| 10-15 billion years ago |
The Universe is born. |
| 10243 seconds later |
The temperature cools to 100 million trillion trillion degrees and gravity evolves. |
| 10234 seconds later |
The temperature cools to 1 billion billion billion degrees and matter emerges in the form of quarks and electrons. Antimatter also appears. |
| 10210 seconds later |
The electroweak force splits into the electromagnetic and weak forces. |
| 1025 seconds later |
With the temperature at 1 trillion degrees, the quarks form protons and neutrons and the antiquarks form antiprotons. The protons and antiprotons collide, leaving mostly protons and causing the emergence of photons (light). |
| 1 second later |
Electrons and antielectrons (positrons) collide, leaving mostly electrons. |
| 1 minute later |
At a temperature of 1 billion degrees, neutrons and protons coalesce and form elements such as helium, lithium, and heavy forms of hydrogen. |
| 300,000 years after the big bang |
The average temperature is now around 3,000 degrees, and the first atoms form. |
| 1 billion years after the big bang |
Galaxies form. |
| 3 billion years after the big bang |
Matter within the galaxies forms distinct stars and solar systems. |
| 5 to 10 billion years after the big bang, or about 5 billion years ago |
The Earth is born. |
| 3.4 billion years ago |
The first biological life appears on Earth: anaerobic prokaryotes (single-celled creatures). |
| 1.7 billion years ago |
Simple DNA evolves. |
| 700 million years ago |
Multicellular plants and animals appear. |
| 570 million years ago |
The Cambrian explosion occurs: the emergence of diverse body plans, including the appearance of animals with hard body parts (shells and skeletons). |
| 400 million years ago |
Land-based plants evolve. |
| 200 million years ago |
Dinosaurs and mammals begin sharing the environment. |
| 80 million years ago |
Mammals develop more fully. |
| 65 million years ago |
Dinosaurs become extinct, leading to the rise of mammals. |
| 50 million years ago |
The anthropoid suborder of primates splits off. |
| 30 million years ago |
Advanced primates such as monkeys and apes appear. |
| 15 million years ago |
The first humanoids appear. |
| 5 million years ago |
Humanoid creatures are walking on two legs. Homo habilis is using tools, ushering in a new form of evolution: technology. |
| 2 million years ago |
Homo erectus has domesticated fire and is using language and weapons. |
| 500,000 years ago |
Homo sapiens emerge, distinguished by the ability to create technology (which involves innovation in the creation of tools, a record of tool making, and a progression in the sophistication of tools). |
| 100,000 years ago |
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis emerges. |
| 90,000 years ago |
Homo sapiens sapiens (our immediate ancestors) emerge. |
| 40,000 years ago |
The Homo sapiens sapiens subspecies is the only surviving humanoid subspecies on Earth. Technology develops as evolution by other means. |
| 10,000 years ago |
The modern era of technology begins with the agricultural revolution. |
| 6,000 years ago |
The first cities emerge in Mesopotamia. |
| 5,500 years ago |
Wheels, rafts, boats, and written language are in use. |
| More than 5,000 years ago |
The abacus is developed in the Orient. As operated by its human user, the abacus performs arithmetic computation based on methods similar to that of a modern computer. |
| 3000-700 b.c. |
Water clocks appear during this time period in various cultures: In China, c. 3000 b.c.; in Egypt, c. 1500 b.c; and in Assyria, c. 700 b.c. |
| 2500 b.c. |
Egyptian citizens turn for advice to oracles, which are often statues with priests hidden inside. |
| 469-322 b.c. |
The basis for Western rationalistic philosophy is formed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. |
| 427 b.c. |
Plato expresses ideas, in Phaedo and later works, that address the comparison of human thought and the mechanics of the machine. |
| c. 420 b.c. |
Archytas of Tarentum, who was friends with Plato, constructs a wooden pigeon whose movements are controlled by a jet of steam or compressed air. |
| 387 b.c. |
The Academy, a group founded by Plato for the pursuit of science and philosophy, provides a fertile environment for the development of mathematical theory. |
| c. 200 b.c. |
Chinese artisans develop elaborate automata, including an entire mechanical orchestra. |
| c. 200 b.c. |
A more accurate water clock is developed by an Egyptian engineer. |
| 725 |
The first true mechanical clock is built by a Chinese engineer and a Buddhist monk. It is a water-driven device with an escapement that causes the clock to tick. |
| 1494 |
Leonardo da Vinci conceives of and draws a clock with a pendulum, although an accurate pendulum clock will not be invented until the late seventeenth century. |
| 1530 |
The spinning wheel is being used in Europe. |
| 1540, 1772 |
The production of more elaborate automata technology grows out of clock- and watch-making technology during the European Renaissance. Famous examples include Gianello Toriano's mandolin- playing lady (1540) and P. Jacquet-Dortz's child (1772). |
| 1543 |
