Significant dates in the history of technology

50,000-40,000 Burial practiced by Neanderthals & others
35,000 Paleolithic (old stone) tool complex ATLATL
25,000 Art, artifacts and cave murals painted

10,000 Domestication of Plants and Animals
NEW STONE AGE

8,350 Earliest founding of JERICHO, a ten acre city
8,000 b.c. Neolithic cultural complex
7,000 b.c. Earliest copper smelting

6,550 b.c. Farming in Greece and the Danube basin
6,000 b.c. pottery and woolen textiles in Asia Minor

CATAL HUYUK established as a 32 acre city
Earliest rice culture, THAILAND, CHINA, & INDIA
Copper mining and smelting with tin in Yugoslavia
Ebla, a trading center in Syria founded

5,000 b.c. Mesopotamian hydraulic advances in irrigated farms
4,000 b.c. Earliest BRONZE castings and plow perfected
3,5000 Lung Shan urban center of China
Wheel and plough in Mesopotamia & the lanteen sail in Egypt
3,100 Egyptian kingdom coalesces around Memphis
Cuneiform pictographic writing in SUMERIA
3,000 spread of copper making, Bronze in Thailand

arable farming practiced in Africa
pottery in Ecuador and Colombia

2,750 Indus Valley civilkization center at Mahenjo Daro

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent

2,685 OLD KINGDOM of EGYPT
2,590 Great PYRAMID at GIZEH built by Cheops
2,500 Dessication of N. Africa and domestication of the
HORSE in central Asia
2,500 Syriaic urbanization in the fertile crescent
written language on fired tablets, Ebla library; EBLA was a commercial city of 260,000 persons were taught writing, astronomy, botany, mining, artihmetic.

2,000 Origins of Minoan culture of Crete and the earliest Greeks in the Peloponese, Hittites in Anatolia
Bronze metal working in Peru,

widespread use of sails in the Aegean Sea

1,900 Settlements in MELANESIA by earliest INDONESIANS
1,750 Hammurabi codifies BABYLONIAN LAWS
1,700 Hittites develop iron weapons in Turkey
1,600 Shang Dynasty of China’s BRONZE AGE
Mycenean Civilization in Greece
1,567 Egyptian “NEW KINGDOM” established spread of craftsmenship, Archimedean screw for lifting water spreads in Asia.

1,550 Aryans destroy the Indus Valley cultures
1,500 Ideographic script in China
“linear B” language of Crete
Hittite Cuneiform writing
1,450 The destruction of MYCENEAN GREEKS
BRAHMA worship in INDIA, earliest VEDIC writings

1,370 AKHENATON teaches MONOTHEISM in EGYPT
1,300 MELANISIAN settlers reach FIJI ISLANDS
1,200 Hebrew EXODUS from EGYPT
1,150 OLMEC CULTURE of central MEXICAN HIGHLANDS
1,100 b.c. Spread of the PHOENICIANS in the Mediterranean who develop modern alphabetical script
1,027 Shang DYNASTY replaced by the CHOU in China
1,000 Etruscans settle in ITALY

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent

Ancient Heritage

tool using

900 founding of the NUBIAN Kingdom of KUSH, Africa
814 founding of Carthage
800 the earliest UPANISHADS, sacred HINDU texts
780 well field system originated in Northern China
776 earliest Hellenic OLYMPIC GAMES
753 Founding of Rome (by traditional dating)
750 Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey first written down
650 earliest coins in LYDIA, ASIA MINOR
585 THALES of MILETUS predicts an clipse and founds rationalist school of Greek Philosophy
558 ZOROASTER writes in PERSIA (Zarathustra)
550 Deutero-Isaiah historian earliest writings of the Hebrew Torah (BIBLE)
520 Death of Lao-Tzu Chinese mystic and teacher
500 Hieroglyphic writing in Mexico
486 Death of Siddartha (THE BUDDHA)
479 Death of Confucius founder of the CHINESE MANDARINATE & civil service exams to fill the bureaucracy
479 Classical age of Greek literature, drama, philosophy, science and craftsmanship spreads
350 Flowering of Chinese Philosophical schools
290 creation of the LITERARY Library of ALEXANDRIA, Egypt
eventually stored 500,000 volumes
210-200 believed origin of the compass in China, as lodestones used for direction finding.

