THE MOST IMPORTANT INVENTIONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The human race has always innovated, and in a relatively short time went from building fires
and making stone-tipped arrows to creating smartphone apps and autonomous robots.
Today, technological progress will undoubtedly continue to change the way we work, live,
and survive in the coming decades.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, the world has witnessed the emergence of social
media, smartphones, self-driving cars, and autonomous flying vehicles. There have also been
huge leaps in energy storage, artificial intelligence, and medical science. Men and women
have mapped the human genome and are grappling with the ramifications of biotechnology
and gene editing.

We are facing immense challenges in global warming and food security, among many other
issues. While human innovation has contributed to many of the problems we are facing, it is
also human innovation and ingenuity that can help humanity deal with these issues. These
are 21 strategies that could avert climate disaster.

24/7 Wall St. examined media reports and other sources on the latest far-reaching
innovations to find some of the most important 21st-century inventions. In some cases,
though there were some precursor research and ancillary technologies before 2001, the
innovation did not become available to the public until this century. This list focuses on
innovations (such as touch screen glass) that support products rather than the specific
products themselves (like the iPhone).

It remains to be seen if all the technology on this list will continue to have an impact
throughout the century. Legislation in the United States may limit the longevity of e-
cigarettes, for example. But some of the inventions of the last 20 years will likely have
staying power for the foreseeable future.

