Invention Or

Date Discovery Inventor Or Discoverer Nationality

1250 Magnifying glass Roger Bacon English
1450 Printing press Johann Gutenberg German
1504 Pocket watch Peter Henlein German
Compound
1590 microscope Zacharias Janssen Dutch
1593 Water thermometer Galileo Italian
1608 Telescope Hans Lippershey Dutch
1625 Blood transfusion Jean-Baptiste Denys French
1629 Steam turbine Giovanni Branca Italian
1642 Adding machine Blaise Pascal French
1643 Barometer Evangelista Torricelli Italian
1650 Air pump Otto von Guericke German
1656 Pendulum clock Christiaan Huygens Dutch
1661 Methanol Robert Boyle Irish
1668 Reflecting telescope Isaac Newton English
1671 Calculating machine Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz German
1698 Steam pump Thomas Savery English
1701 Seed drill Jethro Tull English
1710 Piano Bartolomeo Cristofori Italian
1712 Steam engine Thomas Newcomen British
1714 Mercury thermometer Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit German
1717 Diving bell Edmund Halley English
1725 Stereotyping William Ged Scottish
Leyden jar
1745 (condenser) E.G. von Kleist German
1752 Lightning rod Benjamin Franklin American
1758 Achromatic lens John Dollond British
1759 Marine chronometer John Harrison British
1764 Spinning jenny James Hargreaves British
1769 Spinning frame R. Arkwright English
Steam engine (with
1769 separate condenser) James Watt British
1769 Automobile Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot French
1775 Submarine David Bushnell American
1780 Steel pen Samuel Harrison English
1780 Bifocal lens Benjamin Franklin American
Joseph Michel Montgolfier and
1783 Balloon Jacques Étienne Montgolfier French
1784 Threshing machine Andrew Meikle British
1785 Power loom Edmund Cartwright British
1786 Steamboat John Fitch American
1788 Flyball governor James Watt British
1791 Gas turbine John Barber British
1792 Illuminating gas William Murdock Scottish
1793 Cotton gin Eli Whitney American
1795 Hydraulic press Joseph Bramah English
1796 Lithography Aloys Senefelder German
1796 Smallpox vaccination Edward Jenner British
 Fourdrinier machine
1799 (papermaking) Louis Robert French
1800 Jacquard loom Joseph Marie Jacquard French
1800 Electric battery Count Alessandro Volta Italian
1801 Pattern loom Joseph Marie Jacquard French
1804 Screw propeller John Stevens American
1804 Solid-fuel rocket William Congreve British
1804 Steam locomotive Richard Trevithick British
1805 Electroplating Luigi Gasparo Brugnatelli Italian
Food preservation (by
sterilization and
1810 exclusion of air) François Appert French
1810 Printing press Frederick Koenig German
1814 Railroad locomotive George Stephenson British
1815 Safety lamp Sir Humphry Davy British
1816 Bicycle (no pedals) Karl D. Sauerbronn German
1819 Stethoscope René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec French
1820 Hygrometer J.F. Daniell English
1820 Galvanometer Johann Salomo Cristoph Schweigger German
1821 Electric motor Michael Faraday British
1823 Silicon Jöns Jakob Berzelius Swedish
1823 Electromagnet William Sturgeon British
1824 Portland cement Joseph Aspdin British
1827 Friction match John Walker British
1829 Typewriter1 W.A. Burt American
1829 Braille printing Louis Braille French
1830 Platform scales Thaddeus Fairbanks American
1830 Sewing machine Barthélemy Thimonnier French
1831 Phosphorus match Charles Sauria French
1831 Reaper Cyrus Hall McCormick American
1831 Dynamo Michael Faraday British
1834 Electric streetcar Thomas Davenport American
1835 Pistol (revolver) Samuel Colt American
Samuel Finley Breese Morse American
1837 Telegraph Sir Charles Wheatstone British
1838 Morse code Samuel Finley Breese Morse American
Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre and French
Joseph Nicéphore Niepce William
1839 Photography Henry Fox Talbot British
1839 Vulcanized rubber Charles Goodyear American
1839 Steam hammer James Nasmyth Scottish
1839 Bicycle (with pedals) Kirkpatrick MacMillan British
1845 Pneumatic tire Robert William Thompson American
1846 Rotary printing press Richard March Hoe American
1846 Nitroglycerin Ascanio Sobrero Italian
1846 Guncotton Christian Friedrich Schönbein German
1846 Ether Crawford Williamson Long American
1849 Reinforced concrete F.J. Monier French
1849 Safety pin Walter Hunt American
1849 Water turbine James Bicheno Francis American
1850 Mercerized cotton John Mercer British
1851 Breech-loading rifle Edward Maynard American
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von
1851 Opthalmoscope Helmholtz German
1852 Nonrigid airship Henri Giffard French
1852 Elevator (with brake) Elisha Graves Otis American
1852 Gyroscope Jean Bernard Léon Foucault French
1855 Hypodermic syringe Alexander Wood Scottish
1855 Safety matches J.E. Lundstrom Swedish