142 Romans erect first stone bridge over the Tiber
112 Opening of the Silk “road” from China to W. Asia
100 Camel introduced to Saharan Africa
89 Roman citizebship extended to all ITALY
49 Ceasar’s conquest of Gaul begins
31 BATTLE OF ACTIUM, Augustus is Roman Emperor

A.D. = ANNO DOMINE : “in the year of our Lord”

43 a.d. Roman conquest of Britain begins
105 a.d. earliest use of PAPER in China
116 Trajan (Romans) conquers MESOPOTAMIA
150 Earliest extant SANSKRIT texts from India
Buddhism reaches CHINA from TIbet and India
165 SMALLPOX epidemic ravages the Roman Empire
200 BHAGAVAD GITA set down in writing in INDIA
codification of the Hebrew laws

271 MAGNETIC COMPASS used ritually throughout CHINA
285 Confucianism reaches JAPAN
293 DIOCLETIAN reorganizes the Roman Empire
300 foot stirrup spreads from ALTAI into CHINA
Hopewell and MAYAN cultures thrive in the
Mississippi Valleyt and the Yucatan, Mexico
Settlement of Eastern Polynesia completed from the Indonesian descendants of western Polynesia
404 The LATIN VULGATE (Bible) composed
520 Advanced mathematics (DECIMAL SYSTEM) taught in Hindu universities includes quadratic equations & ALGEBRAIC COMPUTATION
529 BENEDICTINE Monasticism Established in Europe
534 Roman Emperor JUSTINIAN promulgates LEGAL CODE: Corpus Juris Primum

625 PROPHET MOHAMMED begins his fundamentalist mission
645 Buddhism spreads to Tibet
690 ARABIC replaces Greek and Pharsi as the major language of Asia Minor

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent | contemporary

Medieval Synthesis

730 Block PRINTING introduced in China
738 Evidence for stirrups used by Charles Martel,
751 PAPER making spreads from CHINA to ISLAM
760 ARABS adapt the INDIAN numerals, Algebra & Trigonometry
788 MOORS build the great MOSQUE in CORDOBA, Spain
853 Earliest (extant) printed book in CHINA
863 creation of the CYRILIC Alphabet in Slavic Europe
888 The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture: Early evidence of BLOCK PRINTING
910 CLUNIAC reform of the Benedictine monasticism
935 earliest text of the KORAN completed

1000 Flowering of the CHINESE painting & ceramics
use of IRON tools in ZIMBABWE
1045 MOVABLE TYPE Printing developed in China

1066 Norman Invasion of England brings French feudalism
1092 Su Sung's astronomical clock ran by water power until 1126
1096 FIRST CRUSADE of the FRANKS to ASIA MINOR

1100 Earliest UNIVERSITIES in EUROPE

SALERNO: medicine
BOLOGNA: law
PARIS: theology & law

1100 Omar Khayyam’s RUBAIYYAT composed
Flourishing of Muslim / Christian renaissance

centered in TOLEDO, SPAIN (translation of ancient science & philosophy into Arabic & Spanish)

1154 CHARTRES cathedral began in France (GOTHIC STYLE)
1160 VERNACULAR languages spread to replace LATIN in Itlay, France, England, Portugal, Netherlands, Scandanavia and Spain
1193 ZEN BUDDHIST sect founded in JAPAN
1226 Death of St. Francis of Assisi
1269 Peter Perigrinus writes a description of a needle laden compass
1274 SUMMA THEOLOGICA of Thomas Aquinas published
1275 Marco Polo journeyed to CHINA
1290 eyeglasses perefected in ITALY
1291 the origins of the SWISS CONFEDERATION

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent

Medieval Commercial Revolution

1320 early phase of the ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
1337 ANGLO/FRENCH HUNDRED YEARS (150) WAR begins
1339 building of the KREMLIN undertaken
1348 BLACK DEATH or BUBONIC PLAGUE infects EUROPE
1398 Tammerlane invades India and sacks hindi DELHI
1400 death of CHAUCER
1402 Tammerlane defeats the OTTOMANS in ASIA MINOR
1405 Ming Dynasty of China sends out world naval expeditions
1415 Earliest PORTUGUESE conquests in west AFRICA
1445 Johannes Gutenberg of MAINZ, GERMANY prints the first book in EUROPE

