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| 1863 |
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| The open-hearth process for the manufacture of steel developed by the Martin brothers in France using the regenerative furnace devised (1856) by Frederick Siemens (1826–1904) (also known as the Siemens-Martin process). | 1 |
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| 1863 |
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| Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908) of Sheffield discovered the microstructure of steel, marking the beginning of modern metallurgical science. | 2 |
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| 1867 |
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| Alfred Nobel (1833–96) manufactured dynamite. Guncotton and nitroglycerine, both discovered in 1846, had previously been used for blasting purposes. In 1875 Nobel discovered blasting gelatine, from which arose the gelignite industry. Cordite, another explosive, was patented in 1889 by Frederick Abel and James Dewar. | 3 |
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| 1868 |
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| Robert F. Mushet (1811–91) began the manufacture of tungsten steel. Other steel alloys also developed: chromium steel (France, 1877); manganese steel (Robert Hadfield, England, 1882); nickel steel (France, 1888); stainless steel (many inventors, 1911–20). | 4 |
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| 1872 |
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| John W. Hyatt (1837–1920) began commercial production of celluloid, discovered by Alexander Parkes (1855). | 5 |
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| 1877 |
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| Joseph Monier (1823–1906) patented a reinforced concrete beam. In the 1890s two other Frenchmen, Edmond Coignet and François Hennibique, used reinforced concrete for pipes, aqueducts, bridges, tunnels; E. L. Ransome employed it extensively in building construction. | 6 |
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| 1879 |
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| Percy Gilchrist (1851–1935) and Sidney G. Thomas (1850–85) developed a method for making steel from phosphoric iron ores, thereby doubling in effect the world's potential steel production. | 7 |
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| 1886 |
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| Charles M. Hall (1863–1914) developed the electrolytic method of obtaining aluminum from its oxide (bauxite). | 8 |
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| 1889 |
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| Completion of the Eiffel Tower; wrought iron superstructure on reinforced concrete base. Cast iron used for building construction earlier in the century by James Bogardus (1800–74) for office buildings in New York and by Joseph Paxton (1801–65) for Crystal Palace at Great Exhibition of 1851 (also employing wrought iron and glass, and prefabricated units). The first complete steel-frame structure was built in Chicago in 1890; steel made possible skyscrapers, as did the earlier invention (1854) of the elevator by Elisha G. Otis (1811–61). | 9 |
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| 1902 |
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| Arthur D. Little (1863–1935) patented rayon, the first cellulose fiber, and also artificial silk. Earlier (1884), Louis, count of Chardonnet (1839–1924), had produced an artificial thread that was woven into a silklike material. Cellophane was developed by J. E. Brandenberger (1912) and further developed by W. H. Church and K. E. Prindle (1926). | 10 |
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| 1909 |
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| The first polymer, Bakelite, discovered by Leo H. Baekeland (1863–1944). Subsequent development of polymers included neoprene, arising from work of Father Julius A. Nieuwland beginning in 1906; nylon, developed by Wallace H. Carothers and first manufactured in 1938; acrilan; orlon; dynel; and dacron (called terylene by its British inventors, J. R. Whinfield and J. T. Dickson, 1941). Synthetic polymers included elastomers, fibers, plastics. Silicon polymers developed c. 1945. | 11 |
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