Here are some inventions that are hundreds of years old but are still widely used today.
1. 3D printing
Most inventions come as a result of previous ideas and concepts, and
3D printing is no different. The earliest application of the layering
method used by today's 3D printers took place in the manufacture of
topographical maps in the late 19th century, and 3D printing as we
know it began in 1980.
The convergence of cheaper manufacturing methods and open-
source software, however, has led to a revolution of 3D printing in
recent years. Today, the technology is being used in the production of
everything from lower-cost car parts to bridges to less painful ballet
slippers and it is even considered for artificial organs.
2. E-cigarettes
While components of the technology have existed for decades, the first
modern e-cigarette was introduced in 2006. Since then, the devices have
become widely popular as an alternative to traditional cigarettes, and new
trends, such as the use of flavored juice, have contributed to the success of
companies like Juul.
Recent studies have shown that there remains a great deal of uncertainty and
risk surrounding the devices, with an increasing number of deaths and
injuries linked to vaping. In early 2020, the FDA (Food and Drug
Administration) issued a widespread ban on many flavors of cartridge-based
e-cigarettes, in part because those flavors are especially popular with children
and younger adults.
3. Augmented reality
Augmented reality, in which digital graphics are overlaid onto live footage to
convey information in real time, has been around for a while. Only recently,
however, following the arrival of more powerful computing hardware and the
creation of an open source video tracking software library known as
ARToolKit that the technology has really taken off.
Smartphone apps like the Pokémon Go game and Snapchat filters are just two
small popular examples of modern augmented reality applications. The
technology is being adopted as a tool in manufacturing, health care, travel,
fashion, and education.
4. Birth control patch
The early years of the millennia have brought about an innovation in
family planning, albeit one that is still focused only on women and
does nothing to protect against sexually transmitted infections. Still,
the birth control patch was first released in the United States in 2002
and has made it much easier for women to prevent unintended
pregnancies. The plastic patch contains the same estrogen and
progesterone hormones found in birth control pills and delivers them
in the same manner as nicotine patches do to help people quit
tobacco products.
5. Blockchain
You've likely heard about it even if you don't fully understand it. The simplest
explanation of blockchain is that it is an incorruptible way to record
transactions between parties – a shared digital ledger that parties can only
add to and that is transparent to all members of a peer-to-peer network where
the blockchain is logged and stored.
The technology was first deployed in 2008 to create Bitcoin, the first
decentralized cryptocurrency, but it has since been adopted by the financial
sector and other industries for myriad uses, including money transfers, supply
chain monitoring, and food safety.
6. Capsule endoscopy
Advancements in light emitting electrodes, image sensors, and
optical design in the '90s led to the emergence of capsule endoscopy,
first used in patients in 2001. The technology uses a tiny wireless
camera the size of a vitamin pill that the patient swallows.
As the capsule traverses the digestive system, doctors can examine
the gastrointestinal system in a far less intrusive manner. Capsule
endoscopy can be used to identify the source of internal bleeding,
inflammations of the bowel ulcers, and cancerous tumors.
7. Modern artificial pancreas
More formally known as closed-loop insulin delivery system, the artificial
pancreas has been around since the late '70s, but the first versions were the
size of a filing cabinet. In recent years, the artificial pancreas, used primarily
to treat type 1 diabetes, became portable. The first artificial pancreas (the
modern, portable kind) was approved for use in the United States in 2016.
The system continuously monitors blood glucose levels, calculates the amount
of insulin required, and automatically delivers it through a small pump.
British studies have shown that patients using these devices spent more time
in their ideal glucose-level range. In December 2019, the FDA approved an
even more advanced version of the artificial pancreas, called Control-IQ,
developed by UVA.
8. E-readers
Sony was the first company to release an e-reader using a so-called
microencapsulated electrophoretic display, commonly referred to as e-ink. E-
ink technology, which mimics ink on paper that is easy on the eyes and
consumes less power, had been around since the '70s (and improved in the
'90s), but the innovation of e-readers had to wait until after the broader
demand for e-books emerged. Sony was quickly overtaken by Amazon's Kindle
after its 2007 debut. The popularity of e-readers has declined with the
emergence of tablets and smartphones, but they still command loyalty from
bookworms worldwide.
9. Gene editing
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and a separate team
from Harvard and the Broad Institute independently discovered in 2012 that a
bacterial immune system known as CRISPR (an acronym for clustered
regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) could be used as a powerful
gene-editing tool to make detailed changes to any organism's DNA. This
discovery heralded a new era in biotechnology.
The discovery has the potential to eradicate diseases by altering the genes in
mice and mosquitoes to combat the spread of Lyme disease and malaria but is
also raising ethical questions, especially with regards to human gene editing
such as for reproductive purposes.
10. High-density battery packs
Tesla electric cars have received so much attention largely because of their
batteries. The batteries, located underneath the passenger cabin, consist of
thousands of high-density lithium ion cells, each barely larger than a standard
AA battery, nestled into a large, heavy battery pack that also offers Tesla
electric cars a road-gripping low center of gravity and structural support.
The brainchild of Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel, these battery modules
pack more of a punch than standard (and cheaper) electric car batteries.
These packs are also being used in residential, commercial, and grid-scale
energy storage devices.
11. Digital assistants
One of the biggest technology trends in recent years has been smart home
technology, which can now be found in everyday consumer devices like door
locks, light bulbs, and kitchen appliances. The key piece of technology that has
helped make all this possible is the digital assistant. Apple was the first major
tech company to introduce a virtual assistant called Siri, in 2011, for iOS.
Other digital assistants, such as Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon's Alexa, have
since entered the market. The assistants gained another level of popularity
when tech companies introduced smart speakers. Notably, Google Home and
Amazon's Echo can now be found in millions of homes, with an ever-growing
range of applications.
12. Robot heart
Artificial hearts have been around for some time. They are mechanical devices
connected to the actual heart or implanted in the chest to assist or substitute a
heart that is failing. Abiomed, a Danvers, Massachusetts-based company,
developed a robot heart called AbioCor, a self-contained apparatus made of
plastic and titanium.
AbioCor is a self-contained unit with the exception of a wireless battery pack
that is attached to the wrist. Robert Tools, a technical librarian with
congestive heart failure, received the first one on July 2, 2001.
13. Retinal implant
When he was a medical student, Dr. Mark Humayun watched his
grandmother gradually lose her vision. The ophthalmologist and bioengineer
focused on finding a solution to what causes blindness. He collaborated with
Dr. James Weiland, a colleague at the USC Gayle and Edward Roski Eye
Institute, and other experts to create the Argus II.
The Argus II is a retinal prosthesis device that is considered to be a
breakthrough for those suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited
retinal degenerative condition that can lead to blindness. The condition
afflicts 1.5 million people worldwide. The device was approved by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration in 2013.
14. Mobile operating systems
Mobile operating systems for smartphones and other portable gadgets have
enabled the proliferation of smartphones and other mobile gadgets thanks to
their intuitive user interfaces and seemingly endless app options. Mobile
operating systems have become the most consumer-facing of computer
operating systems. When Google first purchased Android Inc. in 2005, the
operating system was just two years old, and the first iPhone (with its iOS)
was still two years from its commercial debut.
15. Multi-use rockets
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk may not necessarily be remembered for
his contributions to electric cars innovations, but rather for his contributions
to space exploration. Musk's private space exploration company, SpaceX, has
developed rockets that can be recovered and reused in other launches – a
more efficient and cheaper alternative to the method of using the rockets only
once and letting them fall into the ocean.
On March 30, 2017, SpaceX became the first to deploy one of these used
rockets, the Falcon 9. Blue Origin, a space-transport company founded by
Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, has launched its own reusable rocket.
16. Online streaming
Online streaming would not be possible without the convergence of
widespread broadband internet access and cloud computing data
centers used to store content and direct web traffic. While internet-
based live streaming has been around almost since the internet was
broadly adopted in the '90s, it was not until the mid-2000s that the
internet could handle the delivery of streaming media to large
audiences. Online streaming is posing an existential threat to existing
models of delivering media entertainment, such as cable television
and movie theaters.
17. Robotic exoskeletons
Ever since researchers at the University of California, Berkeley,
created in 2003 a robotic device that attaches to the lower back to
augment strength in humans, the demand for robotic exoskeletons
for physical rehabilitation has increased, and manufacturing has
taken off.
Wearable exoskeletons are increasingly helping people with mobility
issues (particularly lower body paralysis), and are being used in
factories. Ford Motor Company, for example, has used an
exoskeleton vest that helps auto assemblers with repetitive tasks in
order to lessen the wear and tear on shoulders and arms.
18. Small satellites
As modern electronics devices have gotten smaller, so, too, have orbital
satellites, which companies, governments, and organizations use to gather
scientific data, collect images of Earth, and for telecommunications and
intelligence purposes. These tiny, low-cost orbital devices fall into different
categories by weight, but one of the most common is the shoebox-sized CubeSat.
As of October 2019, over 2,400 satellites weighing between 1 kg (2.2 lbs) and 40
kgs (88 lbs) have been launched, according to Nanosats Database.
19. Solid-state lidar
Lidar is an acronym that stands for light detection and ranging, and is also a
portmanteau of the words "light" and "radar." The technology today is most
often used in self-driving cars. Like radars, which use radio waves to bounce
off objects and determine their distance, lidar uses a laser pulse to do the
same.
By sending enough lasers in rotation, it can create a constantly updated high-
resolution image map of the surrounding environment. The next steps in the
technology would include smaller and cheaper lidar sensors, and especially
solid state ones – no spinning tops on the cars.
20. Tokenization

