Time Line Of Discoveries And Inventions

Time Line of Discoveries and Inventions This timeline includes important events, discoveries and inventions that have contributed to our present day chemistry class. Many of the entries have not yet been completed. The projects are researched by individual students in my CHM 1030 class.[Landmarks that are not directly related to chemistry are colored coded and are included to help understand the development of a time period or an event that changed the world.] Click here to check any date in history. [Time lines]

8000 BC Fermentation 7000 BC Jericho [oldest city finally excavated in 1951] 6000 BC Linen fabric made

5000 BC Cu mines in Egypt Beginning of Bronze Age

4000 BC Metals used:  Bronze [alloy of Cu & Sn], more on copper  Ag

 Au Gold

Papyrus used in Egypt

3500 BC Wheel cart used & potter's wheel Mesopotamia

2800 BC Glass invention & Calendar [ collapse of bronze age] Beginning of Iron Age

2500 BC Fe discovered

2000 BC Hg used in Egypt & code of Hammurabi History of Time

1500 BC Sundial used in Egypt

1000 BC Chaldeans use H2O clocks 800 BC Iron utentsils

600 BC olive tree brought to Italy by Greeks

450 BC carrier pigeons used in Greece for communication

400 BC NaCl used in food and in commerce Sugar used

350 BC Fe used in China [time line of Chinese developments]

215 BC Great wall of China built to keep foreigners out [1400 miles long]

40 BC Atomic theory

31 BC Start of Roman Empire

Age of Alchemy [more history of alchemy]

4 BC ...... 1661

0 BC and AD are replaced by BCE [before common era] and CE [common era] time line

4-6 AD Christ born [BC & AD based on birth of this person]

50 First use of soap by Romans [learned from Gauls]

100 World's population 0.25 billion

271 First form of compass used in Japan

306-337 Emperor Constantine crowned

330 Constantinople capital of East

410 Rome sacked & modern beginning of Alchemy

476 Roman Empire ends in West

480-543 Rule of Benedict

600 Book printing in China Porcelain manufactured Chinese use explosives 700 Water wheels used in Europe

720 Arabs invent acids

751 Chinese paper makers captured by Arabs

760 Arabic numerals

782 Chemistry studied apart from Alchemy

800 Coronation of Charlemagne

850 Gunpowder used in China

900 Manufacture of sulfuric acid

1000 Widespread fear of the end of world  Improvement of harness for horses  Better food production [due to 3 field system of crop rotation]  Windmills invented as new source of power

1054 Schism of East & West

1066 Halley's comet observed

1090 Water driven mechanical clock in Peking

1095 First Crusades

1100 Rise of towns

1119 First University [Bologna in Italy]

1151 China use explosives for warfare

1158 Munich center of NaCl trade

1180 First glass windows

1190 Compass comes to Europe from China

1211 Genghis Khan invades China

1215 Magna Carta signed

1271 Marco Polo journeys to China 1278 Glass mirror invented

1290 Glasses invented [1518 spectacles for short sighted manufactured]

1300's Universities started & Start of witch hunts

1300 World's population 0.5 billion

1332 Plague starts in India

1374 Black Death Europe [1/3 of population dies]

1450 Greatest fear of witches and greatest number of death; lasts 200 yrs

1453 Printed Word Gutenberg Bible & Constantinople falls to Turks

1489 First use of +, - in mathematics

1492 America discoveredColumbus

1499 Sb discovered in Hungary

1500  Start of Italian Renaissance  First Pb pencils

1512 Copernicus Heliocentric Universe

1513 Florida discovered

1517 Luther's 95 Theses on Wittenberg door

1519 Magellan circumnavigates the globe

1531 Halley's comet causes wave of superstition

1534 Henry VIII breaks from Roman Church

1582 Gregorian calandar [Jan 1 is new year's day not March 25] 1589 Forks introduced into France

1590 Microscope invented

1592 Galileo invents thermometer

1602 BaS discovered by Cascarido

1608 Telescope invented by Lippershey

1610  1st Chemistry book  Galileo proves earth revolves around sun  Galileo improves telescope