1453 The destruction of CONSTANTINOPLE by the OTTOMANS

1492 RECONQUISTA of the IBERIAN Peninsula achieved
expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain
Columbus’ first voyage to the WEST INDIES

1509 the small WATCH invented by PETER HENLE of NURENBERG, Germany
1510-12 N. Copernicus hypothesizes that our sun, not the Earth is the center of the planets, & creates a mathematical proof.
1525 Widespread introduction of the POTATOE in Europe from the ANDES of PERU and Maize from Ecuador & Mexico.

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent

Scientific Revolution

1543 Nicolas Kopernikas posthumously publishes DE REVOLUTIONIBUS ORBIS
1546 Gerhardus Mercator, Flemish mapmaker, asserts the Earth has magnetic poles.
1548 Mexican silver mines at Zacatecas worked by the Spanish
1559 Tobacco spreads through Europe from North America
1560 Portuguese begin SUGAR PLANTATION AGRICULTURE in Brazil having brought the plants from India and Arabia
1565 founding of the Spanish mission at St. Augustine
1569 Mercator's map of the world: Cosmographia published
1574 Earliest European treatise on drugs & building of the Strasbourg clock
1575 The Uraniborg observatory built by Tycho Brahe for his King of Denmark
1585 Simon Stevin, Dutch scientist, proposes the "law of equilibrium."
1593 GALILEO devises a THERMOMETER
1609 Telescope perfected by the Dutch
1610 Galileo demonstrates the telescope from top of the Venetian campanile
1620 first weekly newspapers in AMSTERDAM, Netherlands
1636 earliest Protestant College in North America
1642 PASCAL perfects the ADDING MACHINE
1653 TAJ MAHAL completed
1656 Bernini begins the work on St. Peters in ROME
1657 Christian Huygen’s perfects PENDULUM CLOCKS
1662 ROYAL SOCIETY founded in LONDON
1666 Academie des Sciences established in PARIS

1709 Abraham Darby adapts COKE SMELTING to the making of PIG IRON
1714 MERCURY THERMOMETER perfected by FAHRENHEIT
1730 Thomas Newcommen creates STEAM ENGINE (1 cylinder)
1762 Harrison’s navigational CHRONOMETER
1769 James Watt’s CONDENSOR assisted STEAM ENGINE

1790 LAVOISIER’S Elements of Chemistry published

Oliver Evans' mechanized flour mill & milling spreads in north USA.
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin

1792 Cartwright produces a steam powered weaving loom
1793 France adopts Lavoisier’s metric, decimal systems
1796 Jenner concocts a SMALLPOX vaccine, London

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent | contemporary

1800 Oliver Evans’ Steam boat, dredge, and wagon built
1801 Allesandro Volta constructs a chemical battery
1809 Sir Humphrey Davy demonstrates electric lighting
1811 ROTARY PRINTING PRESS PERFECTED
1812 Cylinder PRINTING PRESS perfected by LONDON TIMES
1820 Hans Cristian Oersted reveals ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FIELDS
1821 ELECTRIC MOTOR & GENERATOR created by M. FARRADAY
1822 earliest PHOTOGRAPHIC image by Neipce, France
1825 first passenger steam RAILWAY

1839 Charles Goodyear initaites the production of rubber condoms,

1859 Darwin publishes, ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
1861 Pasteur formulates the GERM THEORY of morbidity after aiding the wine industry
1862 Lincoln signs the transcontinental railway act
1863 LONDON constructs the first underground mass railway
1864 Lincoln sets aside YOSEMITE VALLEY as a PARK
1865 James Clark Maxwells’ ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY
PULP PAPER begins to replace RAG PAPER --making newpapers cheaper.
1867 DAS KAPITAL (vol.1) published by KARL MARX
1868 AIR BRAKES invented by WESTINGHOUSE
1869 GOLDEN SPIKE driven at Promontory POINT, UTAH

1870 Celluloid distilled
1871 U.S. Fish Conservation undertaken
1874 NEW YORK displays the ELECTRIC TRAM
1876 PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL exhibition
BELL patents his TELEPHONE long distance
1877 PHONOGRAPH designed