If you have ever used the chip embedded in a credit or debit card to make a payment
by tapping rather than swiping, then you have benefited from the heightened security
of tokenization. This data security technology replaces sensitive data with an
equivalent randomized number, known as a token, that is used only once per
transaction and has no value to would-be hackers and identity thieves attempting to
intercept transaction data as it travels from sender to recipient. Social media site
classmates.com was reportedly the first to use tokenization in 2001 to protect its
subscribers' sensitive data. Tokenization is also being touted as a way to prevent
hackers from interfering with driverless cars.
21. Touchscreen glass

Super-thin, chemically strengthened glass is a key component of the touchscreen

world. This sturdy, transparent material is what helps keep your iPad or Samsung
smartphone from shattering into pieces at the slightest drop. Even if these screens
crack, in most cases the damage is cosmetic and the gadget still works.

Corning Inc., already a leader in the production of treated glass used in automobiles,
was asked by Apple to develop 1.3-mm treated glass for its iPhone, which debuted in
2007. Corning's Gorilla Glass is still the most well known, though other brands exist in
the marketplace.
 THE GREATEST INVENTIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Change is an inevitable occurrence that the world has to face, or shall we say evolution? Well, it sounds
more convenient that way, for when time passes the world does not only change from one state to
another, but it actually experiences progress, development and innovation. For example, imagine
mentioning the word Facebook and someone frowning upon it. Weird, isn’t it? This scenario is actually
acceptable if we were still in the 60’s, but in our 21st century, that would be very odd. Check out this list
of the following inventions that have had a great impact on the world, and in point of fact, changed it
forever.

THE NAIL
Without nails, civilization would surely crumble. This key invention dates back more than 2,000 years to
the Ancient Roman period, and became possible only after humans developed the ability to cast and
shape metal. Previously, wood structures had to be built by interlocking adjacent boards geometrically a
much more arduous construction process.

Until the 1790s and early 1800s, hand-wrought nails were the norm, with a blacksmith heating a square
iron rod and then hammering it on four sides to create a point, according to the University of Vermont.
Nail-making machines came online between the 1790s and the early 1800s. Technology for crafting nails
continued to advance. After Henry Bessemer developed a process to mass-produce steel from iron, the
iron nails of yesteryear slowly waned and by 1886, 10 percent of U.S. nails were created from soft steel
wire, according to the University of Vermont. By 1913, 90 percent of nails produced in the U.S. were
steel wire. Meanwhile, the screw a stronger but harder-to-insert fastener is thought to have been
invented by the Greek scholar Archimedes in the third century B.C.

THE COMPASS
Ancient mariners navigated by the stars, but that method didn't work during the day or on cloudy
nights, and so it was unsafe to voyage far from land. The Chinese invented the first compass sometime
between the 9th and 11th century; it was made of lodestone, a naturally-magnetized iron ore, the
attractive properties of which they had been studying for centuries. Soon after, the technology passed to
Europeans and Arabs through nautical contact. The compass enabled mariners to navigate safely far
from land, increasing sea trade and contributing to the Age of Discovery.

THE PEN & PAPER

Maybe people do not realize the importance of pen and paper, but how else would we pass knowledge,
science and the history of the world to the upcoming generations. The internet is there for sure, but that
does not make papers of any less importance, especially that the internet has not actually made pens and
papers disappear; they are still significant to the world.

