A chronology of invention
- Related Topics:
- innovation
- patent
- inventor
- technology
Notable inventors and their inventions are listed in the table.
| inventor | nationality | invention | year of invention | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Homo habilis | stone tools | c. 2 million years ago | |
 |
Imhotep | Egyptian | step pyramid | 27th century BCE |
 |
Archimedes | Greek | Archimedes screw | 3rd century BCE |
 |
Ctesibius of Alexandria | Greek | float-type clepsydra (water clock) | 3rd century BCE |
 |
Heron of Alexandria | Greek | aeolipile (steam-powered turbine) | 1st century CE |
| Cai Lun | Chinese | paper | 2nd century CE | |
 |
Johannes Gutenberg | German | printing press | c. 1450 |
| William Lee | English | knitting machine | 1589 | |
 |
Hans Lippershey | German-Dutch | compound microscope; telescope | c. 1590; 1608 |
| Cornelis Drebbel | Dutch | oar-powered submarine | 1620 | |
 |
Evangelista Torricelli | Italian | mercury barometer | 1643 |
 |
Otto von Guericke | Prussian | air pump | 1650 |
 |
Christiaan Huygens | Dutch | pendulum clock | 1658 |
| Giuseppe Campani | Italian | lens-grinding lathe | 1664 | |
 |
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek | Dutch | single-lens microscope | c. 1670 |
 |
Denis Papin | French-English | pressure cooker | 1679 |
| Daniel Quare | English | repeating watch mechanism for sounding the nearest hour and quarter hour | 1680 | |
 |
Thomas Savery | English | steam-driven vacuum pump | 1698 |
 |
Jethro Tull | English | mechanical seed drill | 1701 |
| Abraham Darby | English | used coke to smelt iron | 1709 | |
 |
Thomas Newcomen | English | atmospheric steam engine | 1712 |
 |
John Hadley | English | quadrant for determining latitude | 1730 |
| Thomas Godfrey | American | quadrant for determining latitude | 1730 | |
 |
Henri Pitot | French | pitot tube | 1732 |
 |
John Kay | English | flying shuttle | 1733 |
 |
John Harrison | English | marine chronometer | 1735 |
| Benjamin Franklin | American | Franklin stove | c. 1740 | |
| Benjamin Huntsman | English | crucible steel | c. 1740 | |
 |
Thomas Boulsover | English | Sheffield plate | c. 1742 |
| Jacques de Vaucanson | French | automated loom | 1745 | |
 |
Sir Richard Arkwright | English | water frame (spinning machine) | 1764 |
 |
James Watt | Scottish | improved steam engine with separate condenser | 1765 |
 |
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot | French | steam-driven gun carriage | 1769 |
 |
David Bushnell | American | hand-powered submarine | c. 1775 |
| Patrick Ferguson | Scottish | breech-loading flintlock rifle | 1776 | |
 |
Samuel Crompton | English | spinning mule | 1779 |
| Jonathan Hornblower | English | reciprocating compound steam engine | 1781 | |
 |
William Murdock | Scottish | Sun-and-planet motion for steam engines | c. 1781 |
  |
Montgolfier brothers | French | hot-air balloon | 1782 |
 |
Josiah Wedgwood | English | pyrometer | 1782 |
| Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans | French | early paddlewheel steamboat | 1783 | |
 |
John Fitch | American | early steamboat | 1787 |
 |
Andrew Meikle | Scottish | threshing machine | 1788 |
 |
Edmund Cartwright | English | wool-combing machine | 1789 |
 |
Oliver Evans | American | high-pressure steam engine (U.S.) | 1790 |
| William Nicholson | English | hydrometer | 1790 | |
 |
Claude Chappe | French | semaphore telegraph | 1794 |
 |
Eli Whitney | American | cotton gin | 1794 |
 |
Joseph Bramah | English | hydraulic press | 1795 |
 |
Nicolas-Jacques Conté | French | graphite pencil | 1795 |
 |
Alois Senefelder | German | lithography | 1798 |
| Henry Maudslay | English | metal lathe | c. 1800 | |
 |
Alessandro Volta | Italian | electric battery | 1800 |
 |
John Stevens | American | screw-driven steamboat | 1802 |
 |
Richard Trevithick | English | steam railway locomotive | 1803 |
 |
Joseph-Marie Jacquard | French | Jacquard loom | 1804–05 |
| William Congreve | English | military rocket | 1805 | |
| Alexander John Forsyth | Scottish | percussion-lock musket | 1805–07 | |
| Robert Fulton | American | commercial steamboat | 1807 | |
 |
John Heathcoat | English | lace-making machine | 1809 |
 |
John Blenkinsop | English | geared steam locomotive | 1812–13 |
 |
John Loudon McAdam | Scottish | macadam road surface | 1815 |
