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| 1873 |
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| The Remington Company began manufacture of the typewriter patented by Christopher L. Sholes (1819–90); shift-key system, with capital and small letters on same type bar, was introduced in 1878. | 1 |
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| 1874 |
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| Stephen D. Field's (1846–1913) electrically powered streetcar began operation in New York City, replacing the horse-driven cars introduced in 1832. The cable streetcar, invented by Andrew S. Hallidie (1836–1900), was put into use in San Francisco (1873). The first streetcars with overhead trolley lines were in use in Germany by 1884 and first installed in the United States at Richmond, Va., in 1888. | 2 |
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| 1876 |
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| Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) patented the telephone. The first telephone exchange installed in New Haven (1877) and an automatic switching system introduced in 1879. Much previous experimentation had been done on telephones, including that of Philip Reis of Germany (1861), Antonio Meucci of Italy (1857), and Elisha Gray (simultaneously with Bell). The periodic insertion of loading coils (inductors), originated by M. I. Pupin (1899), made possible long-distance transmission of telephone calls. | 3 |
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| 1878–79 |
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| Joseph W. Swan (1828–1914) of England made the first successful carbon filament electric lamp in 1878; working independently, Thomas A. Edison patented his incandescent bulb in 1879. Improved vacuum in the lamp bulb was made possible by the high-vacuum mercury pump developed by Hermann Sprengel (1865). At the same time successful experiments in public lighting were carried on with the use of arc lamps, the most successful systems being those of P. Jablochkoff (Paris, 1876) and Charles F. Brush (Cleveland, 1879). The tungsten filament lamp was introduced in 1913. | 4 |
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| 1885 Ff |
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| Karl Benz (1844–1929) produced the prototype of the automobile using an internal combustion motor operating on the Otto four-stroke cycle principle; the same year Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900) also patented his gasoline engine, trying it first on a motorcycle, then on a four-wheeled vehicle. These may be said to have been the first automobiles, although there had been experiments with battery-powered electric automobiles beginning in 1851, and some previous internal combustion vehicles had been attempted by the Frenchman Étienne Lenoir (1859) and the Austrian Siegfried Marcus (1864). Other automobile pioneers included the Frenchmen Peugeot and Panhard. The first automobile patent in the United States was taken out by George B. Selden (1879), but the Duryea (1895) was the first auto made for sale in the United States. Henry Ford (1863–1947) made his first car in 1896 and founded the Ford Motor Co. in 1903. Important in the development of the automobile was the invention (1888) of the pneumatic tire by John B. Dunlop (1840–1921). | 5 |
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| 1888 |
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| George Eastman (1854–1932) perfected the hand camera (Kodak); he had previously invented the first successful roll film (1880). Leo Baekeland perfected (1893) a photographic paper (Velox) sufficiently sensitive to be printed by artificial light. Work of Rudolph Fischer and Siegrist in dye-coupler color processes (1910–14) provided the basis for the development of a commercially practicable color film (Kodachrome) by Leopold Godowsky, Jr., and Leopold Mannes (1935). | 6 |
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| 1889–90 |
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| Thomas Edison improved his first phonograph (patented 1878) by substituting wax for the tinfoil-coated cylinders and by adding a loudspeaker to amplify the sounds produced by the diaphragm. Emile Berliner (1851–1929) improved the quality of sound reproduction (1890) by utilizing disk records and better cutting technique. | 7 |
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| 1895 |
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| The first public motion picture showing in Paris, by Louis (1864–1948) and Auguste (1862–1954) Lumière, inventors of the cinématographe. This followed by a year the opening of Edison's Kinetoscope Parlor (New York City) where the motion picture (peepshow) could be viewed by only one person at a time. Both these successful attempts at motion pictures had been preceded by earlier devices: the “thaumatrope” of J. A. Paris (1826); the magic lantern, devised by A. Kircher (1645) and improved by Pieter van Musschenbroek (1736); the multicamera apparatus of Edward Muybridge (1872); the “photographic gun” of E. J. Marey (1882); the celluloid motion picture film of William Friese-Green (1889). Prototype of the modern film projector was the Vitascope (1896), devised by Charles Francis Jenkins (1867–1934) and Thomas Armat on the basis of Edison's kinetoscope. | 8 |
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| 1895 |
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| Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) invented the wireless telegraph, based on the discovery (1887) of radio waves by Heinrich Hertz (1857–94) (existence of these waves had been deduced by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873). Other contributors to wireless development were E. Branly, Thomas Edison, Alexander Popov (who contributed the aerial), Reginald E. Fessenden (improved transmitter, 1901). In 1901 Marconi succeeded in sending a wireless signal across the Atlantic. | 9 |
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| 1898 |
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| Valdemar Poulsen of Denmark invented the magnetic recording of sound (1898). F. Pfleumer of Germany replaced steel wire by plastic tape coated with magnetic material (1930s), and Marvin Camras of the United States made further developments in magnetic recording (1940s). | 10 |
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| 1900 |
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| Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin launched the first of the rigid airships that were to be called by his name. | 11 |
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| 1903 |
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| Orville (1871–1948) and Wilbur (1867–1912) Wright made the first flight in a heavier-than-air craft on Dec. 17 at Kitty Hawk, N.C. This flight was the culmination of a long series of developments: George Cayley's glider (1804) and studies in aerodynamic theory; the glider flights (1895) of Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute; Samuel P. Langley's (1834–1906) steam-powered model airplane (1896); Alberto Santos-Dumont's (1873–1932) model airplane with an internal combustion engine (1898); and others. | 12 |
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