THE PRINTING PRESS

The German Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440. Key to its development was
the hand mold, a new molding technique that enabled the rapid creation of large quantities of metal
movable type. Though others before him — including inventors in China and Korea — had developed
movable type made from metal, Gutenberg was the first to create a mechanized process that transferred
the ink (which he made from linseed oil and soot) from the movable type to paper.

With this movable type process, printing presses exponentially increased the speed with which book
copies could be made, and thus they led to the rapid and widespread dissemination of knowledge for the
first time in history. Twenty million volumes had been printed in Western Europe by 1500. Among other
things, the printing press permitted wider access to the Bible, which in turn led to alternative
interpretations, including that of Martin Luther, whose "95 Theses" a document printed by the hundred-
thousand sparked the Protestant Reformation.
THE WHEEL
You are not sure how wheels would be an invention that changed the world, right? Well, have you ever
thought how people, during the Stone Age, used to locate heavy objects from one place to another? Or
have you thought about how the pyramids of Egypt were built? Sure wheels played a great role in
creating such things; it must have been very tiring to move these things manually that someone was too
fed up to the extent that he actually had to use his brain so hard to come up with such creation. Another
way in which wheels had added to the world is that it is the main reason for innovating means of
transportation.

Before the invention of the wheel in 3500 B.C., humans were severely limited in how much stuff we
could transport over land, and how far. Apparently the wheel itself wasn't the most difficult part of
"inventing the wheel." When it came time to connect a non-moving platform to that rolling cylinder,
things got tricky, according to David Anthony, a professor of anthropology at Hartwick College. "The
stroke of brilliance was the wheel-and-axle concept," Anthony previously told Live Science. "But then
making it was also difficult." For instance, the holes at the center of the wheels and the ends of the fixed
axles had to be nearly perfectly round and smooth, he said. The size of the axle was also a critical factor,
as was its snugness inside the hole (not too tight, but not too loose, either). The hard work paid off, big
time. Wheeled carts facilitated agriculture and commerce by enabling the transportation of goods to and
from markets, as well as easing the burdens of people traveling great distances. Now, wheels are vital to
our way of life, found in everything from clocks to vehicles to turbines.

THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE

In these engines, the combustion of a fuel releases a high-temperature gas, which, as it expands, applies
a force to a piston, moving it. Thus, combustion engines convert chemical energy into mechanical work.
Decades of engineering by many scientists went in to designing the internal combustion engine, which
took its (essentially) modern form in the latter half of the 19th century. The engine ushered in the
Industrial Age, as well as enabling the invention of a huge variety of machines, including modern cars
and aircraft.

THE VEHICLE
Vehicles, like cars and trucks, are as great as planes, except that they do not fly and of course not the
same speed, but they are still of a great use on land. Cars made people’s lives easier because you will
easily move from one place to another without having to walk for long distances, except that the traffic
jam will not promise you a fast arrival, but cars are still great inventions.

THE AIRPLANE
Have you ever thought how people used to travel quite long distances, from one country to another, long
before planes existed? Well, of course they made use of animal’s strengths and versatility for their own
advantage and also used wagons, but the thing is, it took long days, and even months, to reach the
desired destination. Thanks to airplanes, these long journeys are now shorter, easier, simpler and more
fun actually.

THE ELECTRICITY
Needless to say, electricity will always remain on the top of the inventions that the world has ever
offered. Well let’s be precise, electricity was not really invented, but rather discovered because it has
existed ever since the globe was brought into being, but it just took one brilliant person to unravel the
treasure of this world, and everyone on this planet is actually grateful for such discovery, or else we
would not have been able to watch TVs, have lights in our homes, or use all the technologies available.

THE LIGHT BULB

When all you have is natural light, productivity is limited to daylight hours. Light bulbs changed the
world by allowing us to be active at night. According to historians, two dozen people were instrumental
in inventing incandescent lamps throughout the 1800s; Thomas Edison is credited as the primary
inventor because he created a completely functional lighting system, including a generator and wiring as
well as a carbon-filament bulb like the one above, in 1879.

As well as initiating the introduction of electricity in homes throughout the Western world, this
invention also had a rather unexpected consequence of changing people's sleep patterns. Instead of
going to bed at nightfall (having nothing else to do) and sleeping in segments throughout the night
separated by periods of wakefulness, we now stay up except for the 7 to 8 hours allotted for sleep, and,
ideally, we sleep all in one go.

THE REFRIGERATOR
If you are a food lover, then we believe that you are totally aware of all the inventions the world offers for
saving your food. Refrigerators can be underestimated, but it’s because you were not born in the ages
when you hunt your own food, and can hardly keep the rest of it to the following day, especially when it
is hot. This invention highly assisted in keeping your food clean and cold as well as saving your leftovers.
So if you ever have pizza at midnight and just slept before finishing it, you can keep the rest in the
refrigerator and have them at breakfast. Best invention ever!