1612 1st manual for making glass

1615 Galileo faces Inquisition first time & 1616 prohibited from further scientific study

1622 January first adopted as 1st day of new year [used to be March 25]

1625 Glauber discovers Glauber's salt

1631 X used in math in England

1641 Arsenic used as a medicine

1643 Torricelli invents barometer

1650 ~ 500 million people in the world

1657 Fountain pens used in Paris

& Huygens designs pendulum for clock

1658 Hooke invents balance spring for watch [history of time pieces]

1661 Boyle writes definition of chemical elements

1665 Hooke invents microscope

1666 Newton's law of gravity

1668 Leeuwenhoek describes rbc with microscope

1669 P prepared by Brand an alchemist from Hamburg 1674 First microbe observed

1695 Epsom salts discovered [MgSO4] England by Grew

1698 Tax on beards in Russia

1700  Tax on unmarried women in Berlin  NH4Cl discoved in France by Tournefort

1702 First steam engine Newcomen used to pump water from mines

1705 Halley predicts return of comet in 1758

1714 Fahrenheit Hg thermometer

1730 Zn smelting in England

1732 Boerhaave writes Elements of Chemistry

1733 Great Bell of Moscow cast [193 tons]

1742 Celsius invents centigrade thermometer

1743 First settlement in South Dakota

1750 Industrial Revolution [some date start as 1769]

1752 Liberty bell cast [England finally accepts Gregorian calendar]

1754 Black discovers "carbolic acid gas" [CO2]

1756 Chocolate Factory in Germany

1766 Cavendish discovers hydrogen less dense than air

1769 First lightning rods used on tall buildings

1771 O2 discovered Lavoisier

1772 Priestly and Rutherford independently discover N2

1774  Gahn isolates Mn  Scheele discovers Cl and Ba 1775-1783 American Revolution

1775  Priestly discovers HCl & H2SO4  Lavoisier proves that air contains oxygen and nitrogen gases  Watts perfects steam engine

1776 US Declaration of Independence

1777 Lavoisier proves that air consists mainly of O2 and N2

1780 Matches invented

1781 W discovered by Scheele

1785 Chemical bleaching by Berthollet

1790  Lavoisier has table of 31 chemical elements  Serfdom abolished in Europe [people free personally in law, to marry, to migrate & choose occupations]

1793 Cotton gin invented Whitney

1795 Metric System in France adopted

1797 Cr discovered Vauguelin

1799 Rosetta stone found [allowed deciphering of hieroglyphics]

1800 Volta produces electricity from battery of Zn & Cu

1802 Dalton introduces atomic theory

1803 Berzelius discovers Cerium

1804 Wollaston finds Pd in Pt

1806  Davy discovers electrolytic method for making pure K & Na  End of the Holy Roman Empire 1807  Gay-Lussac's combinatin of gases  Fulton Steam ship

1809 Braille system for blind

1810 Appert develops techniques for canning food

1817 Berzelius discovers Se & Li

1818  Berzelius publishes molecular weight of 2000 compounds  Stromeyer & Hermann discover Cd

1823 Faraday liquefy Cl

1827  Wohler obtains Al from clay

 Walker invents sulfur friction matches

1829  Stephenson's steam locomotive [16 mph called "rocket"]  Daguerre & Niepce form partnership for photographic inventions

1830 Beginning of sewing machine by Thimonnier

1831 Sauria develops method to make matches ignite without blowing up

1836 Phillips patents white P matches in US [1848 Bottger's matches called safety matches]

1834 McCormic patents reaping machine

1835 Halley's comet reappears

1839  Goodyear discovers vulcanization (rubber + sulfur + heat) [commerical use of rubber]  Macmillian first bicycle

1840 Beginning of railroad construction

1841 First university degree granted to women in US

1844 Morse's telegraph message between Baltimore and Washington 1846 Howe improves sewing machine[1850 Singer perfects sewing machine]

1847 Sobrero prepares nitroglycerine

1848 Beginning of women's suffrage

1849 Fizeau measures speed of light

1855  Audemars patents production of rayon [made from wood pulp]  E.coli discovered [most highly studied of bacteria]

1856 Bessemer refines steel [burns off C in molten Fe ore with oxygen] First plastic manufactured

Beginning of Steel Age

1857 Pasteur proves fermentation caused by living organisms

1859 Darwin's Origin of Species

1860 Bunsen & Kirchoff discover Cs & Rubidium

1861-1865 American Civil War

1864 Pasteur invents pasteurization of wine

1865 Emancipation Proclamation in US

1866 Nobel invents dynamite 1869  Mendeleyev formulates Periodic law for classificatin of Elements  Suez Canal open (shortens route from to Europe to India by 6000 miles)