1878

Russians build first OIL TANKER
Earliest electric street lighting LONDON
CATHODE RAY TUBE designed

1879 EDISON’S ELECTRIC LIGHT BULB
1882 First hydro-electric plant WISCONSIN
1884 BICYCLE perfected in BRITAIN
1885 DAIMLER & BENZ perfect the AUTOMOBILE
William Stanley builds a TRANSFORMER (electrical)
1887 TESLA perfects the INDUCTION MOTOR
1888 Dunlop invents the pneumatic tire
1892 WORLD’S COLUMBIAN exhibition CHICAGO
TESLA devises the A.C. MOTOR
1895 Rontgen discovers “X-RAYS”
MARCONI demonstrates WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, radio waves
1899 Thomson discovers negatively charged ELECTRONS
Ebenezer Howard’s GARDEN CITIES OF TOMORROW published modern URBAN PLANNING principles

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent | contemporary

Twentieth Century "Progress"

1900 MAX PLANK formulates the QUANTUM THEORY of matter
and energy transformations
SIGMUND FREUD’S an INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
1901 Air ship --derigible-- flown by Alberto Santos-duMont
1903 Western Regional Reclamation undertaken by
Theodore Roosevelt as water conservation
Dec. 17, WRIGHT BROTHERS successfully fly at KITTY HAWK
1905 EINSTEIN’S seminal contributions on LIGHT, HEAT, ENTROPY, & GRAVITY

1906, November 12: A. Santos-Dumont builds the aeroplane "14 bis" -- first sustained air flight in Europe, is 722 feet long @ 15 feet altitude.
1908 controlled flight by Wright brothers in France
1909 A. Santos-Dumont builds the aeroplane "demoiselle" at 55 MPH
1910 The development of PLASTICS
1912 PANAMA PACIFIC exhibition SAN FRANCISCO
1913 HENRY FORD’S conveyor belt built MODEL T FORD

1914-1918 The First World War, called the "Great War"
1919 LORD RUTHERFORD splits the ATOM in GREAT BRITAIN
1920 Astronomical measurements support Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, light rays bend around massive celestial bodies
first widespread RADIO BROADCASTING regularly
1923 TB TUBERCULOSIS VACCINE perfected in FRANCE
1928 Hoover Dam project commemorated River Conservation
1929 GREAT CRASH on the New York Stock Exchange
. . . . . start of the Great Depression
1932 Discovery of the Neutrons in ATOMIC NUCLEI

1933 Japanese occupation of puppet regime in Korea
1934 initial scientific interest in cloning research begins
1936 TELEVISION TRANSMISSION
Japan launched invasion of China where it used biochemical weapons

1937 Jet engine tested in BRITAIN
NYLONS created in USA

1938 Hahn & Strassman create fission experimentally in a German lab
1939 Lise Meitner interprets fission experiment correctly

BRITISH perfect RADAR
Penicillin developed by British and Candians
Swiss concoct DDT as an organo/phosphate pesticide
HELICOPTER invented in the USA

German blitzkreig warfare against Poland launched.

1940 use of early CYCLOTRON

Nazi invasion took less than sixty days to defeat France

1942 first electronic COMPUTER “eniac” used by military

12/2/1942 ENRICO FERMI conducts the first SUSTAINED NUCLEAR
CHAIN REACTION in a GRAPHITE lined CORE

1943 Penicillin successfully used in the treatment of disease.

7/17/1945 ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO: first ATOMIC BOMB blast at the TRINITY TEST SITE
7/18/45 “the day after Trinity.” (J. Robert Oppenheimer argues the bomb test is revolutionary as it taps the weak nuclear force.)

1946 Xerography process perfected by Chester Carlson for photographic duplication of documents.
1947 earliest SUPERSONIC FLIGHT

USA --Bell Labs-- invents the TRANSISTOR

1948 antiobiotics produced for medicinal therapy

1949 USSR test its first Atomic Bomb
1951 first NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS in the U.S. & U.K.