Nicolaus Copernicus states in his De Revolutionibus that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. This theory effectively changed humankind's relationship with and view of God. |
| 17th-18th centuries |
The age of the Enlightenment ushers in a philosophical movement that restores the belief in the supremacy of human reason, knowledge, and freedom. With its roots in ancient Greek philosophy and the European Renaissance, the Enlightenment is the first systematic reconsideration of the nature of human thought and knowledge since the Platonists, and inspires similar developments in science and theology. |
| 1637 |
In addition to formulating the theory of optical refraction and developing the principles of modern analytic geometry, René Descartes pushes rational skepticism to its limits in his most comprehensive work, Discours de la Méthode. He concludes, "I think, therefore, I am." |
| 1642 |
Blaise Pascal invents the world's first automatic calculating machine. Called the Pascaline, it can add and subtract. |
| 1687 |
Isaac Newton establishes his three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation in his Philosophiae Naturalis Mathematica, also known as Principia. |
| 1694 |
The Leibniz Computer is perfected by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was also an inventor of calculus. This machine multiplies by performing repetitive additions, an algorithm that is still used in computers today. |
| 1719 |
An English silk-thread mill employing three hundred workers, mostly women and children, appears. It is considered by many to be the first factory in the modern sense. |
| 1726 |
In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift describes a machine that will automatically write books. |
| 1733 |
John Kay patents his New Engine for Opening and Dressing Wool. Later known as the flying shuttle, this invention paves the way for much faster weaving. |
| 1760 |
In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin erects lightning rods after having discovered, through his famous kite experiment in 1752, that lightning is a form of electricity. |
| c. 1760 |
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, life expectancy is about thirty-seven years in both North America and northwestern Europe. |
| 1764 |
The spinning jenny, which spins eight threads at the same time, is invented by James Hargreaves. |
| 1769 |
Richard Arkwright patents a hydraulic spinning machine that is too large and expensive to use in family dwellings. Known as the founder of the modern factory system, he builds a factory for his machine in 1781, thus paving the way for many of the economic and social changes that will characterize the Industrial Revolution. |
| 1781 |
Setting the stage for the emergence of twentieth- century rationalism, Immanuel Kant publishes his Critique of Pure Reason, which expresses the philosophy of the Enlightenment while de-emphasizing the role of metaphysics. |
| 1800 |
All aspects of the production of cloth are now automated. |
| 1805 |
Joseph-Marie Jacquard devises a method for automated weaving that is a precursor to early computer technology. The looms are directed by instructions on a series of punched cards. |
| 1811 |
The Luddite movement is formed in Nottingham by artisans and laborers concerned about the loss of jobs due to automation. |
| 1821 |
The British Astronomical Society awards its first gold medal to Charles Babbage for his paper "Observations on the Application of Machinery to the Computation of Mathematical Tables." |
| 1822 |
Charles Babbage develops the Difference Engine, although he eventually abandons this technically complex and expensive project to concentrate on developing a general-purpose computer. |
| 1825 |
George Stephenson's "Locomotion No. 1," the first steam engine to carry passengers and freight on a regular basis, makes its first trip. |
| 1829 |
An early typewriter is invented by William Austin Burt. |
| 1832 |
The principles of the Analytical Engine are developed by Charles Babbage. It is the world's first computer (although it never worked), and can be programmed to solve a wide array of computational and logical problems. |
| 1837 |
A more practical version of the telegraph is patented by Samuel Finley Breese Morse. It sends letters in codes consisting of dots and dashes, a system still in common use more than a century later. |
| 1839 |
A new process for making photographs, known as daguerreotypes, is presented by Louis-Jacques Daguerre of France. |
| 1839 |
The first fuel cell is developed by William Robert Grove of Wales. |
| 1843 |
Ada Lovelace, who is considered to be the world's first computer programmer and was Lord Byron's only legitimate child, publishes her own notes and a translation of L. P. Menabrea's paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine. She speculates on the ability of computers to emulate human intelligence. |
| 1846 |
The lock-stitch sewing machine is patented by Spenser, Massachusetts, resident Elias Howe. |
| 1846 |
Alexander Bain greatly improves the speed of telegraph transmission by using punched paper tape to send messages. |
| 1847 |
