The timeline of historic inventions is a chronological list of particularly significant technological inventions and their inventors, where known. This page lists non-incremental 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.
Paleolithic
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 Paleolithic
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 Mya, 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 40âÂÂ100,000 years alternating between long, cold, more glaciated periods, and shorter warmer periods â interglacial episodes.
Middle Paleolithic
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.
- 279 kya: Hafting and early stone-tipped projectile weapons in Ethiopia
- 200 kya: Simple glue (adhesive) made of one kind of material, birch tar, in Central Italy by Neanderthals.
- 200 kya: Beds in South Africa.
- 170 kya â 90 kya: Clothing, among anatomically modern humans in Africa. Genetic evidence from body lice suggests a range of dates centering over 100 thousand years ago. The first bone scrapers appropriate for scraping hides to make supple leather were found in Morocco dating to 90âÂÂ120,000 years ago.
- 164 kya â 47 kya: Heat treating of stone blades in South Africa.
- 135 kya â 100 kya: Beads in Israel and Algeria â implying string or thread
- 100 kya: Ochre processed, and compound paints made in South Africa
- 100 kya: Funerals (in the form of burial) in Israel
- 90 kya: Harpoons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- 70 kya â 60 kya in Sibudu Cave in South Africa by Homo sapiens:
- Compound adhesives
- Arrows and other evidence of bow-and-arrow technology
- Sewing needle (implying thread of some kind)
- 61 kya â 62 kya: Cave painting in Spain by Neanderthal
- 55.8âÂÂ51.2 kya: Representational and Narrative art in Indonesia by Homo sapiens
Upper Paleolithic to Early Mesolithic
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 â 30 kya: Ground stone tools â fragments of an axe in Australia date to 49âÂÂ45 ka, more appear in Japan closer to 30 ka, and elsewhere closer to the Neolithic.
- 47 kya: The oldest-known mines in the world are from Eswatini, and extracted hematite for the production of the red pigment ochre.
- 45 kya â 9 kya: Earliest evidence of shoes, suggested by changes in foot bone morphology in China by Tianyuan man. The earliest physical shoes found so far are bark sandals dated to 10 to 9 kya in Fort Rock Cave, United States. 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.
- 44 kya â 42 kya: Tally sticks (see Lebombo bone) in Eswatini
- 42 kya: Flute in Germany
- 42-17.5 kya: The oldest spear-thrower (aka atlatl, woomera) found so far was in France, dated to 17.5 thousand years ago. Indirect evidence suggests 42 thousand years ago or longer, from study of Mungo Man's arthritis
- 37 kya: Mortar and pestle in Southwest Asia
- 32-28 kya: Rope and Cords for "hafting stone tools, weaving baskets, or sewing garments," according to Elis Kvavadze et al.
- 31 kya: Amputation and surgery. Medicine in a meaningful sense likely predates the human-chimpanzee split, as, for example, herbal medicine has been observed in other primates.
- 28 kya: Ceramics (direct evidence) and weaving (impressions left in the ceramics) in Moravia (Czech Republic) and Georgia. (The oldest piece of woven cloth found so far was in ÃÂatalhöyük, Turkey and dated to about 9,000 years ago.)
- 24 kya: Oldest known ceramic sculpture
- 23 kya: Domestication of the dog in Siberia.
- 22 â 17 kya Bullroarer
- 22 kya: Fish hook in Okinawa Island, modern day Japan.
- 21 â 3.7 kya: Star chart in France, and later Spain, Kashmir, Germany, and Egypt.
- 20 â 16 kya: Pottery in China
- 14.5 kya: Bread in Jordan
- 12 kya: Spindle whorl, also the oldest wheel-like tool, at Nahal Ein Gev II (Israel)
Agricultural and proto-agricultural eras
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.
Neolithic and Late Mesolithic
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.