1952 US tests first Hydrogen fission fusion bomb at Eniwitok, 11/6

CONTRACEPTIVE PILL perfected in the USA
COMPUTER CHIP crafted in BELL LABORATORIES

1953 the structure of DNA MOLECULE described by Watson, Wilkins, Franklin & Crick

USSR explodes a Hydrogen Bomb

1954 US Hydrogen Bomb testing in Bikini atoll the South Pacific
1957 Soviet Union launches the first SATELLITE in SPACE, 1957 The contraceptive pill released as a treatment for gynecological disorders.
1958 earliest recorded data of carbon dioxide fluctuations from atop the Hawaiian Islands

1960 first optical microwave laser constructed, contraceptive pill FDA approved

1961 Soviet Union first orbits a person in SPACE
1961 US announces a race to the Moon with USSR
1967 China explodes a Hydrogen Bomb test

1969 Anglo-French test flight of the Supersonic Transport, SST
1969 Neil Armstrong walks on the LUNAR SURFACE, July

1973 ARAB OIL EMBARGO
1975 first HOME COMPUTER KITS for personal computers available in USA
1980 USA and USSR possess 50,000 nuclear warheads combined

Walter Alvarez argues, based on an iridium clay layer as evidence, that a meteordestroyed the dionsaur's life support system at the end of the Cretaceous Era.

1982 Cruise MISSILES deployed by the USA in EUROPE

first genetically altered bacteria patented to produce insulin

1983 CD, compact disc commercially mass produced

first mission of the US space shuttle

1984 Nucleic acid analysis reveals humans and Chimpanzees share 98% of similar DNA.

Thames flood barrier is opened, largest in the world.

Apple MACintosh home computer & mouse introduced.

1985 British Antarctic Survey documents a growing ozone hole
1986 last two DUSKY SEASIDE SPARROWS face extinction in DISNEY WORLD, FLORIDA; USA.

Space shuttle "Challenger" explodes on take off

1989 Warmest year on record (until that time)

1989 Collapse of Eastern European Communism and the Soviet Union

Eighty nations sign the Montreal Protocol to ban CFCs.

1990 English Channel tunnel is completed by the French and British as a rail transfer system between Dover and Calais.

1992 First Persian Gulf / US-Iraqi War.

1998 Warmest year on record surpasses previous record holder. June 1998, an international team of Japanese and U.S. physicists unveiled strong evidence that elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos have mass (or weight).

1999 Y-2K scare concerning computers precedes the end of the year.

2000 June, initial working genome of the human species published.

Twenty-first century

2001 first intentionally cloned domestic animal, Dolly, a sheep.

2001 two passenger aircraft are used to destroy the World Trade Center in NYC and another airliner is flown into the Pentagon by people bearing Saudi Arabian passports.

2002 European Union admits eastern nations to the original pact.

2002 European Union takes a step to making carbon dioxide and other polluting industrial emissions a commercial medium of exchange in adopting a "carbon trading system" to reduce stationary sources of greenhouse gases.

2003 Space shuttle disintegrates on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere due to faulty and damaged heat shield.

2003 Second Persian Gulf / US-Iraqi War (in 2007 becomes the longest war in US history).

2004 Bar-code reader, auto-teller and credit card converge to make first fully automated consumer store in Germany.

2004 Japanese investors announce plans to develop a high-speed train working on the principle of magnetic levitation (Mag-lev) rather than conventional rails and direct current electrical power to connect Tokyo with Osaka.

2005 Chinese mag-lev train operates in Shanghai.

2005 New Orleans floods after levees break under tidal pressure from two hurricanes whose winds drive high storm tides directly up a poorly designed barge canal. The city is evacuated, whole districts are destroyed; thousands died, over a million people are displaced.

2006 fourth year of the Iraqi invasion or Second Persian Gulf (US-Iraqi) War.

2007 cellulosic ethanol from grass (switch grass) suggested as a source of alcohol for fuel as petroleum hits a record high price of $88.00 per barrel in world markets.

2008 petroleum tops $112 per barrel, food riots wordwide, May, 63,000 dead in a Typhoon that hit coastal Myanmar.

2008 bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium artifcial life is synthesized, the initial step and new approach to engineering organisms.

2008 petroleum reaches $178 per barrell on world markets in summer.

Mechanization | Industrialization | Automation

19th Century | World War Two | recent | contemporary

Periods in history

What are the three faces of technological change?

Vocabulary terms

Last Updated on September 7, 2007

Technology index landscape index words index map index photograph index