| Robert Stirling | Scottish | Stirling external-combustion engine | 1816 | |
 |
Marc Isambard Brunel | French-English | geared steam tunneling shield | 1818 |
| René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec | French | stethoscope | 1819 | |
| Thomas Hancock | English | rubber masticator | 1821 | |
 |
Charles Macintosh | Scottish | mackintosh waterproof fabric | 1823 |
 |
Louis Braille | French | Braille writing system | 1824 |
 |
Richard Roberts | Welsh | automatic spinning mule | 1825 |
 |
George Stephenson | English | passenger train pulled by steam locomotive | 1825 |
 |
Nicéphore Niépce | French | permanent photographic image | 1826–27 |
| Nikolaus von Dreyse | German | needle-firing rifle | 1827 | |
| Benoît Fourneyron | French | water turbine | 1827 | |
| Goldsworthy Gurney | English | steam carriage | 1830 | |
 |
Peter Cooper | American | Tom Thumb steam locomotive | 1830 |
| Henri-Gustave Delvigne | French | cylindrical bullet | c. 1830 | |
 |
Cyrus Hall McCormick | American | mechanical reaper | 1831 |
| Jeanne Villepreux-Power | French | glass aquarium | 1832 | |
| Obed Hussey | American | mechanical reaper | 1833 | |
 |
Thomas Davenport | American | electric motor | 1834 |
 |
Charles Babbage | English | Analytical Engine mechanical computer | c. 1835 |
 |
Samuel Colt | American | revolver | 1835 |
| Rowland Hill | English | postage stamp | 1835–40 | |
 |
John Frederic Daniell | English | Daniell cell battery | 1836 |
| Edward Davy | English | electromagnetic telegraph repeater | c. 1836 | |
 |
Isambard Kingdom Brunel | English | Great Western transatlantic steamer | 1837 |
 |
Isaac Pitman | English | Pitman shorthand | 1837 |
 |
Charles Wheatstone | English | electric needle telegraph | 1837 |
 |
Samuel F.B. Morse | American | electric telegraph; Morse code | 1837; 1838 |
 |
John Deere | American | all-steel one-piece plow | 1838 |
 |
Chauncey Jerome | American | one-day brass clock movement | c. 1838 |
| Isaac Babbitt | American | babbitt metal | 1839 | |
 |
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre | French | daguerreotype | 1839 |
 |
Charles Goodyear | American | vulcanized rubber | 1839 |
| Johann Georg Bodmer | Swiss | gear-making machine | 1839–41 | |
| William Howe | American | Howe truss for bridges | 1840 | |
 |
Antoine-Joseph Sax | Belgian-French | saxophone | 1842 |
| Thomas Jackson Rodman | American | prismatic gunpowder | c. 1845 | |
 |
Elias Howe | American | sewing machine | 1846 |
 |
Richard March Hoe | American | rotary printing press | 1847 |
| Claude-Étienne Minié | French | cylindrical Minié bullet | 1849 | |
 |
William Kelly | American | pneumatic steel-making process | c. 1850 |
| Frederick Scott Archer | English | wet collodion photography process | 1851 | |
| Hugh Burgess | English American | soda papermaking process | 1851 | |
| Isaac Merrit Singer | American | domestic sewing machine | 1851 | |
 |
Elisha Graves Otis | American | safety elevator | 1852 |
 |
George Cayley | English | first glider to carry a human | 1853 |
 |
Henry Bessemer | English | Bessemer steelmaking process | 1856 |
 |
Étienne Lenoir | Belgian | internal-combustion engine | 1858 |
 |
Gaston Planté | French | electric storage battery | 1859 |
| Christopher M. Spencer | American | Spencer breech-loading carbine | 1860 | |
| Sondre Nordheim | Norwegian | ski bindings | 1860 | |
| Robert Parker Parrott | American | Parrott gun (rifled cannon) | 1861 | |
 |
William Siemens | German English | open-hearth furnace | 1861 |
 |
Warren De la Rue | English | astronomical photography | c. 1862 |
 |
Richard Jordan Gatling | American | Gatling gun | 1862 |
 |
Louis Pasteur | French | pasteurization | 1863 |
| Linus Yale | American | Yale cylinder lock | 1863 | |
| Siegfried Marcus | German | gasoline-powered automobile | 1864–65 | |
| Samuel Cunliffe Lister | English | silk-combing machine | 1865 | |
 |
George M. Pullman | American | Pullman sleeping car | 1865 |
 |
Thomas Clifford Allbutt | English | modern clinical thermometer | 1866 |
 |
Georges Leclanché | French | dry-cell battery | c. 1866 |
| Alfred Ely Beach | American | pneumatic tube | 1867 | |
| Joseph Monier | French | reinforced concrete | c. 1867 | |
| Alfred Bernhard Nobel | Swedish | dynamite | 1867 | |
 |
Christopher Latham Sholes | American | typewriter | 1868 |
| Louis Ducos du Hauron | French | trichrome process of colour photography | 1869 | |
