Timeline of historic technology evolution and inventions

According with the famous Britannica encyclopedia, the history of technology begins even before the beginning of our own species, 3.3 million years ago. Sharp flakes of stone used as knives and larger unshaped stones used as hammers and anvils have been uncovered at Lake Turkana in Kenya. Humans make the first tools from stone (such as stone blades), wood, antlers, and bones (10 million years ago).

   When humanity first used fire is still not definitively known, but, like the first tools, it was probably invented by an ancestor of Homo sapiens. Evidence of burnt material can be found in caves used by Homo erectus beginning about 1 million (and maybe even 1.5 million) years ago.

   During the Neolithic Period several key technologies arose together, when humans moved from getting their food by foraging to getting it through agriculture. Clay was used for pottery and bricks. Clothing began to be made of woven fabrics (30000 BCE). The wheel was also likely invented at this time.

Neolithic

# 8000 BCE: Proto-city, large permanent settlements (Jericho and Anatolia)

# 7000 BCE: Alcohol fermentation (Ancient China)

# 6000 BCE: Irrigation systems (Mesopotamia and Nile River, Ancient Egypt)

# 6000 BCE: Bricks (Middle East, South Asia)

# 4500 BCE: Rowing oars (Ancient China)

# 4000 BCE: Sailing ships (Nile River, Ancient Egypt)

# 3630 BCE: Silk garments (Ancient China)

# 3500 BCE: Wheel (Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt)

# 3000 BCE: Written languages (Sumerian cuneiform, Southern Mesopotamia)

# 3000 BCE: Papyrus (Ancient Egypt)

# 3000 BCE: Star chart (Ancient Korea)

# 2000 BCE: Bronze Age

# 2000 BCE: Musical notation (Southern Mesopotamia)

# 2000 BCE: Chariot (Ancient Russia)

# 2000 BCE: Glass (Ancient Egypt)

# 1700 BCE: Alphabet (Phoenicia, Mediterranean)

# 1500 BCE: Coins (Phoenicia, Lydia)

# 1500 BCE: Scissors (Ancient Egypt)

# 1200 BCE: Iron Age

# 600 BCE: Static electricity (Thales of Miletus, Ancient Greece)

# 600 BCE: Wagonway called Diolkos (Isthmus of Corinth, Ancient Greece)

# 515 BCE: Crane (Ancient Greece)

# 500 BCE: Crossbow (Ancient Greece and Ancient China)

# 480 BCE: Spiral stairs (Sicily)

# 421 BCE: Catapult (Ancient Greece)

# 350 BCE: Hydraulic semaphore system (Aeneas Tacticus, Ancient Greece)

# 250 BCE: Lighthouse (Ancient Egypt)

# 250 BCE: Water screw (Archimedes, Ancient Greece)

# 250 BCE: Cam, water-driven automata (Hellenistic period)

# 250 BCE: Water wheel and watermill (Hellenistic kingdoms, Ancient Greece)

# 250 BCE: Gimbal (Philo of Byzantium)

# 200 BCE: Paper (Han Dynasty China)

# 150 BCE: Astrolabe (Hellenistic world)

# 100 BCE: Gear-driven clockwork machines, Antikythera mechanism (Ancient Greece)

# 100 BCE: Glass blowing (Lebanese coast)

# 100 BCE: Segmental arch bridge (Italy)

1st Millennium CE

# 100: Aeolipile (Hero of Alexandria)

# 100: Vending machines (Hero of Alexandria)

# 100: Automatic doors (Hero of Alexandria)

# 132: Seismometer (Han Dynasty China)

# 400: Fishing reel (Ancient China)

# 500: Horse collar (Northern Dynasties China)

# 577: Sulfur matches (China)

# 589: Toilet paper (Sui Dynasty China)

# 650: Windmill (Persia)

# 672: Greek fire (Constantinople, Byzantine Empire)

# 700: Banknotes (Tang Dynasty China)

# 700: Porcelain (Tang Dynasty China)

# 850: Gunpowder (Tang Dynasty China)

# 900: University (Morocco)

1001-1700