George Boole publishes his early ideas on symbolic logic that he will later develop into his theory of binary logic and arithmetic. His theories still form the basis of modern computation. |
| 1854 |
Paris and London are connected by telegraph. |
| 1859 |
Charles Darwin explains his principle of natural selection and its influence on the evolution of various species in his work Origin of Species. |
| 1861 |
There are now telegraph lines connecting San Francisco and New York. |
| 1867 |
The first commercially practical generator that produces alternating current is invented by Zénobe Théophile Gramme. |
| 1869 |
Thomas Alva Edison sells the stock ticker that he invented to Wall Street for $40,000. |
| 1870 |
On a per capita basis and in constant 1958 dollars, the GNP is $530. Twelve million Americans, or 31 percent of the population, have jobs, and only 2 percent of adults have high-school diplomas. |
| 1871 |
Upon his death, Charles Babbage leaves more than four hundred square feet of drawings for his Analytical Engine. |
| 1876 |
Alexander Graham Bell is granted U.S. patent number 174,465 for the telephone. It is the most lucrative patent granted at that time. |
| 1877 |
William Thomson, later known as Lord Kelvin, demonstrates that it is possible for machines to be programmed to solve a great variety of mathematical problems. |
| 1879 |
The first incandescent light bulb that burns for a substantial length of time is invented by Thomas Alva Edison. |
| 1882 |
Thomas Alva Edison designs electric lighting for New York City's Pearl Street station on lower Broadway. |
| 1884 |
The fountain pen is patented by Lewis E. Waterman. |
| 1885 |
Boston and New York are connected by telephone. |
| 1888 |
William S. Burroughs patents the world's first dependable key-driven adding machine. This calculator is modified four years later to include subtraction and printing, and it becomes widely used. |
| 1888 |
Heinrich Hertz transmits what are now known as radio waves. |
| 1890 |
Building upon ideas from Jacquard's loom and Babbage's Analytical Engine, Herman Hollerith patents an electromechanical information machine that uses punched cards. It wins the 1890 U.S. Census competition, thus introducing the use of electricity in a major data-processing project. |
| 1896 |
Herman Hollerith founds the Tabulating Machine Company. This company eventually will become IBM. |
| 1897 |
Because of access to better vacuum pumps than previously available, Joseph John Thomson discovers the electron, the first known particle smaller than an atom. |
| 1897 |
Alexander Popov, a physicist in Russia, uses an antenna to transmit radio waves. Guglielmo Marconi of Italy receives the first patent ever granted for radio and helps organize a company to market his system. |
| 1899 |
Sound is recorded magnetically on wire and on a thin metal strip. |
| 1900 |
Herman Hollerith introduces the automatic card feed into his information machine to improve the processing of the 1900 census data. |
| 1900 |
The telegraph now connects the entire civilized world. There are more than 1.4 million telephones, 8,000 registered automobiles, and 24 million electric light bulbs in the United States, with the latter making good Edison's promise of "electric bulbs so cheap that only the rich will be able to afford candles." In addition, the Gramophone Company is advertising a choice of 5,000 recordings. |
| 1900 |
More than one third of all American workers are involved in the production of food. |
| 1901 |
The first electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer Electric, is made. |
| 1901 |
The Interpretation of Dreams is published by Sigmund Freud. This and other works by Freud help to illuminate the workings of the mind. |
| 1902 |
Millar Hutchinson, of New York, invents the first electric hearing aid. |
| 1905 |
The directional radio antenna is developed by Guglielmo Marconi. |
| 1908 |
Orville Wright's first hour-long airplane flight takes place. |
| 1910-1913 |
Principia Mathematica, a seminal work on the foundations of mathematics, is published by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. This three- volume publication presents a new methodology for all mathematics. |
| 1911 |
After acquiring several other companies, Herman Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company changes its name to Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR). |
| 1915 |
Thomas J. Watson in San Francisco and Alexander Graham Bell in New York participate in the first North American transcontinental telephone call. |
| 1921 |
The term robot is coined in 1917 by Czech dramatist Karel Capek. In his popular science fiction drama R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), he describes intelligent machines that, although originally created as servants for humans, end up taking over the world and destroying all mankind. |
| 1921 |
Ludwig Wittgenstein publishes Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which is arguably one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth century. Wittgenstein is considered to be the first logical positivist. |
| 1924 |
