20th century
1900s
·
1901:
The first motorized cleaner using suction, a powered "vacuum cleaner", is patented
independently by British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth and American
inventor David T. Kenney.
·
1903:
First manually controlled, fixed wing, motorized aircraft flies at Kitty
Hawk, North Carolina by Orville
and Wilbur Wright.
See Claims to the first powered flight.
·
1909:
The first instantaneous transmission of images, or television broadcast, is
carried out by Georges Rignoux and A. Fournier.
1910s
·
1915:
The tank is invented
by Ernest Swinton, although the
British Royal Commission on Awards recognized a South Australian named Lance de
Mole who had submitted a proposal to the British War Office, for a 'chain-rail
vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground
and trenches' complete with extensive drawings in 1912. Additionally, an
Austrian by the name of Günther Burstyn designed a tank in 1911
and a Captain Levavasseur of the French
army proposed a design in 1903.
·
1916:
The Czochralski process, widely used for the
production of single crystal silicon, is invented by Jan Czochralski.
·
1917:
The crystal oscillator is invented
by Alexander M.
Nicholson using
a crystal of Rochelle Salt although his
priority was disputed by Walter Guyton Cady
1920s
·
1925:
The Fischer–Tropsch
process is
developed by Franz
Fischer and Hans Tropsch at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Kohlenforschung.
·
1926:
The Yagi-Uda Antenna or simply Yagi
Antenna is invented by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial
University, Japan, assisted by his colleague Hidetsugu
Yagi. The Yagi Antenna was widely used by the US, British, and
Germans during World War II. After the war they
saw extensive development as home television antennas.
·
1927:
The quartz clock is invented by
Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton at Bell
Telephone Laboratories.
·
1928: Penicillin is first observed
to exude antibiotic substances by Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming. Development of
medicinal penicillin is attributed to a team of medics and scientists
including Howard Walter Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley.
·
1928: Frank Whittle formally
submitted his ideas for a turbo-jet engine. In October 1929, he developed his
ideas further. On 16 January 1930 in England, Whittle submitted his first
patent (granted in 1932).
1930s
·
1935: Nylon, the first fully synthetic fiber is produced
by Wallace Carothers while working
at DuPont.
·
1938,
December: Nuclear fission discovered in
experiment by Otto Hahn (Nazi Germany), coined by Lise Meitner (fled
to Sweden from Nazi-occupied Austria)
and Fritz Strassman (Sweden).
The Manhattan Project, and consequently
the Soviet
atomic bomb project were
begun based on this research, as well as the German
nuclear energy project, although the latter one declined as its physicists were
drafted into Germany's war effort.
1940s
·
1942:
The V-2 rocket, the world's first
long range ballistic missile, developed in Nazi Germany during World War II.
·
July
1945: The atomic bomb is first successfully developed by the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada as a part of
the Manhattan Project and swiftly
deployed in August 1945 in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively causing
the end of World War II.
·
1946:
Sir James Martin invents the ejector seat, inspired by the death
of his friend and test pilot Captain Valentine Baker in an airplane
crash in 1942.
·
December
1947: The transistor, used in almost all
modern electronic products is invented in December 1947 by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain under the
supervision of William Shockley. Subsequent transistors became steadily
smaller, faster, more reliable, and cheaper to manufacture, leading to a
revolution in computers, controls, and communication.
·
1947:
Floyd Farris and J.B. Clark (Stanolind Oil and Gas Corporation)
invents hydraulic fracturing technology.[246]
·
1948: Basic
oxygen steelmaking is
developed by Robert Durrer. The vast majority of
steel manufactured in the world is produced using the basic oxygen furnace; in
2000, it accounted for 60% of global steel output.
1950s
·
December
20, 1951: First use of nuclear power to produce
electricity for households in Arco, Idaho
·
1954:
Invention of Solar Battery by Bell Telephone scientists, Calvin Souther
Fuller,
Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson capturing the sun's power. First practical
means of collecting energy from the sun and turning it into a current of
electricity.
·
1957:
The first PC used by one
person and controlled by a keyboard, the IBM
610 is
invented in 1957 by IBM.
1960s
·
1963:
The first electronic cigarette is created by
Herbert A. Gilbert. Hon Lik is often credited
with its invention as he developed the modern electronic cigarette and was the
first to commercialize it.
1970s
·
1972:
The first video game console, used primarily for
playing video games on a TV, is the Magnavox Odyssey.
·
1973:
The first commercial graphical
user interface is
introduced in 1973 on the Xerox Alto. The modern GUI is
later popularized by the Xerox Star and Apple Lisa.
·
1973–75:
The Internet protocol
suite is
developed by Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn for the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) ARPANET, creating the basis for the modern Internet.
1980s
·
1980: Flash memory (both NOR and
NAND types) is invented in Japan by Fujio Masuoka while working
for Toshiba. It is formally
introduced to the public in 1984.
·
1982:
A CD-ROM contains data accessible to,
but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The
1985 Yellow Book standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the
format to hold any form of binary data.
1990s
·
1990:
The World Wide Web is first
introduced to the public by English engineer and computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
·
1995: DVD is an optical disc storage format, invented
and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs
offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the
same dimensions.
Comments
This is the period when ordinary people in developed
countries were able to take advantage of the inventions that now impact their
daily lives. From the 1920s to the 1950s, we developed water treatment and
anti-biotics. We made advances in composite materials, electronics and
manufacturing processes.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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