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4000 BCE
Pre-industrial Age before 1700's
People discover fire, developed paper from plants, and forge weapon and tools with stone, bronze, copper, and iron. -
3500 BCE
Cave Paintings
In prehistoric art, the term “cave paintings” encompasses any parietal art which involves the application of colour pigments on the walls, floors or ceilings of ancient rock shelters. A monochrome cave paintings is a picture made with only one colour (usually black)-see, for instance, the monochrome images at Chauvet -
2500 BCE
Papyrus in Egypt
First papyrus was only used in Egypt, but by about 1000 BC people all over West Asia began buying papyrus from Egypt and using it, since it was much more convenient than clay tablets (less breakable, and not as heavy!). People made papyrus in small sheets and then glued the sheets together to make big pieces. -
2400 BCE
Clay Tablets in Mesopotamia
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian ṭuppu) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylus often made of reed (reed pen). -
500 BCE
Codex in the Mayan Region (5th Century)
Maya codices (singular codex) are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark cloth. … The Maya developed their huun-paper around the 5th century, which is roughly the same time that the codex became predominant over the scroll in the Roman world. -
220 BCE
Woodblock printing 220AD
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Prior to the invention of woodblock printing, seals and stamps were used for making impressions. -
200 BCE
Dibao in China (2nd Century)
The Chinese “Dibao” is the earliest and oldest newspaper in the world. During West Han time, Han government carried out the “Jun xian zhi” 郡县制, the eparch and county system which is helpful in concentrating the central power. The country was divided into many eparches and counties but governed by the central government as a whole. Every eparch sets up its office in the capital Chang’an, which has the same function as the provincial office in today Beijing. -
130 BCE
Acta Diurna in Rome
Acta Diurna were daily Roman official notices, a sort of daily gazette. They were carved on stone or metal and presented in message boards in public places like the Forum of Rome. They were also called simply Acta. History[edit]. The first form of Acta appeared around 131 BC during the Roman Republic. -
Industrial Age
The Industrial Age is a period of history that encompasses the changes in economic and social organization that began around 1760 in Great Britain and later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines such as the power loom and the steam engine, and by the concentration of industry in large establishments. -
The spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. -
Cotton gin
Arguably the first highly mechanised factory was John Lombe's water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721. Lombe learned silk thread manufacturing by taking a job in Italy and acting as an industrial spy; however, because the Italian silk industry guarded its secrets closely, the state of the industry at that time is unknown. -
Steam boat
John Fitch built four more steamboats, but they were expensive to build and to operate. Because they were so expensive, his steamboats were unsuccessful. The first successful steamboat was the Clermont, which was built by American inventor Robert Fulton in 1807. -
Steam engine
The development of the stationary steam engine was an important element of the Industrial Revolution; however, during the early period of the Industrial Revolution, most industrial power was supplied by water and wind. In Britain by 1800 an estimated 10,000 horsepower was being supplied by steam. By 1815 steam power had grown to 210,000 hp. -
Canals and improved waterways
Before and during the Industrial Revolution navigation on several British rivers was improved by removing obstructions, straightening curves, widening and deepening and building navigation locks. Britain had over 1000 miles of navigable rivers and streams by 1750. -
Roads
France was known for having an excellent system of roads at the time of the Industrial Revolution; however, most of the roads on the European Continent and in the U.K. were in bad condition and dangerously rutted.[ -
Cements
In 1824 Joseph Aspdin, a British bricklayer turned builder, patented a chemical process for making portland cement which was an important advance in the building trades. This process involves sintering a mixture of clay and limestone to about 1,400 °C (2,552 °F), then grinding it into a fine powder which is then mixed with water, sand and gravel to produce concrete. -
Railways
Reducing friction was one of the major reasons for the success of railroads compared to wagons. This was demonstrated on an iron plate covered wooden tramway in 1805 at Croydon, England. -
The Reaper
One such invention was the mechanical reaper. The mechanical reaper was invented by Cyrus McCormick in 1831. This machine was used by farmers to harvest crops mechanically. For hundreds of years, farmers and field workers had to harvest crops by hand using a sickle or other methods, which was an arduous task at best. -
The plow
John Deere invented the steel plow in 1837 when the Middle-West was being settled. The soil was different than that of the East and wood plows kept breaking. -
Glass Making
A new method of producing glass, known as the cylinder process, was developed in Europe during the early 19th century. In 1832 this process was used by the Chance Brothers to create sheet glass. They became the leading producers of window and plate glass. -
Electronic age
The invention of the transistor ushered in the Electronic Age. People harnessed the power of transistors that led to the transistor radio, electronic circuits, and the early computers. In this age, long distance communication became more efficient. -
Television
Television Programs in 1941. On July 1st, 1941, commercial television broadcasting officially began. In New York City, three stations (representing CBS, NBC and DuMont) were on the air. -
Transistor radio
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following their development in 1954, made possible by the invention of the transistor in 1947, they became the most popular electronic communication device in history, with billions manufactured during the 1960s and 1970. -
Personal computers
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. -
Mainframe computers
Mainframe computers are colloquially referred to as "big iron" are computers used primarily by large organizations for critical applications; bulk data processing, such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning; and transaction processing. They are larger and have more processing power than some other classes of computers: minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers. -
