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 Telephone2 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

Thomas Alva Edison American

Incandescent filament
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

Chichester A. Bell and

Graphophone
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

Thomas Alva Edison American

Motion picture camera

1891 (kinetograph) William K. L. Dickson British

Thomas Alva Edison American

Motion picture viewer

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

John Presper Eckert, Jr., and

Electronic digital
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
magnetohydrodynami
1972 c 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

Gerd Binnig German

Scanning tunneling
1983 microscope Heinrich Rohrer Swiss

J. Georg Bednorz German

High-temperature
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.