- 10,000 BC â 9000 BC: Agriculture in the Fertile Crescent
- 10,000 BC â 9000 BC: Domestication of sheep in Southwest Asia (followed shortly by pigs, goats and cattle)
- 9500 BC â 9000 BC: Oldest known surviving building â Göbekli Tepe, in Turkey
- 9000 BC â 6000 BC: Domestication of rice in China
- 9000 BC: Mudbricks (unfired bricks), and clay mortar in Jericho.
- 8400 BC: Oldest known water well in Cyprus.
- 8040âÂÂ7510 BC: The Pesse canoe is the oldest boat we have found, while early human habitation of Crete and Australia make clear human seafaring goes back tens or hundreds of thousands of years. (see above)
- 8000âÂÂ7500 BC: Proto-city â large permanent settlements, such as Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) and ÃÂatalhöyük, Turkey.
- 8000âÂÂ5000 BC: Domestication of potatoes, in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia by pre-Columbian farmers, around Lake Titicaca.
- 7500âÂÂ6500 BC: Copper tools, by the people of the Old Copper Complex from the Great Lakes region of North America.
- 7000 BC: Alcohol fermentation â specifically mead, in China
- 7000 BC: Sled dog and Dog sled, in Siberia.
- 6500 BC: Evidence of lead smelting in ÃÂatalhöyük, Turkey
- 6000 BC: Kiln in Mesopotamia (Iraq)
- 6th millennium BC: Irrigation in Khuzistan, Iran
- 6000 BC â 3200 BC: Proto-writing in present-day Egypt, Iraq, Romania, China, India and Pakistan.
- 5900 â 5600 BC: Oldest evidence of salt production found in Southeastern Europe, in the countries of Moldova and Romania.
- 5500 â 5200 BC: Oldest evidence of cheese found, in Poland and on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
- 5500 BC: Sailing - pottery depictions of sail boats, in Mesopotamia, and later ancient Egypt
- 5000 BC: Copper smelting in Serbia.
- 5000 BC: Seawall in Tel Hreiz, near Haifa, Israel.
- 5th millennium BC: Lacquer in China
- 5000 BC: Cotton thread, in Mehrgarh, Indus Valley, connecting the copper beads of a bracelet.
- 5000 BC â 4500 BC: Rowing oars in China
- 4500 BC â 3500 BC: Lost-wax casting in Palestine or the Indus Valley
- 4400 BC: Fired bricks in China.
- 4000 BC: Probable time period of the first diamond-mines in the world, in Southern India.
- 4000 BC: Paved roads, in and around the Mesopotamian city of Ur, Iraq.
- 4000 BC: Plumbing. The earliest pipes were made of clay, and are found at the Temple of Bel at Nippur in Babylonia.
- 4000 BC: Oldest evidence of locks, the earliest example discovered in the ruins of Nineveh, the capital of ancient Assyria.
- 4000 BC â 3400 BC: Oldest evidence of wheels, found in the countries of Ukraine, Poland, and Germany.
- 3630 BC: Silk garments (sericulture) in China
- 3500 BC: Probable first domestication of the horse in the Eurasian Steppes.
- 3500 BC: Wine as general anaesthesia in Sumer.
- 3500 BC: Seal (emblem) invented around in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia and slightly later at Susa in south-western Iran during the Proto-Elamite period, and they follow the development of stamp seals in the Halaf culture or slightly earlier.
- 3500 BC: Ploughing, on a site in BubeneÃÂ, Czech Republic. Evidence, c. 2800 BC, has also been found at Kalibangan, Indus Valley (modern-day India).
- 3400 BC â 3100 BC: Tattoos in southern Europe
Bronze Age
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 â in Sumer and Egypt.
- 3300 BC: The first documented swords. They have been found in Arslantepe, Turkey, are made from arsenical bronze, and are about long. Some of them are inlaid with silver.
- 3300 BC: City in Uruk, Sumer, Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).
- 3250 BC: One of the earliest documented hats was worn by a man (nicknamed ÃÂtzi) 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.
- 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.
