10 Key Historical Energy Events

First Steam Engine

1698

Thomas Savery was an English military engineer and inventor who in 1698, patented the first crude steam engine, based on Denis Papin's Digester or pressure cooker of 1679.

Lightning

1752

Benjamin Franklin conducted an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm that appeared capable of becoming a lightning storm.

Bio-Electricity

1791

Luigi Aloisio Galvani studied bio-electricity, a field that still today studies the electrical patterns and signals of the nervous system.

First Electric Motor

1821

The conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy by electromagnetic means was demonstrated by the British scientist Michael Faraday in 1821.

Heat Engines

1824

French physicist Sadi Carnot established the thermodynamic theory of idealized heat engines. This scientifically established the need for compression to increase the difference between the upper and lower working temperatures.

Telegraph

1835

While a professor of arts and design at New York University in 1835, Samuel Morse proved that signals could be transmitted by wire.

First Internal Combustion Engine

Mar 12, 1859

French engineer J. J. Étienne Lenoir built a double-acting, spark-ignition engine that could be operated continuously.

Ruby Laser

1960

Theodore Maiman invented the ruby laser considered to be the first successful optical or light laser.

Electric Battery

1971

Alessandro Volta, inventor of the electric battery.Volta’s discovery of the decomposition of water by an electrical current laid the foundation of electrochemistry.

Geothermal Energy

1972

The Geothermal Energy Association is formed. The association includes U.S. companies that develop geothermal resources worldwide for electrical power generation and direct-heat uses.