Bessemer converter
1856 (steel) Sir Henry Bessemer British
1858 Harvester Charles and William Marsh American
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff and
1859 Spectroscope Robert Wilhelm Bunsen German
1860 Gas engine Jean-Joseph-Étienne Lenoir French
Web-fed newspaper
1861 printing press Richard March Hoe American
1861 Electric furnace Wilhelm Siemens British
1861 Machine gun Richard Jordan Gatling American
1861 Kinematoscope Coleman Sellers American
1865 Antiseptic surgery Joseph Lister English
Paper (from wood
1866 pulp, sulfite process) Benjamin Chew Tilghman American
1866 Dynamite Alfred Bernhard Nobel Swedish
1868 Dry cell Georges Leclanché French
Carlos Glidden and
1868 Typewriter Christopher Latham Sholes American
1868 Air brake George Westinghouse American
1870 Celluloid John Wesley Hyatt and Isaiah Hyatt American
Continuous current
1871 dynamo Zénobe-Théophile Gramme Belgian
1874 Quadruplex telegraph Thomas Alva Edison American
Alexander Graham Bell American
1876 Telephone 2
Antonio Meucci Italian
Internal-combustion
1877 engine (four-cycle) Nikolaus August Otto German
Talking machine
1877 (phonograph) Thomas Alva Edison American
1877 Microphone Emile Berliner American
1877 Electric welding Elihu Thomson American
1877 Refrigerator car G.F. Swift American
1878 Cream separator Carl Gustav de Laval Swedish
1878 Cathode ray tube Sir William Crookes British
1879 Cash register James J. Ritty American
Incandescent filament Thomas Alva Edison American
1879 lamp Sir Joseph Wilson Swan British
Automobile engine
1879 (two-cycle) Karl Benz German
1879 Arc lamp Charles Francis Bush American
1880 Linotype Ottmar Mergenthaler American
1884 Steam turbine C.A. Parsons English
Comte Hilaire Bernigaud de
1884 Rayon (nitrocellulose) Chardonnet French
Multiple-wheel steam
1884 turbine Sir Charles Algernon Parsons British
Nipkow disk
(mechanical television
1884 scanning device) Paul Gottlieb Nipkow German
1884 Fountain pen Lewis Edson Waterman American
Graphophone Chichester A. Bell and
1885 (dictating machine) Charles Sumner Tainter American
1885 AC transformer William Stanley American
1887 Air-inflated rubber tire J.B. Dunlop Scottish
Gramophone (disk
1887 records) Emile Berliner American
1887 Gas mantle Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach Austrian
1887 Mimeograph Albert Blake Dick American
1887 Monotype Tolbert Lanston American
Adding machine
1888 (recording) William Seward Burroughs American
1888 Kodak camera George Eastman American
1889 Steam turbine C.G. de Laval Swedish
Rayon
1890 (cuprammonium) Louis Henri Despeissis French
1891 Glider Otto Lilienthal German
Motion picture camera Thomas Alva Edison American
1891 (kinetograph) William K. L. Dickson British
Motion picture viewer Thomas Alva Edison American
1891 (kinetoscope) William K. L. Dickson British
1891 Synthetic rubber Sir William Augustus Tilden British
1892 AC motor Nikola Tesla American
1892 Three-color camera Frederick Eugene Ives American
1892 Rayon (viscose) Charles Frederick Cross British
Vacuum bottle (Dewar
1892 flask) Sir James Dewar British
1893 Photoelectric cell Julius Elster Hans F. Geitel German
1893 Diesel engine Rudolf Diesel German
Charles Edgar Duryea and
1893 Gasoline automobile J. Frank Duryea American
Louis Jean Lumière and Auguste
Marie Lumière French
Motion picture Charles Francis Jenkins
1894 projection American
1895 X-ray Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen German
1895 Rayon (acetate) Charles Frederick Cross British
1895 Wireless telegraph Marchese Guglielmo Marconi Italian
1896 Experimental airplane Samuel Pierpont Langley American
Sensitized
1898 photographic paper Leo Hendrik Baekeland American
1900 Rigid dirigible airship Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin German
Valdemar Poulsen Danish
1902 Radiotelephone
1902 Radiotelephone Reginald Aubrey Fessenden American
1903 Airplane Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright American
1903 Windshield wipers Mary Anderson American
1903 Electrocardiograph Willem Einthoven Dutch
Diode rectifier tube
1905 (radio) Sir John Ambrose Fleming British
1906 Gyrocompass Hermann Anschütz-Kämpfe German
1907 Bakelite Leo Hendrik Baekeland American
Triode amplifier tube
1907 (radio) Lee De Forest American
1908 Cellophane Jacques Edwin Brandenberger Swiss
Two-color motion
1908 picture camera C. Albert Smith British
1909 Salvarsan Paul Ehrlich German
1910 Hydrogenation of coal Friedrich Bergius German
Gyroscopic compass
1910 and stabilizer Elmer Ambrose Sperry American
1911 Air conditioning W.H. Carrier American
1911 Vitamins Casimir Funk Polish
1911 Cellophane Jacques Edwin Brandenberger Swiss
1911 Neon lamp Georges Claude French
1912 Mercury-vapor lamp Peter Cooper Hewitt American
1913 Ramjet engine René Lorin French