- 3200 BC: Earliest actual wheel ever found, the Ljubljana Marshes Wheel, made of wood, in Slovenia.
- 3000 BC: Devices functionally equivalent to dice, in the form of flat two-sided throwsticks, are seen in the Egyptian game of Senet. 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. Later, terracotta dice were used at the Indus Valley site of Mohenjo-daro (modern-day Pakistan).
- 3000 BC: Tin extraction in Central Asia
- 3000 BC â 2560 BC: Papyrus in Egypt
- 3000 BC: Reservoir in Girnar, Indus Valley.
- 3000 BC: Receipt in Ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq)
- 3000 BC â 2800 BC: Prosthesis first documented in the Ancient Near East, in ancient Egypt and Iran, specifically for an eye prosthetics, the eye found in Iran was likely made of bitumen paste that was covered with a thin layer of gold.
- 3000 BC â 2500 BC: Rhinoplasty in Egypt.
- 2650 BC: The Ruler, or Measuring rod, in the subdivided Nippur, copper rod, of the Sumerian Civilisation (modern-day Iraq).
- 2600 BC: Planned city in Indus Valley.
- 2600 BC: Public sewage and sanitation systems in Indus Valley sites such as Mohenjo-daro and Rakhigarhi.
- 2600 BC: Public bath in Mohenjo-daro, Indus Valley (modern-day Pakistan).
- 2600 BC: Levee in Indus Valley.
- 2600 BC: Balance weights and scales, from the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt; examples of Deben (unit) balance weights, from reign of Sneferu (c. 2600 BC) have been attributed.
- 2556 BC: Docks structure in Wadi al-Jarf, Egypt, which was developed by the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu.
- 2500 BC: Puppetry in the Indus Valley.
- 2400 BC: Fork in Bronze Age Qijia culture in China
- 2400 BC: Copper pipes, the Pyramid of Sahure, an adjoining temple complex at Abusir, was discovered to have a network of copper drainage pipes.
- 2400 BC: Touchstone in the Indus Valley site of Banawali (modern-day India).
- 2300 BC: Dictionary in Mesopotamia.
- 2200 BC â 2000 BC: Iron smelting in Kaman-Kalehöyük.
- 2200 BC: Protractor, Phase IV, Lothal, Indus Valley (modern-day India), a Xancus shell cylinder with sawn grooves, at right angles, in its top and bottom surfaces, has been proposed as an angle marking tool.
- 2000 BC: Water clock by at least the old Babylonian period (c. 2000 â c. 1600 BC), but possibly earlier from Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley.
- 2000 BC: Chariot in Russia and Kazakhstan
- 2000 BC: Scissors, in Mesopotamia.
- 1850 BC: Proto-alphabet (Proto-Sinaitic script) in Egypt.
- 1600 BC: Surgical treatise appeared in Egypt.
- 1500 BC: Sundial in Ancient Egypt or Babylonia (modern-day Iraq).
- 1500 BC: Glass manufacture in either Mesopotamia or Ancient Egypt.
- 1500 BC: Seed drill in Babylonia.
- 1400 BC: Rubber, Mesoamerican ballgame.
- 1400 BC â 1200 BC: Concrete in Tiryns (Mycenaean Greece),
- 1300 BC: Lathe in Ancient Egypt.
- 1200 BC: Distillation is described on Akkadian tablets documenting perfumery operations.
Iron Age
The Late Bronze Age collapse occurs around 1200 BC, 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.
Classical antiquity and medieval era
5th century BC
4th century BC
3rd century BC
2nd century BC
1st century BC
1st century AD
2nd century
3rd century
4th century
5th century
6th century
7th century
- 619: Toothbrush in China during the Tang dynasty
- 672: Greek fire in Constantinople, Byzantine Empire: Greek fire, an incendiary weapon likely based on petroleum or naphtha, is invented by Kallinikos, a Lebanese Greek refugee from Baalbek, as described by Theophanes. However, the historicity and exact chronology of this account is dubious, and it could be that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version of an established weapon.
