Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Notable Inventions and Discoveries Full Database

Date

Invention Or Discovery

Inventor Or Discoverer

Nationality

1250

Magnifying glass

Roger Bacon

English

1450

Printing press

Johann Gutenberg

German

1504

Pocket watch

Peter Henlein

German

1590

Compound 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

1745

Leyden jar (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

1769

Steam engine (with 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

1783

Balloon

Joseph Michel Montgolfier and
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

1799

Fourdrinier machine (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

1810

Food preservation (by sterilization and 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

1837

Telegraph

Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Sir Charles Wheatstone

American
British

1838

Morse code

Samuel Finley Breese Morse

American

1839

Photography

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre and
Joseph Nicéphore Niepce William Henry Fox Talbot

French
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

1851

Opthalmoscope

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von 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

1856

Bessemer converter (steel)

Sir Henry Bessemer

British

1858

Harvester

Charles and William Marsh

American

1859

Spectroscope

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff and
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen

German

1860

Gas engine

Jean-Joseph-Étienne Lenoir

French

1861

Web-fed newspaper 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

1866

Paper (from wood pulp, sulfite process)

Benjamin Chew Tilghman

American

1866

Dynamite

Alfred Bernhard Nobel

Swedish

1868

Dry cell

Georges Leclanché

French

1868

Typewriter

Carlos Glidden and
Christopher Latham Sholes

American

1868

Air brake

George Westinghouse

American

1870

Celluloid

John Wesley Hyatt and Isaiah Hyatt

American

1871

Continuous current dynamo

Zénobe-Théophile Gramme

Belgian

1874

Quadruplex telegraph

Thomas Alva Edison

American

1876

Telephone2

Alexander Graham Bell
Antonio Meucci

American
Italian

1877

Internal-combustion engine (four-cycle)

Nikolaus August Otto

German

1877

Talking machine (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

1879

Incandescent filament lamp

Thomas Alva Edison
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan

American
British

1879

Automobile engine (two-cycle)

Karl Benz

German

1879

Arc lamp

Charles Francis Bush

American

1880

Linotype

Ottmar Mergenthaler

American

1884

Steam turbine

C.A. Parsons

English

1884

Rayon (nitrocellulose)

Comte Hilaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet

French

1884

Multiple-wheel steam turbine

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons

British

1884

Nipkow disk (mechanical television scanning device)

Paul Gottlieb Nipkow

German

1884

Fountain pen

Lewis Edson Waterman

American

1885

Graphophone (dictating machine)

Chichester A. Bell and
Charles Sumner Tainter

American

1885

AC transformer

William Stanley

American

1887

Air-inflated rubber tire

J.B. Dunlop

Scottish

1887

Gramophone (disk records)

Emile Berliner

American

1887

Gas mantle

Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach

Austrian

1887

Mimeograph

Albert Blake Dick

American

1887

Monotype

Tolbert Lanston

American

1888

Adding machine (recording)

William Seward Burroughs

American

1888

Kodak camera

George Eastman

American

1889

Steam turbine

C.G. de Laval

Swedish

1890

Rayon (cuprammonium)

Louis Henri Despeissis

French

1891

Glider

Otto Lilienthal

German

1891

Motion picture camera (kinetograph)

Thomas Alva Edison
William K. L. Dickson

American
British

1891

Motion picture viewer (kinetoscope)

Thomas Alva Edison
William K. L. Dickson

American
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

1892

Vacuum bottle (Dewar flask)

Sir James Dewar

British

1893

Photoelectric cell

Julius Elster Hans F. Geitel

German

1893

Diesel engine

Rudolf Diesel

German

1893

Gasoline automobile

Charles Edgar Duryea and
J. Frank Duryea

American

1894

Motion picture projection

Louis Jean Lumière and Auguste Marie Lumière
Charles Francis Jenkins

French

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

1898

Sensitized photographic paper

Leo Hendrik Baekeland

American

1900

Rigid dirigible airship

Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin

German

1902

Radiotelephone

Valdemar Poulsen
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden

Danish
American

1903

Airplane

Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright

American

1903

Windshield wipers

Mary Anderson

American

1903

Electrocardiograph

Willem Einthoven

Dutch

1905

Diode rectifier tube (radio)

Sir John Ambrose Fleming

British

1906

Gyrocompass

Hermann Anschütz-Kämpfe

German

1907

Bakelite

Leo Hendrik Baekeland

American

1907

Triode amplifier tube (radio)