PENICILLIN
It's one of the most famous discovery stories in history. In 1928, the Scottish scientist Alexander
Fleming noticed a bacteria-filled Petri dish in his laboratory with its lid accidentally ajar. The sample
had become contaminated with a mold, and everywhere the mold was, the bacteria was dead. That
antibiotic mold turned out to be the fungus Penicillium, and over the next two decades, chemists
purified it and developed the drug Penicillin, which fights a huge number of bacterial infections in
humans without harming the humans themselves.

Penicillin was being mass produced and advertised by 1944. This poster attached to a curbside mailbox
advised World War II servicemen to take the drug to rid themselves of venereal disease. About 1 in 10
people have an allergic reaction to the antibiotic, according to study published in 2003 in the journal
Clinical Reviews in Allergy and Immunology; even so most of those people go on to be able to tolerate
the drug, researchers said.

CONTRACEPTIVES
Not only have birth control pills, condoms and other forms of contraception sparked a sexual revolution
in the developed world by allowing men and women to have sex for leisure rather than procreation, they
have also drastically reduced the average number of offspring per woman in countries where they are
used. With fewer mouths to feed, modern families have achieved higher standards of living and can
provide better for each child. Meanwhile, on the global scale, contraceptives are helping the human
population gradually level off; our number will probably stabilize by the end of the century. Certain
contraceptives, such as condoms, also curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Natural and herbal contraception has been used for millennia. Condoms came into use in the 18th
century, while the earliest oral contraceptive "the pill" was invented in the late 1930s by a chemist
named Russell Marker. Scientists are continuing to make advancements in birth control, with some labs
even pursuing a male form of "the pill." A permanent birth-control implant called Essure was approved
by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002, though in 2016, the FDA warned the implant would need
stronger warnings to tell users about serious risks of using Essure.

THE CAMERA
The camera is actually one of the best inventions brought into this world because not everyone is lucky
enough to be born with a strong memory to remember little details that took place in their lives a long
time ago. Even if you are someone who is able to recall things, you would not mind capturing the best
moments in your life. Thanks to the camera invention, it’s possible for everyone to keep their
unsurpassed times, even if it was just a moment, forever.
THE TELEPHONE
Though several inventors did pioneering work on electronic voice transmission (many of whom later
filed intellectual property lawsuits when telephone use exploded), Alexander Graham Bell was the first
to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone in 1876.

Though several inventors did pioneering work on electronic voice transmission (many of whom later
filed intellectual property lawsuits when telephone use exploded), Alexander Graham Bell was the first
to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone in 1876. He drew his inspiration from teaching the deaf
and also visits to his hearing-impaired mom, according to PBS. He called the first telephone an
"electrical speech machine," according to PBS. The invention quickly took off, and revolutionized global
business and communication. When Bell died on Aug. 2, 1922, according to PBS, U.S. telephone service
stopped for a minute to honor him.

THE CELL PHONE

Phones, in general, were great inventions since they helped people communicate with one another
through a handle and a wire. And since the universe develops and experiences great progression, with
time, cell phones were blissfully welcomed into our world. When cell phones were first invented they
were the best, and in fact the only method used for reaching someone regardless your place. Later, cell
phones became of more uses than just calling and receiving calls; they literally became your own little
world where you can use the internet, chat with friends, read books, listen to your favorite music and
doing basically everything.

THE INTERNET
It really needs no introduction: The global system of interconnected computer networks known as the
Internet is used by billions of people worldwide. Countless people helped develop it, but the person most
often credited with its invention is the computer scientist Lawrence Roberts. In the 1960s, a team of
computer scientists working for the U.S. Defense Department's ARPA (Advanced Research Projects
Agency) built a communications network to connect the computers in the agency, called ARPANET. It
used a method of data transmission called "packet switching" which Roberts, a member of the team,
developed based on prior work of other computer scientists. ARPANET was the predecessor of the
Internet.

Few years before the internet was brought into being, it was hard to believe that there would be a
technique that will let you have an insight into the other side of the world while you are resting on your
own sofa. The fact is that all inventions are always hard to believe until they come into our world. The
internet is one of these inventions that sounded too imaginary to be true, but fortunately it became true
and the world changed forever. Needless to say, the internet has made the world a smaller place and, on
the whole, has made communication across the globe much easier. Now, nothing is simpler than either
getting in touch with someone who lives at the other side of the world or gathering information about
anything just in a blink of an eye.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA

You probably have expected to find social media on this list; it probably has to be on the very top of it as
well because we all know how social media has affected our world. No matter what platform you use,
whether Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, the best part about social media is that you get to reconnect
with old friends you have lost along the way and you also get the chance to meet new people that share
your same interests and passion. Social media has definitely made a great contribution to the world, but
on the other hand, just as everything has its pros and cons, it made people more detached from each
other, even if they seem very sociable on these applications, and more attached to their virtual worlds.
 TIMELINE OF INVENTIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

PREHISTORY

4–5 billion years ago Sun starts to produce energy.