- 7th century: Banknote in Tang dynasty China: The banknote is first developed in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots are in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang dynasty (618âÂÂ907), as merchants and wholesalers desire to avoid the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions.
- 7th century: Porcelain in Tang dynasty China: True porcelain is manufactured in northern China from roughly the beginning of the Tang dynasty in the 7th century, while true porcelain was not manufactured in southern China until about 300 years later, during the early 10th century.
8th century
9th century
10th century
11th century
12th century
13th century
- 13th century: Rocket for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China.
- 13th century: The earliest form of mechanical escapement, the verge escapement in Europe.
- 13th century: Buttons (combined with buttonholes) as a functional fastening for closing clothes appear first in Germany.
- 13th century: Explosive bomb in Jin dynasty Manchuria: Explosive bombs are used in 1221 by the Jin dynasty against a Song dynasty city. 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", coined during a Jin dynasty naval battle in 1231.
- 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.
- 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. In China, the first sunglasses consisting of flat panes of smoky quartz are documented.
- 13th century: Double-entry bookkeeping in Italy.
- 13th century - 14th century: Worm gear cotton gin in India.
- 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.
- 1286: Eyeglasses in Italy
14th century
15th century
Early modern era
16th century
17th century
18th century
Late modern period
19th century
1800s
1810s
1820s
1830s
1840s
1850s
- 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.
- 1852: Robert Bunsen is the first to use a chemical vapor deposition technique.
- 1852: Elisha Otis invents the safety brake elevator.
- 1852: Henri Giffard becomes the first person to make a manned, controlled and powered flight using a dirigible.
- 1853: François Coignet invents reinforced concrete.
- 1855: James Clerk Maxwell invents the first practical method for color photography, whether chemical or electronic.
- 1855: Henry Bessemer patents the Bessemer process for making steel, with improvements made by others over the following years.
- 1856: Alexander Parkes invents parkesine, also known as celluloid, the first man-made plastic.
- 1856: James Harrison produces the world's first practical ice making machine and refrigerator using the principle of vapour compression in Geelong, Australia.
- 1856: William Henry Perkin invents mauveine, the first synthetic dye.
- 1857: Heinrich Geissler invents the Geissler tube.
- 1857: The phonautograph, the earliest known device for recording sound, is patented and invented by Frenchman ÃÂdouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.
- 1859: Gaston Planté invents the lead acid battery, the first rechargeable battery.
1860s
1870s
- 1872: Polyvinyl chloride, more commonly known as vinyl, is synthesized by German chemist Eugen Baumann.
- 1872: J. E. T. Woods and J. Clark invent stainless steel. Harry Brearley is the first to commercialize it.
- 1873: Frederick Ransome invents the rotary kiln.
- 1873: William Crookes, a chemist, invents the Crookes radiometer as the by-product of some chemical research.
- 1873: Zénobe Gramme invents the first commercial electrical generator, the Gramme machine.
- 1874: Gustave Trouvé invents the first metal detector.
- 1874: Ferdinand von Zeppelin invents the Zeppelin rigid airship.
- 1875: Fyodor Pirotsky invents the first electric tram near Saint Petersburg, Russia.
- 1876: Nicolaus August Otto invents the four-stroke cycle.
- 1876: Alexander Graham Bell has a patent granted for the telephone. However, other inventors before Bell had worked on the development of the telephone and the invention had several pioneers.
- 1877: Thomas Edison invents the first working phonograph.
- 1878: Henry Fleuss is granted a patent for the first practical rebreather.
- 1878: Lester Allan Pelton invents the Pelton wheel, a type of water turbine.
- 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. 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.
1880s
1890s
20th century
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
- 1930: The Supersonic combusting ramjet â Frank Whittle.
- 1930: The Phase-contrast microscopy is invented by Frits Zernike.
- 1931: The electron microscope is invented by Ernst Ruska.
- 1933: FM radio is patented by inventor Edwin H. Armstrong.
