Timelines tagged “inventions”
13 timelines
- Batteries
Batteries from Alessandro Volta's pile in 1800 to sodium-ion vehicle production in 2023, following rechargeable chemistry, industrial manufacturing, portable electronics, electric vehicles, and electricity storage.
- Bicycle
The bicycle, from Karl Drais's 1817 running machine through pedal velocipedes, high-wheelers and the chain-driven safety bicycle to derailleurs, mountain bikes, carbon frames, bike sharing and e-bikes outselling conventional bicycles in Germany in 2023.
- Book
The book as a physical object and a commodity, from Mesopotamian clay tablets around 3200 BCE through papyrus rolls, the codex, manuscripts and printed books in Asia, the Americas and Europe to paperbacks, e-books and audiobooks in the 2020s.
- Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Engelbart’s life and work, from his birth in 1925 to his death in 2013: augmenting human intellect, the mouse, collaborative computing, the 1968 demonstration, and the Bootstrap Institute.
- Geothermal Energy
Geothermal energy from industrial steam use in 1827 to new commercial drilling projects in 2026, covering district heating, power plants worldwide, reservoir engineering, and the limits encountered underground.
- Industrial Revolution
Industrialization from Britain's canals, spinning machines and steam engines in the 1760s through steam transport, factory reform and expanding international production to Japan's steel industry in 1901.
- Notebook
The paper notebook and its forerunners, from a Bronze Age hinged writing board of about 1305 BCE through Roman wax tablets, commonplace books and scientists' notebooks to legal pads, spiral binding, the Moleskine revival and e-paper notebooks in the 2020s.
- Pen
Ink-writing instruments from Egyptian rush brushes and Greek reed pens through quills, steel nibs and the fountain pen to the ballpoint, felt-tip, rollerball and gel pens and digital styluses, over about 4,600 years to the 2020s.
- Pencil
The graphite pencil, from the Borrowdale graphite deposit worked in 16th-century England and Conté's 1795 clay-graphite process through erasers, mechanical pencils and factory mass production to extruded and self-rotating pencils in the 21st century.
- Refrigeration
Cooling and cold storage from ancient Persian ice houses to the Kigali Amendment in 2016, including mechanical refrigeration, refrigerated trade, domestic appliances and vaccine distribution.
- Toothbrush
The toothbrush and its companions, from ancient tooth powders, chew sticks and the miswak through the Chinese bristle brush and William Addis to nylon bristles, fluoride toothpaste, electric and connected brushes, and fluoride toothpaste's listing as a WHO essential medicine in 2021.
- Transistor
The transistor, from Julius Lilienfeld's 1925 field-effect patent and the 1947 point-contact device at Bell Labs through junction transistors, the MOSFET and integrated circuits to FinFETs and gate-all-around nanosheet transistors in volume production in 2025.
- Watch
Portable timepieces, from spring-driven clock-watches in early 16th-century Nuremberg through the balance spring, the lever escapement and American mass production to the wristwatch, the quartz crisis, Swatch and the Apple Watch.