10 million years ago. Humans make the first tools from stone, wood, antlers, and bones.
1–2 million years ago Humans discover fire.
25,000– 50,000 BCE Humans first wear clothes.
10,000 BCE Earliest boats are constructed.
8000– 9000 BCE Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture.
6000– 7000 BCE Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle East.

ANCIENT TIMES

4000 BCE Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments.
3500 BCE Humans invent the wheel and axles
3000 BCE First written languages are developed by the Sumerian people of southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq).
3000– 600BCE Bronze Age: Widespread use of copper and its important alloy bronze.
2000 BCE Water-raising and irrigation devices like the shaduf (shadoof) introduce the idea of lifting things using
counterweights.
c1700 BCE Semites of the Mediterranean develop the alphabet.
0– 1500 BCE Ancient societies invent some of the first machines for moving water and agriculture.
1000 BCE Iron Age begins: iron is widely used for making tools and weapons in many parts of the world.
600 BCE Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity.
c.150– 100 BCE Gear-driven, precision clockwork machines (such as the Antikythera mechanism) are in existence.
c.50 BCE Roman engineer Vitruvius perfects the modern, vertical water wheel.
62 CE Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, pioneers steam power.
105 CE Ts'ai Lun makes the first paper in China.
27 BCE–395 CE Romans develop the first, basic concrete called pozzolana.

MIDDLE AGES

~600 CE Windmills are invented in the Middle East.

700–900 CE Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.
800–1300 CE Thanks to inventors such as the Banū Mūsā brothers and al-Jazari, the Islamic "Golden Age" sees the development
of a wide range of technologies, including ingenious clocks and feedback mechanisms that are the ancestors of
modern automated factory machines.
1000 CE Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses to frames that fit onto people's faces.
1450 Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printing press, using rearrangeable metal letters called movable type.
1470s The first parachute is sketched on paper by an unknown inventor.

16th CENTURY

1530s Gerardus Mercator helps to revolutionize navigation with better mapmaking.

1590 A Dutch spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen makes the first compound microscope.

17th CENTURY

~1600 Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.

1600 William Gilbert publishes his great book De Magnete describing how Earth behaves like a giant magnet. It's the beginning
of the scientific study of magnetism.
1609 Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes new astronomical discoveries.
mid-17th century Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently develop microscopes.
1643 Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.
1650s Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used
to keep time).
1687 Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion.
1700s Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
18th CENTURY

1701 English farmer 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 (but stationary) steam engine.
1700s Christiaan Huygens conceives the internal combustion engine, but never actually builds one.
1737 William Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc on a large scale.
1757 John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that enables sailors to measure latitude.
1730s–1770s John Harrison develops reliable chronometers(seafaring clocks) that allow sailors to measure longitude accurately for
the first time.
1751 Axel Cronstedt isolates nickel.
1756 Axel Cronstedt notices steam when he boils a rock—and discovers zeolites.
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the world's first speech synthesizer.
1770s Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a place now called Ironbridge in England.
1780 Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer.
1783 French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air balloon.

1791 Reverend William Gregor, a British clergyman and amateur geologist, discovers a mysterious mineral that he calls
menachite. Four years later, Martin Klaproth gives it its modern name, titanium.