- 1933: Harry C. Jennings Sr. and Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair with their "X-brace" design.
- 1935: Nylon, the first fully synthetic fiber is produced by Wallace Carothers while working at DuPont.
- 1938: Z1, built by Konrad Zuse, is the first freely programmable computer in the world.
- 1938: Nuclear fission discovered in experiment by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch. The German nuclear energy project was based on this research. The Tube Alloys project and, subsequently, the Manhattan Project and the Soviet atomic bomb project were influenced by this research.
- 1939: G. S. Yunyev or Naum Gurvich invented the electric current defibrillator
- 1939: John Vincent Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer
1940-1944
Contemporary history
1945-1950
1950s
- 1950: Bertie the Brain, debatably the first video game, is displayed to the public at the Canadian National Exhibition.
- 1950: The Toroidal chamber with axial magnetic fields (the Tokamak) is developed by Igor E. Tamm and Andrei D. Sakharov.
- 1952: The float glass process is developed by Alastair Pilkington.
- 1952: The first thermonuclear weapon is developed.
- 1953: The first video tape recorder, a helical scan recorder, is invented by Norikazu Sawazaki.
- 1954: Invention of the solar battery by Bell Telephone scientists, Calvin Souther Fuller, Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson capturing the Sun's power. First practical means of collecting energy from the Sun and turning it into a current of electricity.
- 1955: The hovercraft is patented by Christopher Cockerell.
- 1955: Jonas Salk received the license for his inactivated polio vaccine
- 1955: The intermodal container is developed by Malcom McLean.
- 1956: The hard disk drive is invented by IBM.
- 1956: The Logic Theorist computer program, the first "artificial intelligence program", was written and invented by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon, and Cliff Shaw.
- 1957: The laser and optical amplifier are invented and named by Gordon Gould and Charles Townes. The laser and optical amplifier are foundational to powering the Internet.
- 1957: The first personal computer used by one person and controlled by a keyboard, the IBM 610, is invented by IBM.
- 1957: The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, is launched.
- 1958 â 1959: The integrated circuit is independently invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce.
- 1959: The MOSFET (MOS transistor) is invented by the Egyptian Mohamed Atalla and the Korean Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs. It is used in almost all modern electronic products. It was smaller, faster, more reliable and cheaper to manufacture than earlier bipolar transistors, leading to a revolution in computers, controls and communication.
1960s
1970s
- 1970s: Public-key cryptography is invented and developed by James H. Ellis, Clifford Cocks, Malcolm J. Williamson, Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, Ralph Merkle, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adleman, et al.
- 1970: The pocket calculator is invented.
- 1971: The first single-chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004, is invented. Its development was led by Federico Faggin, using his silicon-gate MOS technology. This led to the personal computer (PC) revolution.
- 1971: The first space station, Salyut 1, is launched.
- 1971: IBM developed and released the world's first floppy disk and disk drive.
- 1972: The first video game console, used primarily for playing video games on a TV, is the Magnavox Odyssey.
- 1972: Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen developed genetic modification when they successfully modified DNA
- 1973: The first fiber optic communication systems were developed by Optelecom.
- 1973: The first commercial graphical user interface is introduced in 1973 on the Xerox Alto. The modern GUI is later popularized by the Xerox Star and Apple Lisa.
- 1973: The first capacitive touchscreen is developed at CERN.
- 1974: The Transmission Control Program is proposed by Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn, building on the work of other Internet pioneers, creating the basis for the modern Internet.
- 1974: The lithium-ion battery is invented by M. Stanley Whittingham, and further developed in the 1980s and 1990s by John B. Goodenough, Rachid Yazami and Akira Yoshino. It has impacted modern consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
- 1974: The Rubik's cube is invented by ErnÃ
 Rubik which went on to be the best selling puzzle ever.
- 1975: First general purpose home automation network technology, X10, was developed
- 1977: Dr Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger invented a new DNA sequencing method for which they won the Nobel Prize.
