Editing History of technology (section)

=== 20th century ===
[[File:Ford assembly line - 1913.jpg|right|thumb|Ford assembly line, 1913. The [[Ignition magneto|magneto]] assembly line was the first.{{clarify|date=June 2019}}<!-- The first subassembly line in the building? It was not the first in the world according to [[assembly line]].--><ref name=swan>{{cite web|url= http://www.caranddriver.com/features/fords-assembly-line-turns-100-how-it-really-put-the-world-on-wheels-feature |title=Ford's Assembly Line Turns 100: How It Really Put the World on Wheels |first=Tony |last=Swan|work=[[Car and Driver]] |date=April 2013|access-date=26 March 2017}}</ref>]]

[[Mass production]] brought [[automobile]]s and other high-tech goods to masses of consumers. [[Military research]] and development sped advances including electronic [[computing]] and [[jet engine]]s. Radio and [[telephony]] greatly improved and spread to larger populations of users, though near-universal access would not be possible until [[mobile phones]] became affordable to [[developing world]] residents in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Energy and engine technology improvements included [[nuclear power]], developed after the [[Manhattan project]] which heralded the new [[Atomic Age]]. [[Rocket]] development led to long range missiles and the first [[space age]] that lasted from the 1950s with the launch of Sputnik to the mid-1980s.

[[Electrification]] spread rapidly in the 20th century. At the beginning of the century electric power was for the most part only available to wealthy people in a few major cities. By 2019, an estimated 87 percent of the world's population had access to electricity.<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 7, 2019|title=Statista Electricity Access Keeps Climbing Globally.|url=https://www.statista.com/chart/16552/electricity-access-worldwide/|website=OECD}}</ref>

[[Birth control]] also became widespread during the 20th century. [[Electron microscopes]] were very powerful by the late 1970s and genetic theory and knowledge were expanding, leading to developments in [[genetic engineering]].

The first "[[test tube baby]]" [[Louise Brown]] was born in 1978, which led to the first successful [[gestational surrogacy]] pregnancy in 1985 and the first pregnancy by [[Intracytoplasmic sperm injection|ICSI]] in 1991, which is the implanting of a single sperm into an egg. [[Preimplantation genetic diagnosis]] was first performed in late 1989 and led to successful births in July 1990. These procedures have become relatively common.

Computers were connected by means of local area, [[Telecommunications engineering|telecom]] and [[Fiber-optic network|fiber optic networks]], powered by the [[optical amplifier]] that ushered in the [[Information Age]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gilder|first=George|date=May 16, 1997|title=Fiber Keeps its Promise|work=Forbes|url=http://www.panix.com/~clp/risks/telecom/fiber-future.html}}</ref><ref>Sudo, Shoichi. “Optical Fiber Amplifiers: Materials, Devices and Applications.” Artech House 1997. P 601</ref> This [[optical networking]] technology exploded the capacity of the Internet beginning in 1996 with the launch of the first high-capacity [[Wavelength-division multiplexing|wave division multiplexing]] (WDM) system by [[Ciena|Ciena Corp]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Markoff|first=John|date=March 3, 1997|title=Fiber-Optic Technology Draws Record Stock Value|work=The New York Times}}</ref> WDM, as the common basis for telecom backbone networks,<ref>Grobe, Klaus and Eiselt, Michael. "Wavelength Division Multiplexing: A Practical Engineering Guide.” John T Wiley & Sons. p. 2. October 2013.</ref> increased transmission capacity by orders of magnitude, thus enabling the mass commercialization and popularization of the Internet and its widespread impact on culture, economics, business, and society.

The commercial availability of the first portable cell phone in 1981 and the first pocket-sized phone in 1985,<ref>Agar, Jon. Constant Touch: a Global History of the Mobile Phone. Totem Books. December 2004.</ref> both developed by Comvik in Sweden, coupled with the first transmission of data over a cellular network by [[Vodafone]] (formerly [[Racal-Millicom]]) in 1992 were the breakthroughs that led directly to the form and function of smartphones today. By 2014, there were more cell phones in use than people on Earth<ref>{{Cite web|title=United Nations International Telecommunication Union Statistics|url=https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx|website=ITU}}</ref> and The Supreme Court  of the United States of America has ruled that a mobile phone was a private part of a person.<ref>Carpenter v. United States. No. 16–402. Argued November 29, 2017—Decided June 22, 2018  (Supreme Court of the United States). October term, 2017. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf</ref> Providing consumers wireless access to each other and to the Internet, the mobile phone stimulated one of the most important technology revolutions in human history.<ref>Cooper, Martin and Harris, Arleen. Human Behavior & Emerging Technologies. Wiley Online. February 18, 2019.</ref>

The Human Genome Project sequenced and identified all three billion chemical units in human DNA with a goal of finding the genetic roots of disease and developing treatments. The project became feasible due to two technical advances made during the late 1970s: gene mapping by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) markers and DNA sequencing. Sequencing was invented by Frederick Sanger and, separately, by Dr. Walter Gilbert. Gilbert also conceived of the Human Genome Project on May 27, 1985, and first publicly advocated it in August 1985 at the first International Conference on Genes and Computers in August 1985.<ref name="Cook-Deegan, Robert M 1994">Cook-Deegan, Robert M. The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994.</ref> The U.S. Federal Government sponsored Human Genome Project began October 1, 1990, and was declared complete in 2003.<ref name="Cook-Deegan, Robert M 1994"/>

The massive data analysis resources necessary for running transatlantic research programs such as the [[Human Genome Project]] and the [[Large Electron–Positron Collider]] led to a necessity for distributed communications, causing Internet protocols to be more widely adopted by researchers and also creating a justification for [[Tim Berners-Lee]] to create the [[World Wide Web]].

[[Vaccination]] spread rapidly to the developing world from the 1980s onward due to many successful humanitarian initiatives, greatly reducing childhood mortality in many poor countries with limited medical resources.

The US [[National Academy of Engineering]], by expert vote, established the following ranking of the most important technological developments of the 20th century:<ref>{{cite web|title=Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century|url=http://www.greatachievements.org/|website=greatachievements.org|access-date=7 April 2015}}</ref>

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# [[Electrification]]
# [[Automobile]]
# Airplane
# [[Water supply]] and Distribution
# [[Electronics]]
# Radio and television
# [[Mechanized agriculture]]
# Computers
# Telephone
# [[Air Conditioning]] and [[Refrigeration]]
# [[Highways]]
# [[Spacecraft]]
# Internet
# [[Imaging technology]]
# [[Household appliances]]
# [[Health technology]]
# Petroleum and [[Petrochemical]] technologies
# [[Laser]] and [[Fiber Optics]]
# [[Nuclear technology]]
# [[Materials science]]

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