Wse3 PREHISTORIC ERA
10 million
years ago
Humans make the first tools from stone, wood, antlers, and bones.
1-2million
years ago
Humans discover fire.
25 000- 50 000
BCE
Humans first wear clothes.
10 000
BCE
Earliest boats are constructed.
8 000- 9 000
BCE
Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture.
6 0000- 7 000
BCE
Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle East.
ANCIENT TIMES
4 000 BCE
ye
Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments.
3 0000- 5 000
BCE
Glass is made by people for the first time.
3 500 BCE
Humans invent the wheel.
̴3 000
BCE
First written languages are developed by the Sumerian people of Southern Mesopotamia.
̴̴̴2500 BCE
Ancient Egyptians produce papyrus, a crude early version of paper.
3 000- 600
BCE
Bronze Age: Widespread use of copper and its important alloy bronze .
1 000 BCE
Iron Age Begins: Iron is widely used for making tools and weapons .
600 BCE
Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity.
̴250
BCE
Ancient Egyptians invent lighthouses, including the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
̴300-
200 BCE
Chinese invent magnetic direction finders.
62 BCE
ye
Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, pioneers steam power.
105 BCE
ye
Tsai Lun makes the first paper in China.
27- 395
BCE
Romans develop the first basic concrete called pozzolona.
MIDDLE AGES
600 CE
ye
Windmills are invented in the Middle East.
700-900
CE
Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.
800-1300
BCE
Golden Age: Banū Musāand Al- Jazari develops the Ingenious Clocks.
1000 CE
ye
Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses to frames.
̴1232
CE
Chinese repel Mongol invaders using early rockets.
1450s
Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the printing press called movable type.
1470s
The first parachute is sketched on paper by unknown inventor.
1530s
Gerardus Mercator helps to revolutionize navigation with better mapmaking.
̴1590
s
A Dutch spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen makes the first compound microscope .
1596
Sir John Harington describes one of the first modern flush toilets.
17th CENTURY
̴-1600
Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.
1600
William Gilbert publishes his his book De Magnete. Scientific study of magnetism.
1609
Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes new astronomical discoveries.
̴600 CE
1628
William Harvey published a book describing blood circulation.
Chinese invent gunpowder
Mid- and fireworks.
1700
Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently develop microscopes.
̴1643
Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.
1650s
Christian Huygens develops the pendulum clock.
1654
Guericke invented the vacuum pump.
1661
Robert Boyle published the Skeptical Chemist, which laid the foundation of modern chemistry.
̴1687
Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion .
18th CENTURY
̴1701
Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of agriculture by inventing the horse-drawn seed drill.
1703
Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary number system now used in virtually all computers.
1712
Thomas Newcomen builds the first practical steam engine.
̴600 CE
1737
William Champion develops a commercially viable process of extracting zinc.
Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.
1757
John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that measures latitude.
̴1730s-
1770s
John Harrison develops chronometers that allows sailors to measure longitude.
1769
Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the first speech synthesizer.
1700s
Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge in England.
1780
Josiah Wedgwood invents the pyrometer.
̴1791
Reverend William Gregor discovers a mysterious mineral which is later called Titanium .
19th CENTURY
̴1800
Italian Alesssandro Volta makes the first batttery
1807
Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp.
1820s-1830s
Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.
1827
Joseph Niepce makes the first modern photograph.
1830s-1840s
Charles Wheatstone, William Cooke, and Samuel Morse develop the electric telegraph.
̴1840
s
James Prescott Joule outlines the theory of the conservation of energy.
1849
James Francis invents a water turbine now used in many of the world’s hydropower plants.
1877
Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph.
1888
Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current electric induction motor.
̴1895
Wilhelm Röentgen discovers X-rays.
20th CENTURY
̴1903
Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build the first engine-powered airplane.
1905
Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect.
1919
Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes.
1920s
John Logie Baird develops mechanical television.
1938
Roy Plunkett accidentally invents non-stick plastic coating called Teflon.
̴194
7
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invent the transistor.
1954
Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
1957
Soviet Union launch the Sputnik space satellite.
1973
Martin Cooper develops the first handheld cellphone.
̴1989
Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web
21th CENTURY
̴2001
Richard Palmer develops energy-absorbing D30 plastic.
2002
iRobot Corporation releases the first version of its Roomba vacuum cleaning robot.
2004
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discover graphene.
2007
Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the iPhone.
2010
Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad.
̴201
0
3D TV starts to become more widely available.
2013
Elon Musk announces “hyperloop”- a giant, pneumatic tube transport system.
2015
Supercomputers are now mere 30 times less powerful than human brains.
2016
Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building miniature machines out of molecules.
̴2017
Quantum computing shows signs of becoming a practical technology.