1913 Multigrid electron tube Irving Langmuir American

1913 Cracked gasoline William Meriam Burton American
Heterodyne radio
1913 receiver Reginald Aubrey Fessenden American

1915 Automobile self-starter Charles Franklin Kettering American

Browning gun
1916 (automatic rifle) John Moses Browning American
Gas-filled
1916 incandescent lamp Irving Langmuir American
1916 X-ray tube William David Coolidge American
Sir Francis William Aston British
1919 Mass spectrograph Arthur Jeffrey Dempster American

1922-26 Sound motion pictures T.W. Case American

1922 Insulin Sir Frederick Grant Banting Canadian
1923 Autogiro Juan de la Cierva Spanish

1923 Television iconoscope Vladimir Kosma Zworykin American

1924 Quick-frozen food Clarence Birdseye American
Television image
1925 dissector tube Philo Taylor Farnsworth American
1926 Aerosol can Erik Rotheim Norwegian
1926 Liquid-fuel rocket Robert Hutchings Goddard American
1928 Penicillin Sir Alexander Fleming British
1930 Bathysphere (Charles) William Beebe American
 Freon (low-boiling
1930 fluorine compounds) Thomas Midgley and coworkers American
Modern gas-turbine
1930 engine Sir Frank Whittle British
Neoprene (synthetic Father Julius Arthur Nieuwland and
1930 rubber) Wallace Hume Carothers American
1931 Cyclotron Ernest Orlando Lawrence American
Differential analyzer
1931 (analogue computer) Vannevar Bush American
Phase contrast
1932 microscope Frits Zernike Dutch
Van de Graaff
1932 generator Robert Jemison Van de Graaff American
Frequency modulation
1933 (FM) Edwin Howard Armstrong American
Buna (synthetic
1935 rubber) German scientists German
1935 Radiolocator (radar) Sir Robert Watson-Watt British
Edward Calvin Kendall American
1935 Cortisone Tadeus Reichstein Swiss
1935 Electron microscope German scientists German
1935 Sulfanllamide Gerhard Domagk German
1935 Nylon Wallace Hume Carothers American
1936 Twin-rotor helicopter3 Heinrich Focke German
1937 Snowmobile Armand Bombardier Canadian
1938 Ballpoint pen Georg and Ladislao Biro Hungarian
1939 DDT Paul Müller Swiss
1939 Helicopter4 Igor Sikorsky American
1940 Betatron Donald William Kerst American
Turbojet aircraft
1941 engine Sir Frank Whittle British
1942 Guided missile Wernher von Braun German
1942 Nuclear reactor Enrico Fermi American
1942 Xerography Chester Carlson American
V-2 (rocket-propelled
1944 bomb) German scientists German
1945 Atomic bomb U.S. government scientists American
1945 Streptomycin Selman A. Waksman American
Electronic digital John Presper Eckert, Jr., and
1946 computer John W. Mauchly American
1947 Holography Dennis Gabon English
1947 Chlormycetin Mildred Rebstock American
1947 Polaroid Land camera Edwin Herbert Land American
1947 Bathyscaphe Auguste Piccard Swiss
1947 Microwave oven Percy L. Spencer American
1948 Scintillation counter Hartmut Kallmann German
Benjamin Minge Duggar and
1948 Aureomycin Chandra Bose Subba Row American
John Bardeen, Walter Houser
1948 Transistor Brattain, and William Shockley American
1949 Ramjet airplane René Leduc French
1950 Color television Peter Carl Goldmark American
1952 Hydrogen bomb U.S. government scientists American