- 1977: The first self-driving car that did not rely upon rails or wires under the road is designed by the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory.
- 1978: The Global Positioning System (GPS) enters service. While not the first Satellite navigation system, it is the first to enter widespread civilian use
- 1978: Birth of the first child through in vitro fertilization (IVF), based on the research of Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards
- 1979: The first handheld game console with interchangeable game cartridges, the Microvision is released.
- 1979: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) launched the first cellular network in Japan.
- 1979: Public dialup information, messaging and e-commerce services, were pioneered through CompuServe and RadioShack's MicroNET, and the UK's Post Office Telecommunications Prestel services.
1980s
- 1980: Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba. It was introduced to the public in 1984.
- 1980: Scientists Mark Skolnick, Ron Davis, Ray White, and David Botstein published their findings on a gene mapping tool using Restriction Fragment-length Polymorphisms (RFLP), that would have applications to identify heritable disorders, including some forms of cancer.
- 1981: The first reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle undergoes test flights ahead of full operation in 1982
- 1981: Kane Kramer develops the credit card-sized, IXI digital media player.
- 1981: Televerket, a Swedish state-owned corporation, launched the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system.
- 1981: Comvik, a Swedish telecommunications company, launched the first commercial automatic cellular system. However, according to the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, the company launched an unlicensed automatic system. Comvik didn't receive a license to operate until December 1981, two months after the NMT system was launched.
- 1982: A CD-ROM contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 Yellow Book standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.
- 1982: Direct to home satellite television transmission, with the launch of Sky One service.
- 1982: The first laptop computer is launched, the 8/16-bit Epson HX-20.
- 1983: Stereolithography is invented by Chuck Hull.
- 1983: Ameritech, now known as AT&T, commercialized the Bell System (its cellular network) in Chicago, Ill.
- 1984: The first commercially available cell phone in the US, the DynaTAC 8000X, is created by Motorola.
- 1984: Chuck Hull patents the stereolithography (SLA) process, also known as 3D printing
- 1984: DNA profiling is pioneered by Alec Jeffreys.
- 1986: Technophone, a British mobile phone company, created the first pocket-sized cell phone, the Excell PCT105.
- 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).
- 1989: The World Wide Web is invented by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
1990s
- 1990: The first search engine, "Archie", was created by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Peter J. Deutsch at McGill University
- 1991: The first commercial flash-based solid-state drive is launched by SunDisk.
- 1991: The first sim card is developed by Munich smart-card maker Giesecke & Devrient
- 1994: IBM Simon, the world's first smartphone, is developed by IBM. It had a touchscreen and the first built-in apps for a mobile device.
- 1994: First generation of Bluetooth is developed by Ericsson Mobile. A form of data communication on short distances between electronic devices
- 1994: A Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device becomes the first mobile game
- 1995: DVD is an optical disc storage format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions.
- 1996: The Ciena Corporation, in partnership with Sprint, deployed the first commercial dense wavelength-division multiplexing system, which created the massive capacity of the Internet.
- 1996: Mobile web was first commercially offered in Finland on the Nokia 9000 Communicator phone, and it was also the first phone with texting
- 1996: Bolt and Six Degrees (1997) both become the first social media sites.
- 1996: Myriad Genetics released the BRACAnalysis, the first commercial genetic test for assessing the risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.
- 1999: The first capsule endoscopy was performed, after being invented in the mid-1990s by Gavriel Iddan
- 1999: The first digital video recorder (DVR), the TiVo, is launched
- 1999: NTT DoCoMo launches i-mode, the first integrated Online App store for mobile phones
21st century
2000s
2010s
2020s
- 2020: The first mRNA vaccine to be approved by public health medicines regulators is co-developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for COVID-19, with the potential to treat other diseases and cancer
- 2020: OpenAI demonstrated an Artificial Intelligence model called GPT-3. The program was created to generate human-like responses when given prompts. Launched in 2022.
See also
By type
Notes
Footnotes
References
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