 |
George Westinghouse | American | air brake | 1869 |
| John Wesley Hyatt | American | celluloid | 1870 | |
| Margaret Knight | American | flat-bottomed paper bag | 1871 | |
 |
James Starley | English | bicycle with centre-pivot steering | 1871 |
| Joseph Farwell Glidden | American | barbed wire | 1873 | |
 |
Alexander Graham Bell | Scottish American | telephone | 1876 |
 |
Elisha Gray | American | telephone | 1876 |
| Melville Reuben Bissell | American | carpet sweeper | 1876 | |
 |
Nikolaus August Otto | German | four-stroke internal-combustion engine | 1876 |
 |
Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov | Russian | Yablochkov candle (arc lamp) | 1876 |
| Joseph Rogers Brown | American | universal grinding machine | 1877 | |
| Ephraim Shay | American | geared steam locomotive | c. 1877 | |
 |
Thomas Alva Edison | American | phonograph cylinder sound recorder; incandescent lightbulb | 1877; c. 1879 |
| Maria Beasley | English | life raft | 1880 | |
 |
Nikola Tesla | Serbian American | alternating-current electric motor | 1880–88 |
| Hilaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet | French | rayon | 1884 | |
 |
Hiram Maxim | American British | Maxim machine gun | 1884 |
 |
Ottmar Mergenthaler | German American | Linotype typesetting machine | 1884 |
| Charles Algernon Parsons | English | multistage steam turbine | 1884 | |
 |
Karl Friedrich Benz | German | practical automobile with an internal-combustion engine | 1885 |
 |
Gottlieb Daimler | German | high-speed internal-combustion engine | 1885 |
| Josephine Cochrane | American | mechanical dishwasher | 1886 | |
| Charles Sumner Tainter | American | graphophone cylinder sound recorder | 1886 | |
 |
Charles Martin Hall | American | electrolytic aluminum smelting | 1886 |
 |
Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult | French | electrolytic aluminum smelting | 1886 |
 |
Emil Berliner | German American | Gramophone disc sound recorder | 1887 |
| John Boyd Dunlop | Scottish | pneumatic rubber tire | 1887 | |
 |
George Eastman | American | Kodak camera | 1888 |
 |
Franklin Hiram King | American | cylindrical grain silo | 1889 |
 |
Herman Hollerith | American | tabulating machine | c. 1890 |
| Ferdinand von Zeppelin | German | zeppelin airship | 1890–1900 | |
 |
James A. Naismith | Canadian American | basketball | 1891 |
| William Seward Burroughs | American | adding machine | 1892 | |
 |
James Dewar | Scottish | vacuum flask | c. 1892 |
 |
Rudolf Diesel | German | diesel engine | 1892 |
| Hayward A. Harvey | American | carburizing (surface hardening of steel plate) | c. 1892 | |
| Edward Goodrich Acheson | American | Carborundum | 1893 | |
 |
Otto Lilienthal | German | Lilienthal standard glider | 1894 |
 |
Lumière brothers | French | Cinématographe motion-picture camera and projector | 1894 |
| King Camp Gillette | American | disposable razor | 1895 | |
 |
Guglielmo Marconi | Italian | wireless telegraph | 1896 |
| John Philip Holland | Irish American | gasoline-electric submarine | 1898 | |
| Valdemar Poulsen | Danish | telegraphone magnetic wire recorder | 1900 | |
 |
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden | Canadian American | amplitude modulation (AM) of radio waves | 1900 |
 |
Willis Haviland Carrier | American | air-conditioning | 1902 |
| Mary Anderson | American | windshield wiper | 1903 | |
 |
Wilbur and Orville Wright | American | powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight | 1903 |
 |
John Ambrose Fleming | English | vacuum diode rectifier | 1904 |
 |
Lee De Forest | American | Audion vacuum tube amplifier | 1906 |
| Ole Evinrude | Norwegian American | marine outboard motor | 1906–09 | |
| Melitta Bentz | German | coffee filters | 1908 | |
 |
Hans Geiger | German | Geiger counter | 1908 |
 |
Leo Hendrik Baekeland | Belgian American | Bakelite | c. 1909 |
 |
Paul Ehrlich | German | arsphenamine anti-syphilis drug | 1910 |
 |
Isaac Newton Lewis | American | Lewis machine gun | 1911 |
| Elmer Ambrose Sperry | American | gyroscopic compass | 1911 | |
| Charles F. Kettering | American | automobile electrical starter | 1912 | |
 |
Henry Ford | American | automobile assembly line | 1913–14 |
| Irving Wightman Colburn | American | Colburn flat-glass machine | 1916 | |
| William D. Coolidge | American | X-ray tube | 1916 | |