Bubble chamber
(nuclear particle
1952 detector) Donald Arthur Glaser American
1953 Maser Charles Townes American
1954 Solar battery Bell Telephone Laboratory scientists American
1954 Polio vaccine Jonas Salk American
1955 Synthetic diamonds General Electric scientists American
1955 Carbon dating W.F. Libby American
1955 Optical fibers Narinder S. Kapany Indian
1956 Hovercraft Christopher Cockerell English
First prototype rotary
1956 engine Felix Wankel German
Charles Ginsberg
1956 Videotape Ray Dolby American
Sodium-cooled atomic
1957 reactor U.S. government scientists American
1957 Artificial earth satellite USSR government scientists Soviet
Communications
1958 satellite U.S. government scientists American
Jack Kilby
1959 Integrated circuit Robert Noyce American
Charles Hard Townes, Arthur L.
1960 Laser Schawlow, and Gordon Gould American
Chlorophyll
1960 synthesized Robert Burns Woodward American
Gregory Pincus, John Rock, and
1960 Birth-control pill Min-chueh Chang American
Light-emitting diode
1962 (LED) Nick Holonyak, Jr. American
1964 Liquid-crystal display George Heilmeier American
1965 Kevlar technology Stephanie Kwolek American
Artificial heart (left
1966 ventricle) Michael Ellis DeBakey American
1966 Tunable dye laser Mary Spaeth American
Human heart
1967 transplant Christiaan Neethling Barnard South Africa
First complete
1970 synthesis of a gene Har Gobind Khorana American
1971 Microprocessor Ted Hoff American
Nuclear magnetic
1971 resonance imaging Raymond Damadian American
Electronic pocket
1972 calculator J.S. Kilby and J.D. Merryman American
First
magnetohydrodynamic
1972 power generator USSR government scientists Soviet
Skylab orbiting space
1973 laboratory U.S. government scientists American
 Recombinant DNA
1974 (genetic engineering) U.S. scientists American
CAT (computerized
axial tomography)
1975 scanner Godfrey N. Hounsfield British
1975 Fiberoptics Bell Laboratories American
1976 Supercomputer J.H. Van Tassel and Seymour Cray American
Synthesis of human Roberto Crea, Tadaaki Hirose, Adam
1978 insulin genes Kraszewski, and Keiichi Itakura American
Mammal to mammal Paul Berg, Richard Mulligan, and
1978 gene transplants Bruce Howard American
Joop Sinjou Dutch
1979 Compact disc Toshi Tada Doi Japanese
Genetic flaw repaired
in mouse cells by
recombinant DNA and
micromanipulation
1979 techniques W. French Anderson and coworkers American

Space transportation National Aeronautics and Space

1981 system (space shuttle) Administration engineers American
1982 Artificial heart Robert K. Jarvik American

Scanning tunneling Gerd Binnig German

1983 microscope Heinrich Rohrer Swiss

High-temperature J. Georg Bednorz German

1986 superconductors Karl A. Müller Swiss
1992 Magnetic boat Yoshiro Saji Japanese
Notes

1) An impractical prototype that was never widely used.

2) Bell received a patent for the telephone in 1876, but Meucci developed an earlier
model around 1860.

3) Both rotors operated on a horizontal plane.

4) One rotor operated on a horizontal plane to provide lift, while another rotor operated
on a vertical plane to counter the torque generated by the first rotor.