 2014) — Rockets and Revolution: A Cultural History of Early Spaceflight, 7th page of Chapter 3, University of Nebraska Press, Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN, accessed 7 July 2019</ref>

1910sEdit

File:BERy Articulated number 2 side view, 1913.jpg
BERy articulated streetcar no. 2 in 1913. The Boston Elevated Railway was the world's first street railway system to use articulated streetcars.

1920sEdit

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1930sEdit

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1940-1944Edit

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  • 1942: The V-2 rocket, the world's first long range ballistic missile, developed by engineer Wernher von Braun.
  • 1944: The non-infectious viral vaccine is perfected by Dr. Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis.<ref>Bookchin, Debbie and Schumacher, Jim. The Virus and the Vaccine. MacMillan 2005</ref>

Contemporary historyEdit

1945-1950Edit

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1950sEdit

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1960sEdit

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The original 0 series Shinkansen train. Introduced in 1964, it reached a speed of Template:Convert.

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1970sEdit

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1980sEdit

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  • 1982: The first laptop computer is launched, the 8/16-bit Epson HX-20.<ref name="ipsj">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 1983: Ameritech, now known as AT&T, commercialized the Bell System (its cellular network) in Chicago, Ill.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 1989: Karlheinz Brandenburg would publish the audio compression algorithms that would be standardised as the: MPEG-1, layer 3 (mp3), and later the MPEG-2, layer 7 Advanced Audio Compression (AAC).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1990sEdit

  • 1990: The Neo Geo AES becomes the first video game system to launch that used Memory Cards.
  • 1990: The first search engine invented was “Archie”, created by Alan Emtage a student at McGill University in Montreal.
  • 1991: The first commercial flash-based solid-state drive is launched by SunDisk.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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21st centuryEdit

2000sEdit

  • 2000: Sony develops the first prototypes for the Blu-ray optical disc format. The first prototype player was released in 2004.
  • 2000: First documented placement of Geocaching, an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, took place on May 3, 2000, by Dave Ulmer of Beavercreek, Oregon.
  • 2004: First podcast, invented by Adam Curry and Dave Winer, is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet and it usually features one or more recurring hosts engaged in a discussion about a particular topic or current event.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2010sEdit

  • 2010: The first solar sail based spacecraft, IKAROS.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2020sEdit

  • 2020: The first MRNA vaccine to be approved by public health medicines regulators is co-developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for COVID-19.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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  • 2020: OpenAI demonstrated an Artificial Intelligence model called GPT-3. The program was created to generate human-like responses when given prompts.<ref>Kissinger, Henry; Schmidt, Eric; Huttenlocher, Daniel P. (2021). The age of AI: and our human future. Schuyler Schouten (First edition ed.). New York Boston London: Little, Brown and Company. Template:ISBN.</ref>
  • 2021: Pfizer develops the world's first pill for COVID.
  • 2022: ChatGPT is launched to the public, making its first mainstream generative AI to be released.

See alsoEdit

By type

NotesEdit

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FootnotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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  • Bourbaki, Nicolas (1998). Elements of the History of Mathematics. Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer-Verlag. Template:ISBN.
  • Bowman, John S. (2000). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Template:ISBN.
  • Buisseret, David. (1998). Envisioning the City: Six Studies in Urban Cartography. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press. Template:ISBN.
  • Template:Cite book
  • Day, Lance and Ian McNeil. (1996). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. New York: Routledge. Template:ISBN.
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  • Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Template:ISBN (paperback).
  • Ebrey, Walthall, Palais, (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
  • Elisseeff, Vadime. (2000). The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. New York: Berghahn Books. Template:ISBN.
  • Template:Hounshell1984
  • Hucker, Charles O. (1975). China's Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University. Template:ISBN.
  • Hunter, Dard (1978). Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc. Template:ISBN.
  • Gernet, Jacques (1962). Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276. Translated by H.M. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Template:ISBN.
  • Gernet, Jacques. (1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Translated by J.R. Foster and Charles Hartman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Template:ISBN.
  • Kreutz, Barbara M. (1973) "Mediterranean Contributions to the Medieval Mariner's Compass", Technology and Culture, 14 (3: July), p. 367–383
  • Lo, Andrew. "The Game of Leaves: An Inquiry into the Origin of Chinese Playing Cards", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 63, No. 3 (2000): 389–406.
  • Loewe, Michael. (1968). Everyday Life in Early Imperial China during the Han Period 202 BC–AD 220. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
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  • Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.,1986 Template:ISBN
  • Needham, Joseph (1962). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology; Part 1, Physics. Cambridge University Press., reprinted Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. (1986)
  • Needham, Joseph and Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin. (1985). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Cambridge University Press., reprinted Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. (1986)
  • Needham, Joseph. (1987). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology; the Gunpowder Epic. Cambridge University Press.
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  • Pigott, Vincent C. (1999). The Archaeometallurgy of the Asian Old World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Template:ISBN.
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  • Ronan, Colin A. (1994). The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 4. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Template:ISBN.
  • Sivin, Nathan (1995). Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing.
  • Stark, Miriam T. (2005). Archaeology of Asia. Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub. Template:ISBN.
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  • Wagner, Donald B. (1993). Iron and Steel in Ancient China: Second Impression, With Corrections. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Template:ISBN.
  • Wagner, Donald B. (2001). The State and the Iron Industry in Han China. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Publishing. Template:ISBN.
  • Wang, Zhongshu. (1982). Han Civilization. Translated by K.C. Chang and Collaborators. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Template:ISBN.
  • Wood, Nigel. (1999). Chinese Glazes On The Coast: Their Origins, Chemistry, and Recreation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Template:ISBN.

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External linksEdit

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