1873 Remington (gunsmith) produces typewriters

1876 Bell invents telephone [in 100 yrs 750 million people have telephones]

1880 Edison & Swan first practical electric lights

1883 Krakato erupted loudest sound heard Four time zones in USA 1886  Moissan produces F

 Coca-cola invented by Pemberton [more than 600 million sold daily in 1997]

1888 Eastman perfects Kodak box camera

1891 Zippers invented [practical use in 1919]

1892 Rayon manufactered in England

1895 First motion pictures

1896 X-rays

1897 Thomson discovers electron

1898 Curie discovers Ra

1898 Effiel Tower built in Paris [tallest building in world] Neon discovered

1900 World population 1.6 million

1901 Marconi tansmits telegraphic wireless message [radio, TV & cellular phones from this]

1903 Wright brothers power airplane

1904 Kipping discovers Si

1905 Ne lights

1907 first plastic material "Bakelite" [substitute for ivory] Beginning of Age of Plastics

1908 Ford produces first car 1912  Cellophane manufactered

 Titanic sinks 1513 drowned

1913 "isotope" coined as word by Soddy 1914-1918 WWI

 Einstein general theory of relativity his time line  Ford produces 10 million cars  Viruses discovered 1918-1919 22 million people die from influenza pandemic

1920  Women win right to vote in US  Polyester invented  First household refrigerators [ice machine invented 1865 by Lowe]

1921  Calmette & Guerin develop BCG vaccine for TB  Robots invented

1922 Harwood invents self winding wrist watches

1923 Bronsted theory of acids & bases

1924 Baird inventor of 1st TV [color TV in 1928]

1925 World's population 2 billion 1929  Al chairs  Great Depression  Start of Empire State Bldg [900 ft tall, 102 stories, surpases Eiffel Tower]

1930  Reppe develops artifical fabric  Photoflash bulbs  Landsteiner ABO blood group system

1932 Electron microscope

1933-1945 Holocaust in Europe [ more about history of Holocaust]

1933 60,000 artists & scientists emigrate from Germany

1935 Nylon invented 1937 Carothers patents nylon for Dupont [1939 1st nylon stockings]

1939-1945 WWII

1939  Polyethylene invented  Muller synthesizes DDT

1940 Manhattan project

Atomic Age 1942 Fermi splits atom 1945  Atomic Bomb detonated in New Mexico  Atomic Bomb used in warfare  Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombed  United Nations founded

1946 Xerography process invented Carlson

1947 Transitor invented [used in TV, CD player, faxes and radio]

1950  World Population 2.5 billion  1.5 million TV sets in US

1950-1953 Korean War

1951 color TV sets & electric power from atomic energy

1952 Jericho excavated

1953 DNA 3D structure

1954 Hydrogen bomb tested

1957 Russians launch first space satellite Sputnik I

1958  First moon rocket launched  Satellite launched

1959 Synthetic diamonds DeBeers 1960  Lasers invented  World's population 3 billion]  44% of worlds population illiterate

1961 Berlin Wall

1961-1973 Vietnam War

1968 steps to ban use of DDT

1969  Internet starts [see time line for developments]

 Armstrong walks on surface of moon

1972  All volunteer military in US  First e-mail sent by Queen Elizabeth

1973 Pocket calculator

1975  Computer  World's population 4 billion

1977 US confirms testing of neutron bomb

1978  1st test tube baby born in England  US finally returns crown jewels to Hungary after WWII

1980 World's population 5 billion

1984 Toxic gas spill in India

1985 First cases of AIDS

1986  Chernobyl Accidentin Soviet Union  Challengershuttle explodes

1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 million gallons crude oil Alaska

1990-1991 Persian Gulf War

1990 Hubble telescope [more pictures] (about Hubble)

1991  Kuwait oil spill 460 million gallons in Persian Gulf [deliberate]

 Kuwait oil field fires

1993 WWW as we know it today

1997 Scottish scientists clone sheep "dolly"

1998 Chemistry Class @ sfcc on web

1999 Chemistry laboratory designed for remote locations. "Kitchen Laboratory" includes,

chemicals, equipement, and CD-ROM for virtual components

2000 millennium changes 21 century

2001 September 11 terrorists attack World Trade Center and Pentegon

2002 Virtual Chemistry CD rom 2003 2004