 |
John Moses Browning | American | Browning automatic rifle | 1918 |
 |
Vladimir Kosma Zworykin | Russian American | Iconoscope and Kinescope electronic television camera and receiver | 1923–31 |
 |
John Logie Baird | Scottish | electromechanical television | 1924 |
 |
Clarence Birdseye | American | rapid-frozen food | c. 1924 |
 |
Robert Hutchings Goddard | American | liquid-fueled rocket engine | 1926 |
| Philo Taylor Farnsworth | American | Image Dissector electronic television camera | 1927 | |
 |
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff | American | Van de Graaff generator for particle accelerators | 1929 |
 |
László József Bíró | Hungarian | ballpoint pen | 1931 |
| Isaac Shoenberg | Russian English | high-definition electronic television system | 1931–35 | |
 |
Edwin H. Armstrong | American | frequency modulation (FM) of radio waves | 1933 |
| Ernst Ruska | German | electron microscope | 1933 | |
| Laurens Hammond | American | Hammond organ (electronic keyboard) | 1934 | |
 |
Ernest Orlando Lawrence | American | cyclotron particle accelerator | 1934 |
 |
Wallace Hume Carothers | American | nylon | 1935 |
| Robert Alexander Watson-Watt | Scottish | radar early warning | 1935 | |
 |
Frank Whittle | English | jet engine | 1937 |
| Katharine Blodgett | American | nonreflective glass | 1938 | |
 |
Chester F. Carlson | American | xerography | 1938 |
 |
Albert Hofmann | Swiss | LSD | 1938 |
 |
Paul Hermann Müller | Swiss | DDT | 1939 |
 |
Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain | German | jet aircraft | 1939 |
 |
Igor Sikorsky | Russian American | production helicopter | 1939 |
| Hedy Lamarr | American | spread-spectrum technology | 1942 | |
| George Antheil | American | spread-spectrum technology | 1942 | |
 |
Jacques-Yves Cousteau | French | Aqua-Lung | 1943 |
| John W. Mauchly | American | ENIAC general-purpose electronic computer | 1946 | |
 |
John Bardeen | American | transistor | 1947 |
 |
Walter H. Brattain | American | transistor | 1947 |
 |
William B. Shockley | American | transistor | 1947 |
 |
R. Buckminster Fuller | American | geodesic dome | c. 1947 |
| Edwin Herbert Land | American | Polaroid instant-print camera | 1947 | |
| Willard Frank Libby | American | carbon-14 dating | c. 1947 | |
 |
Les Paul | American | eight-track tape recorder | c. 1947 |
| Leo Fender | American | electric guitar | 1948 | |
 |
Mária Telkes | American | solar-heated home | 1948 |
| Charles Stark Draper | American | inertial guidance systems for aircraft | c. 1949 | |
 |
Tom Kilburn | English | Manchester Mark I stored-program digital computer | 1949 |
 |
Grace Hopper | American | compiler | 1952 |
 |
Virginia Apgar | American | Apgar Score System | 1952 |
| Charles Hard Townes | American | maser | 1953 | |
 |
Uziel Gal | Israeli | Uzi submachine gun | 1954 |
 |
Felix Wankel | German | Wankel rotary gasoline engine | 1954 |
| Jack Kilby | American | integrated circuit | 1958 | |
| Robert Noyce | American | integrated circuit | 1958 | |
 |
Theodore H. Maiman | American | ruby laser | 1960 |
 |
Michael DeBakey | American | coronary artery bypass | 1964 |
 |
Seymour Cray | American | supercomputer | 1964 |
 |
Douglas Engelbart | American | computer mouse | 1964 |
| Stephanie Kwolek | American | Kevlar | 1965 | |
 |
Kenneth L. Thompson | American | UNIX operating system | 1969 |
|
|
Dennis M. Ritchie | American | UNIX operating system | 1969 |
| Stephanie Kwolek | American | Kevlar | c. 1971 | |
 |
Paul Lauterbur | American | magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) | 1973 |
|
|
Peter Mansfield | English | magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) | 1973 |
 |
Vinton Cerf | American | Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) | 1974 |
| Robert Kahn | American | Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) | 1974 | |
| Erno Rubik | Hungarian | Rubik's cube | 1974 | |
| Frederick Sanger | English | DNA sequencing | 1977 | |
 |
Stephen Wozniak | American | Apple II personal computer | 1977 |
 |
Gerd Binnig | German | scanning tunneling microscope | 1981 |
| Heinrich Rohrer | Swiss | scanning tunneling microscope | 1981 | |
| Patricia Bath | American | Laserphaco Probe | 1981 | |
 |
Tim Berners-Lee | English | World Wide Web | 1990–91 |
 |
Linus Torvalds | Finnish | Linux open-source operating system | 1991 |