Saturday, September 10, 2005

Technologies That Changed the World

Below is a brief list of technologies that I believe changed the world. This list is in no way complete. Although, it makes me think about things that can start with simple ideas in design, and that can be evolved into other things.

Take for instance the Wright brothers, without their first flight we would not have air travel like we have it today. Then there is James Watt and his steam engine, with out that invention modern boats, trains, and other inventions that we take for granted would not exist.
  • 868 The first printed book is published in China, known as the Diamond Sutra.
  • 1765 James Watt (England) invents the steam engine.
  • 1783 The First hot-air balloon is developed in France.
  • 1804 The steam power locomotive is created.
  • 1876 The first Telephone was invented.
  • 1888 Nikola Tesla designed the first practical system of generating and transmitting alternating current (AC) for electric power.
  • 1894 Guglielmo Marconi develops a prototype of the wireless telegraph in Italy.
  • 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright from Ohio at the site, near Kitty Hawk, N.C., realized true flight for 12 seconds.
  • 1908 Car maker Henry Ford introduces his "Model-T" automobile for $850.00.
  • 1925 John Baird in United Kingdom transmits the first moving television image.
  • 1943 ENIAC was world's first electronic digital computer was developed by Army Ordnance to compute World War II ballistic firing tables.
  • 1945 The U.S. Army conducted its first atomic bomb test at the Trinity site in the New Mexico desert.
  • 1948 The first public demonstration of the transistor by Bell Telephone Laboratories.
  • 1969 ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking (Beginning of the Internet).
  • 1970 Intel introduces the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004.
  • 1971 Ray Tomlinson invents the first email program to send messages across a distributed network.
  • 1978 VisiCalc for the Apple II, becomes the first compelling business program for a personal computer.
  • 1981 IBM enters the personal computer race, they releases their IBM PC.
  • 1990 Tim Berners-Lee developed the first web server
  • 1993 The Mosaic browsers takes off.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

IHMO, language (I use that term losely in this comment) on the Internet is far from revolutionary. If anything its taking human language several steps backwards. Kids in schools are turning in paper written in phonetic shorthand that is practiced in chat room and communicating with mobile devices. Here is an article to get you started. http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/oconnor.htm