19th CENTURY

1800 Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as a Voltaic pile).
1801 Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated cloth-weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns help to
inspire programmable computers.
1803 Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine.
1806 Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique and uses it to identify a number of new
elements.
1807 Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp.
1814 George Stephenson builds the first practical steam locomotive.
1816 Robert Stirling invents the efficient Stirling engine.
1820s– 1830s Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.
1827 Joseph Niepce makes the first modern photograph.
1830s William Sturgeon develops the first practical electric motor.
1830s Louis Daguerre invents a practical method of taking pin-sharp photographs called Daguerreotypes.
1830s William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way of making and printing photographs using reverse images called negatives.
1830s– 1840s Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, in England, and Samuel Morse, in the United States, develop the electric
telegraph (a forerunner of the telephone).
1836 Englishman Francis Petit-Smith and Swedish-American John Ericsson independently develop propellers with blades for
ships.
1839 Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable form of rubber (vulcanized rubber) after many years of unsuccessful
experimenting.
1840s Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlines the theory of the conservation of energy.
1840s Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive fax machine based on chemical technology.
1849 James Francis invents a water turbine now used in many of the world's hydropower plants.
1850s Henry Bessemer pioneers a new method of making steel in large quantities.
1850s Louis Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving food by heating it to kill off bacteria.
1850s Italian Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanical fax machine called the pantelegraph.
1860s Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus Otto pioneer the internal combustion engine.
1860s James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves must exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism.
1860s Fire extinguishers are invented.
1861 Elisha Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake.
1867 Joseph Monier invents reinforced concrete.
1868 Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone, though the true ownership of the invention remains controversial even
today.
1870s Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the first practical method of recording and playing back sound on metal foil.
1870s Lester Pelton invents a useful new kind of water turbine known as a Pelton wheel.
1877 Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a forerunner of the record player and CD player.
1877 Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending distress flares at sea.
1880 Thomas Edison patents the modern incandescent electric lamp.
1880 Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie discover the piezoelectric effect.
1880s Thomas Edison opens the world's first power plants.
1880s Charles Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine).
1880s Charles and Julia Hall and Paul Heroult independently develop an affordable way of making aluminum.
1880s Carrie Everson invents new ways of mining silver, gold, and copper.
1881 Jacques d'Arsonval suggests heat energy could be extracted from the oceans.OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)
1883 Charles Eastman invents plastic photographic film.
1884 Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine.
1885 Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.
1886 Josephine Cochran invents the dishwasher.
1888 Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals.
1888 Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current (AC) electric induction motor and, in opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes a
staunch advocate of AC power.
1899 Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at a safe distance.
1890s French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent movie projectors and open the first movie theater.
1890s German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine, a more efficient internal combustion engine without a sparking
plug.
1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.
1895 American Ogden Bolton, Jr. invents the electric bicycle.