OHP, LCD Projectors
An LCD projector is a type of video projector for displaying video, images or computer data on a screen or other flat surface. It is a modern equivalent of the slide projector or overhead projector. -
Internet
Was a cold war military project. It was designed for the purpose of military communication when United States was devastated by a Soviet nuclear strike. -
Information age
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) is a historic period in the 21st century characterized by the rapid shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based on information technology. -
Osborne 1
It is considered as the first true mobile computer by most historians. Adam Osborne founded Osborne Computer and formed the Osborne 1 in 1981. -
First laptop
The first "laptop computer" was made in 1983. -
First laptop computer
Manny Fernandez, who started Gavilian Computer, promoted his machines as the first "laptop" computers in May 1983. Many historians consider the gavilian as the first fully functional laptop computer. -
Digital Camera
By the late 1980s, the technology required to produce truly commercial digital cameras existed. The first true portable digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a 2 MB SRAM memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory. This camera was never marketed to the public. -
Transatlantic Telephone
The first Transatlantic Telephone cable went into operation. -
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. -
First Web Cam
In 1991 the first webcam was pointed at a coffee shop. -
First smartphone
The first smartphone was the IBM Simon. -
Personal Digital Assistants
The first PDA. This bulky device is the Apple Newton MessagePad. Introduced in 1993, it was one of the first Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices -- indeed, that phrase was originally coined by Apple CEO John Sculley for the Newton. -
Mosaic
Marc Andreessen, NCSA Mosaic Technical Summary, Feb 20, 1993. Marc Andreessen and his team invented Mosaic (original NCSA page), the first popular Web browser, which greatly helped spread use and knowledge of the web across the world. -
Doom
Doom (stylized as DOOM) is a series of first-person shooter video games developed by id Software. The series focuses on the exploits of an unnamed space marine operating under the auspices of Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), who fights hordes of demons and the undead in order to survive. -
Amazon
On July 5, 1994, Bezos incorporated the company as Cadabra, Inc. Bezos changed the name to Amazon.com, Inc. a few months later, after a lawyer misheard its original name as "cadaver". ... The domain is still owned by Bezos and still redirects to the retailer. The company went online as Amazon.com in 1995. -
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included in the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. -
Google
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California.
The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. -
Gral
Raleigh-Durham, N.C. became the first local TV station to transmit Digital TV. -
Six degrees
The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today. -
Wikipedia
Wikipedia began with its launch on 15 January 2001, two days after the domain was registered by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Its technological and conceptual underpinnings predate this; the earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia was made by Rick Gates in 1993, but the concept of a free-as-in-freedom online encyclopedia (as distinct from mere open source) was proposed by Richard Stallman in December 2000. -
Frienster
Friendster was founded by Canadian computer programmer Jonathan Abrams in 2002, before the wider adoption of MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2003), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites. -
Skype
First released in August 2003, Skype was created by the Swede Niklas Zennström and the Dane Janus Friis, in cooperation with Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, Estonians who developed the backend that was also used in the music-sharing application Kazaa. -
WordPress
WordPress was released on May 27, 2003, by its founders, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, as a fork of b2/cafelog. WordPress is released under the GPLv2 (or later) license. -
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service launched on February 4, 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University student Eduardo Saverin. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada,corporations. -
Youtube
The history of YouTube began when PayPal employees created a video-sharing website where users could upload, share and view content. The Internet domain name "www.youtube.com" was activated on Monday, February 14, 2005 at 9:13 p.m. -
Twitter
Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, "tweets", restricted to 140 characters.Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and launched in July of that year. -
Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007, and owned by Oath Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' blogs. Bloggers can also make their blogs private. For bloggers many of the website's features are accessed from a "dashboard" interface. -
Pinterest
Pinterest is a web and mobile application startup that operates a software system designed to discover information on the World Wide Web. Registration is required for use. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. Development of Pinterest began in December 2009, and the site launched as a closed beta in March 2010. The site proceeded to operate in invitation-only open beta. -
Instagram
Instagram is a mobile, desktop, and Internet-based photo-sharing application and service that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately. It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app exclusively for the iOS operating system. -
Snapchat
Snapchat is an image messaging and multimedia mobile application created by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown, former students at Stanford University, and developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal concepts of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are only available for a short time before they become inaccessible. -
Vine
Vine was a short-form video hosting service where users could share six-second-long looping video clips. Launched on January 24, 2013, by December 2015 Vine had 200 million active users.