Originally Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) is renamed International Business Machines (IBM) by Thomas J. Watson, the new chief executive officer. IBM will lead the modern computer industry and become one of the largest industrial corporations in the world. |
| 1925 |
The foundations of quantum mechanics are conceived by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. |
| 1927 |
The uncertainty principle, which says that electrons have no precise location but rather probability clouds of possible locations, is presented by Werner Heisenberg. Five years later he will win a Nobel Prize for his discovery of quantum mechanics. |
| 1928 |
The minimax theorem is introduced by John von Neumann. This theorem will be widely used in future game-playing programs. |
| 1928 |
The world's first all-electronic television is presented this year by Philo T. Farnsworth, and a color television system is patented by Vladimir Zworkin. |
| 1930 |
In the United States, 60 percent of all households have radios, with the number of personally owned radios now reaching more than 18 million. |
| 1931 |
The incompleteness theorem, which is considered by many to be the most important theorem in all mathematics, is presented by Kurt Gödel. |
| 1931 |
The electron microscope is invented by Ernst August Friedrich Ruska and, independently, by Rheinhold Ruedenberg. |
| 1935 |
The prototype for the first heart-lung machine is invented. |
| 1937 |
Grote Reber, of Wheaton, Illinois, builds the first intentional radio telescope, which is a dish 9.4 meters (31 feet) in diameter. |
| 1937 |
Alan Turing introduces the Turing machine, a theoretical model of a computer, in his paper "On Computable Numbers." His ideas build upon the work of Bertrand Russell and Charles Babbage. |
| 1937 |
Alonzo Church and Alan Turing independently develop the Church-Turing thesis. This thesis states that all problems that a human being can solve can be reduced to a set of algorithms, supporting the idea that machine intelligence and human intelligence are essentially equivalent. |
| 1938 |
The first ballpoint pen is patented by Lazlo Biró. |
| 1939 |
Regularly scheduled commercial flights begin crossing the Atlantic Ocean. |
| 1940 |
ABC, the first electronic (albeit nonprogrammable) computer, is built by John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. |
| 1940 |
The world's first operational computer, known as Robinson, is created by Ultra, the ten- thousand- person British computer war effort. Using electromechanical relays, Robinson successfully decodes messages from Enigma, the Nazis' first-generation enciphering machine. |
| 1941 |
The world's first fully programmable digital computer, the Z-3, is developed by Konrad Zuse, of Germany. Arnold Fast, a blind mathematician who is hired to program the Z-3, is the world's first programmer of an operational programmable computer. |
| 1943 |
Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts explore neural-network architectures for intelligence in their work "Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity." |
| 1943 |
Continuing their war effort, the Ultra computer team of Britain builds Colossus, which contributes to the Allied victory in World War II by being able to decipher even more complex German codes. It uses electronic tubes that are one hundred to one thousand times faster than the relays used by Robinson. |
| 1944 |
Howard Aiken completes the Mark I. Using punched paper tape for programming and vacuum tubes to calculate problems, it is the first programmable computer built by an American. |
| 1945 |
John von Neumann, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, publishes the first modern paper describing the stored-program concept. |
| 1946 |
The world's first fully electronic, general-purpose (programmable) digital computer is developed for the army by John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchley. Named ENIAC, it is almost one thousand times faster than the Mark I. |
| 1946 |
Television takes off much more rapidly than did the radio in the 1920s. In 1946, the percentage of American homes having television sets is 0.02 percent. It will jump to 72 percent in 1956, and to more than 90 percent by 1983. |
| 1947 |
The transistor is invented by William Bradford Shockley, Walter Hauser Brattain, and John Bardeen. This tiny device functions like a vacuum tube but is able to switch currents on and off at substantially higher speeds. The transistor revolutionizes microelectronics, contributing to lower costs of computers and leading to the development of mainframe and minicomputers. |
| 1948 |
Cybernetics, a seminal book on information theory, is published by Norbert Wiener. He also coins the word Cybernetics to mean "the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine." |
| 1949 |
EDSAC, the world's first stored-program computer, is built by Maurice Wilkes, whose work was influenced by Eckert and Mauchley. BINAC, developed by Eckert and Mauchley's new U.S. company, is presented a short time later. |
| 1949 |
George Orwell portrays a chilling world in which computers are used by large bureaucracies to monitor and enslave the population in his book 1984. |
![[back]](../../images/back.gif){kind=small}