# 1119: Compass (Song Dynasty China)

# 1250: Mechanical clocks (clocks and horologes in churches in Europe)

# 1286: Eyeglasses (Italy)

# 1400: Coil spring (Europe)

# 1400: Rifle (Europe)

# 1439: Gutenberg Printing Press (Johannes Gutenberg, Germany)

# 1496: Double-entry bookkeeping system (Luca Pacioli, Italy)

# 1577: Newspaper (Korea, and world first title page in 1609 at Germany)

# 1589: Mechanical knitting machine (Europe)

# 1596: First modern toilets (Europe)

# 1600: Thermometer (Galileo Galilei, Italy)

# 1608: Telescope (Hans Lippershey, Netherlands)

# 1620: Compound microscopes (Galileo Galilei, Italy)

# 1630: Slide rule (William Oughtred, England)

# 1642: Mechanical calculator (Blaise Pascal, France)

# 1643: Barometer (Evangelista Torricelli, Italy)

# 1680: Piston engine (Christian Huygens, Netherlands)

# 1700: Mechanization of agriculture (horse-drawn seed drill)

1701-1800

# 1703: Binary number system (Wilhelm Leibniz, Germany)

# 1709: Piano (Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italy)

# 1712: Steam engine (Thomas Newcomen, England)

# 1745: Leyden jar, early form of capacitor (Musschenbroek and Kleist, Netherlands and Germany)

# 1755: First artificial refrigeration machine (William Cullen, Scotland)

# 1765: Steam engine utilization (James Watt, Scotland)

# 1770: Weighing scale (Richard Salter, England)

# 1776: Air compressor (John Wilkinson, England)

# 1783: First steamboat (Claude de Jouffroy, France)

# 1783: First manned hot air balloon (Joseph Ralf, Jacques Etienne Montgolfier, France)

# 1785: Electrolysis technique (Martins van Marum, Netherlands)

# 1790: Sewing machine (Thomas Saint, France)

# 1799: Paper machine (Louis Nicolas Robert, France)

1801-1900

# 1800: Battery, Voltaic pile (Alessandro Volta, Italy)

# 1800: Morphine, general anesthetic, general medical developments

# 1800: Railways, based on animal-hauled railways of Ancient Greek Corinth (Britain)

# 1810: Canning process for food (Nicolas Appert, France)

# 1822: Photography, as heliography (Nicephore Niepce, France)

# 1822: First programmable mechanical computer (Charles Babbage, England)

# 1823: First lighter (Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner, Germany)

# 1825: Electromagnet (William Sturgeon, England)

# 1826: Match (John Walker, England)

# 1828: Reaping machine (Patrick Bell, Scotland)

# 1831: Electromagnetic induction (Michael Faraday, England)

# 1835: Printing photographs using reverse images called negatives

# 1837: Morse code (Samuel Morse, USA)

# 1839: Rubber (Charles Goodyear, USA)

# 1842: Fuel cell (William Robert Grove, Wales)

# 1845: Modern cement (Isaac Charles Johnson, England)

# 1855: Color photography (James Clerk Maxwell, Scotland)

# 1859: First rechargeable battery (Gaston Plante, France)

# 1864: Pasteurization process (Louis Pasteur, France)

# 1867: Dynamite (Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Sweden)

# 1867: Modern typewriter, QWERTY keyboard (Christopher Latham Sholes, USA)

# 1872: Stainless steel (England)

# 1876: Internal-combustion engine (Nikolaus Otto, Germany)

# 1876: Telephone (Alexander Graham Bell, first call on March 10, 1876, USA)

# 1877: Phonograph (Thomas Edison, USA)

# 1879: Electric light (Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison, England, USA)

# 1884: Steam turbine (Charles Parsons, England)

# 1884: Alternative current (AC) electric induction motor (Hungary)

# 1886: Automobile, petrol or gasoline powered cars (Karl Benz, Germany)

# 1887: Wind turbine (James Blyth, Scotland)

# 1888: Ballpoint pen (John Loud, USA)

# 1888: Radio waves (Heinrich Hertz, Germany)

# 1888: Air-filled tyres (John Boyd Dunlop, Scotland)

# 1890: First aircraft, airplane (Clement Ader, France)

# 1893: Diesel engine (Rudolf Diesel, Germany)

# 1895: Radio-wave signals and wireless communication (Guglielmo Marconi, Italy)

# 1895: X-ray (Wilhelm Rontgen, Germany)

# 1898: Polyethylene and plastic (Hans Pechmann, Germany)

1901-1950