Lee De Forest

American

1908

Cellophane

Jacques Edwin Brandenberger

Swiss

1908

Two-color motion picture camera

C. Albert Smith

British

1909

Salvarsan

Paul Ehrlich

German

1910

Hydrogenation of coal

Friedrich Bergius

German

1910

Gyroscopic compass 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

1913

Heterodyne radio receiver

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden

American

1915

Automobile self-starter

Charles Franklin Kettering

American

1916

Browning gun (automatic rifle)

John Moses Browning

American

1916

Gas-filled incandescent lamp

Irving Langmuir

American

1916

X-ray tube

William David Coolidge

American

1919

Mass spectrograph

Sir Francis William Aston
Arthur Jeffrey Dempster

British
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

1925

Television image 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

1930

Freon (low-boiling fluorine compounds)

Thomas Midgley and coworkers

American

1930

Modern gas-turbine engine

Sir Frank Whittle

British

1930

Neoprene (synthetic rubber)

Father Julius Arthur Nieuwland and Wallace Hume Carothers

American

1931

Cyclotron

Ernest Orlando Lawrence

American

1931

Differential analyzer (analogue computer)

Vannevar Bush

American

1932

Phase contrast microscope

Frits Zernike

Dutch

1932

Van de Graaff generator

Robert Jemison Van de Graaff

American

1933

Frequency modulation (FM)

Edwin Howard Armstrong

American

1935

Buna (synthetic rubber)

German scientists

German

1935

Radiolocator (radar)

Sir Robert Watson-Watt

British

1935

Cortisone

Edward Calvin Kendall
Tadeus Reichstein

American
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

1941

Turbojet aircraft engine

Sir Frank Whittle

British

1942

Guided missile

Wernher von Braun

German

1942

Nuclear reactor

Enrico Fermi

American

1942

Xerography

Chester Carlson

American

1944

V-2 (rocket-propelled bomb)

German scientists

German

1945

Atomic bomb

U.S. government scientists

American

1945

Streptomycin

Selman A. Waksman

American

1946

Electronic digital computer

John Presper Eckert, Jr., and
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

1948

Aureomycin

Benjamin Minge Duggar and
Chandra Bose Subba Row

American

1948

Transistor

John Bardeen, Walter Houser 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

1952

Bubble chamber (nuclear particle 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

1956

First prototype rotary engine

Felix Wankel

German

1956

Videotape

Charles Ginsberg
Ray Dolby

American

1957

Sodium-cooled atomic reactor

U.S. government scientists

American

1957

Artificial earth satellite

USSR government scientists

Soviet

1958

Communications satellite

U.S. government scientists

American

1959

Integrated circuit

Jack Kilby
Robert Noyce

American

1960

Laser

Charles Hard Townes, Arthur L. Schawlow, and Gordon Gould

American

1960

Chlorophyll synthesized

Robert Burns Woodward

American

1960

Birth-control pill

Gregory Pincus, John Rock, and
Min-chueh Chang

American

1962

Light-emitting diode (LED)

Nick Holonyak, Jr.

American

1964

Liquid-crystal display

George Heilmeier

American

1965

Kevlar technology

Stephanie Kwolek

American

1966

Artificial heart (left ventricle)

Michael Ellis DeBakey

American

1966

Tunable dye laser

Mary Spaeth

American

1967

Human heart transplant

Christiaan Neethling Barnard

South Africa

1970

First complete synthesis of a gene

Har Gobind Khorana

American

1971

Microprocessor

Ted Hoff

American

1971

Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging

Raymond Damadian

American

1972

Electronic pocket calculator

J.S. Kilby and J.D. Merryman

American

1972

First magnetohydrodynamic power generator

USSR government scientists

Soviet

1973

Skylab orbiting space laboratory

U.S. government scientists

American

1974

Recombinant DNA (genetic engineering)

U.S. scientists

American

1975

CAT (computerized axial tomography) scanner

Godfrey N. Hounsfield

British

1975

Fiberoptics

Bell Laboratories

American

1976

Supercomputer

J.H. Van Tassel and Seymour Cray

American

1978

Synthesis of human insulin genes

Roberto Crea, Tadaaki Hirose, Adam Kraszewski, and Keiichi Itakura

American

1978

Mammal to mammal gene transplants

Paul Berg, Richard Mulligan, and Bruce Howard

American

1979

Compact disc

Joop Sinjou
Toshi Tada Doi

Dutch
Japanese

1979

Genetic flaw repaired in mouse cells by recombinant DNA and micromanipulation techniques

W. French Anderson and coworkers

American

1981

Space transportation system (space shuttle)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers

American

1982

Artificial heart

Robert K. Jarvik

American

1983

Scanning tunneling microscope

Gerd Binnig
Heinrich Rohrer

German
Swiss

1986

High-temperature superconductors

J. Georg Bednorz
Karl A. Müller

German
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.

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