20th CENTURY

1901 Guglielmo Marconi sends radio-wave signals across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Canada
1901 The first electric vacuum cleaner is developed.
1903 Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build the first engine-powered airplane.
1905 Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect.
1905 Samuel J. Bens invents the chainsaw.
1906 Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner.
1906 Mikhail Tswett discovers chromatography.
1907 Leo Baekeland develops Bakelite, the first popular synthetic plastic.
1907 Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.
1906-8 Frederick Gardner Cottrell develops the electrostatic smoke precipitator (smokestack pollution scrubber).
1908 American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches the Ford Model T, the world's first truly affordable car.
1909 German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz develop the glass electrode, enabling very precise
measurements of acidity.
1912 American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic chemistry that leads to practical, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries
(though they don't appear in a practical, commercial form until the 1990s).
1912 Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter, a detector for radioactivity.
1919 Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes.
1920s John Logie Baird develops mechanical television.
1920s Philo T. Farnsworth invents modern electronic television.
1920s Robert H. Goddard develops the principle of the modern, liquid-fueled space rocket.
1920s German engineer Gustav Tauschek and American Paul Handel independently develop primitive optical character
recognition (OCR) scanning systems.
1920s Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can generate microwaves from electricity.
1921 Karel Capek and his brother coin the word "robot" in a play about artificial humans.
1921 John Larson develops the polygraph ("lie detector") machine.
1928 Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals for air conditioners and refrigerators.
1928 The electric refrigerator is invented.
1930s Peter Goldmark pioneers color television.
1930s Laszlo and Georg Biro pioneer the modern ballpoint pen.
1930s Maria Telkes creates the first solar-powered house.
1930s Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber used in wetsuits) and nylon, the first popular synthetic clothing
material.
1930s Robert Watson Watt oversees the development of radar.
1930s Arnold Beckman develops the electronic pH meter.
1931 Harold E. Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for high-speed photography.
1932 Arne Olander discovers the shape memory effect in a gold-cadmium alloy.
1936 W.B. Elwood invents the magnetic reed switch.
1938 Chester Carlson invents the principle of photocopying (xerography).
1938 Roy Plunkett accidentally invents a nonstick plastic coating called Teflon.
1939 Igor Sikorsky builds the first truly practical helicopter.
1940s English physicists John Randall and Harry Boot develop a compact magnetron for use in airplane radar navigation systems.
1942 Enrico Fermi builds the first nuclear chain reactor at the University of Chicago.
1945 US government scientist Vannevar Bush proposes a kind of desk-sized memory store called Memex, which has some of the
features later incorporated into electronic books and the World Wide Web (WWW).
1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invent the transistor, which allows electronic equipment to made
much smaller and leads to the modern computer revolution.
1949 Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—striped patterns that are initially developed for marking products
in grocery stores.
1950s Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the maser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word "laser" and
builds the first optical laser in 1958.
1950s Stanford Ovshinksy develops various technologies that make renewable energy more practical, including practical solar
cells and improved rechargeable batteries.
1950s European bus companies experiment with using flywheels as regenerative brakes
1950s Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook with microwaves, inadvertently inventing the microwave oven.
1954 Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
1956 First commercial nuclear power is produced at Calder Hall, Cumbria, England.
1957 Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch the Sputnik space satellite.
1957 Lawrence Curtiss, Basil Hirschowitz, and Wilbur Peters build the first fiber-optic gastroscope.
1958 Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, working independently, develop the integrated circuit.
1959 IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC-1), the first computer-aided design (CAD)
system.
1960s Joseph-Armand Bombardier perfects his Ski-Doo® snowmobile.
1960 Theodore Maiman invents the ruby laser.
1962 William Armistead and S. Donald Stookey of Corning Glass Works invent light-sensitive (photochromic) glass.
1963 Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, one of the first computer-aided design programs.
1964 IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airline ticket reservation system called SABRE.
1965 Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for treating cardiac arrest patients.
1966 Stephanie Kwolek patents a super-strong plastic called Kevlar.
1967 Japanese company Noritake invents the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD).
1968 Alfred Y. Cho and John R. Arthur, Jr invent a precise way of making single crystals called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
1969 World's first solar power station opened in France.
1969 Long before computers become portable, Alan Kay imagines building an electronic book, which he nicknames the
Dynabook.
1969 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invent the CCD (charge-coupled device): the light-sensitive chip used in digital
cameras, webcams, and other modern optical equipment.
1969 Astronauts walk on the Moon.
1960s Douglas Engelbart develops the computer mouse.
1960s James Russell invents compact discs.
1971 Electronic ink is pioneered by Nick Sheridon at Xerox PARC.
1971 Ted Hoff builds the first single-chip computer or microprocessor.
1973 Martin Cooper develops the first handheld cellphone (mobile phone).
1973 Robert Metcalfe figures out a simple way of linking computers together that he names Ethernet. Most computers hooked up
to the Internet now use it.
1974 First grocery-store purchase of an item coded with a barcode.
1975 Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman invent public-key cryptography.
1975 Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system.
1976 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs launch the Apple I: one of the world's first personal home computers
1970s– 1980s James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuum cleaner.
1970s– 1980s Scientists including Charles Bennett, Paul Benioff, Richard Feynman, and David Deutsch sketch out how quantum
computers might work.
1980s Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita develops the Sony Walkman, the first truly portable player for recorded music.
1981 Stung by Apple's success, IBM releases its own affordable personal computer (PC).
1981 The Space Shuttle makes its maiden voyage.
1981 Patricia Bath develops laser eye surgery for removing cataracts.
1981– 1982 Alexei Ekimov and Louis E. Brus (independently) discover quantum dots.
1983 Compact discs (CDs) are launched as a new way to store music by the Sony and Philips corporations.
1987 Larry Hornbeck, working at Texas Instruments, develops DLP® projection—now used in many projection TV systems.
1989 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
1990 German watchmaking company Junghans introduces the MEGA 1, believed to be the world's first radio-controlled
wristwatch.
1991 Linus Torvalds creates the first version of Linux, a collaboratively written computer operating system.
1994 American-born mathematician John Daugman perfects the mathematics that make iris scanning systems possible.
1994 Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invent VoIP for sending telephone calls over the Internet.
1995 Broadcast.com becomes one of the world's first online radio stations.
1995 Pierre Omidyar launches the eBay auction website.
1996 WRAL-HD broadcasts the first high-definition television (HDTV) signal in the United States.
1997 Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi a worldwide standard for wireless Internet.

21st CENTURY

2001 Apple revolutionizes music listening by unveiling its iPod MP3 music player.
2001 Richard Palmer develops energy-absorbing D3O plastic.
2001 The Wikipedia online encyclopedia is founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
2001 Bram Cohen develops BitTorrent file-sharing.
2001 Scott White, Nancy Sottos, and colleagues develop self-healing materials.
2002 iRobot Corporation releases the first version of its Roomba® vacuum cleaning robot.
2004 Electronic voting plays a major part in a controversial US Presidential Election.
2004 Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discover graphene.
2005 A pioneering low-cost laptop for developing countries called OLPC is announced by MIT computing pioneer Nicholas
Negroponte.
2007 Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book) reader.
2007 Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the iPhone.
2010 Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad.
2010 3D TV starts to become more widely available.
2013 Elon Musk announces "hyperloop"—a giant, pneumatic tube transport system.
2015 Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a 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.
2019 Google claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy"—with a quantum computer that calculates faster than
a conventional one.
2020 DeepMind, Google/Alphabet's artificial intelligence computer program, cracks the classic problem of protein folding.
2022 NASA unveils Space Launch System (SLS), a new moon rocket 15 percent more powerful than the Saturn V rocket from
the Apollo era.
2023 Microsoft announces a new version of its Bing search engine incorporating ChatGPT, an "artificially intelligent" chatbot,
for smarter answers to search queries.
2024 Widespread adoption of AI personal assistants, breakthroughs in brain-computer interfaces, emergence and development of
consumer and sustainable technologies