# 1901: Electric vacuum cleaner (Hubert Booth, England)

# 1902: Electrical air-condition (Willis Carrier, USA)

# 1903: Gas turbine (Egidius Elling, Norway)

# 1907: Electric clothes washer (Alva Fisher, USA)

# 1908: Cellophane (Jacques Brandenberger, Switzerland)

# 1909: Television (George Rignoux, France)

# 1914: Optical character recognition (OCR) scanning systems (Emanuel Goldberg, Germany)

# 1926: Antenna (Shintaro Uda, Japan)

# 1927: Quartz clock (Bell Telephone Laboratories, Europe, USA)

# 1928: Penicillin (Alexander Fleming, Scotland)

# 1928: Chemicals for refrigerators and air conditioners, Freon (Thomas Midgley, USA)

# 1931: Electron microscope (Ernst Ruska, Germany)

# 1933: FM radio (Edwin Armstrong, USA)

# 1935: Nylon (Wallace Carothers, USA)

# 1938: Nuclear fission (Otto Hahn, Nazi Germany)

# 1941: Polyester (John Whinfield, James Dickson, England)

# 1945: Atomic bombs (USA, UK, Canada)

# 1947 Transistor (John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, USA)

# 1948: Atomic clock (USA)

# 1948: Barcodes (Bernard Silver, USA)

1951-2000

# 1953: Video tape recorder (Japan)

# 1956: Hard disk drive (IBM, USA)

# 1956: Artificial intelligence (USA)

# 1957: First computer with keyboard, IBM 610 (IBM, USA)

# 1957: Spaceflight, October 4, first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 (Soviet Union)

# 1960: Laser (Theodore Maiman, USA)

# 1966: ATM (USA, Japan, UK, Sweden)

# 1967: Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) (Robert Dennard, USA)

# 1969: Charge-coupled devices (CCD) (Willard Boyle, George Smith, USA)

# 1969: Astronauts walk on the Moon

# 1970: Pocket calculator (Japan)

# 1971: Email (Ray Tomlinson, USA)

# 1971: First commercial microprocessor, Intel 4004 (USA)

# 1972: First video game console, Magnavox Odyssey (USA)

# 1973: Handheld cellphone (Martin Cooper, USA)

# 1973: Capacitive touchscreen (CERN, Europe)

# 1975: Personal computer (Altair) (USA)

# 1974: Internet (Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, USA)

# 1976: Apple I (Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, USA)

# 1979: Sony Walkman (Sony, Japan)

# 1980: Flash memory (Fujio Masuoka, Japan)

# 1982: Compact discs (CD-ROM) (Sony, Japan)

# 1984: Cell phone (Motorola, USA)

# 1985: Windows platform (Microsoft, USA)

# 1987: Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, CRISPR, for editing genes (Yoshizumi Ishino, Japan)

# 1990: World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee, England)

# 1990: Hubble Space Telescope (USA)

# 1992: Text messaging (Germany)

# 1995: DVD (Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic)

# 1995: eBay (USA)

# 1996: USB flash drives and USB ports (USA)

# 1998: Wi-Fi standard for wireless internet access (USA)

# 1998: Google (USA)

# 2000: Wireless mouse (USA)

# 2000: Bluetooth (USA)

2001 - Present

# 2001: iPod (USA)

# 2001: Wikipedia (USA)

# 2004: Facebook (USA)

# 2005: YouTube (USA)

# 2006: Twitter (USA)

# 2009: Bitcoin (Japan)