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The first computer plans were developed
The first computer that resembled the modern machines we see today was invented by Charles Babbage between 1833 and 1871. He developed a device, the analytical engine, and worked on it for nearly 40 years. He designed 3 computers, but never actually constructed any of them, due to lack of funding. -
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The telephone was invented
In 1876–1877, the invention of the telephone emerged. It is not easy to determine who the inventor was. -
Radio is invented
The first edition of radio was patented in 1896 by Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi was a pioneer of wireless telegraphy. -
The first time the word computer was used to describe a machine
Early computers were actually people, not machines – it was a job title. The word dates back to 1613. “Computers” were people who performed complex calculations, essentially they were mathematicians and bookkeepers. In this occupation teams of people, often women from the late nineteenth century onwards, were used to undertake long and often tedious calculations. The first time the word “computer” was used to describe a machine was 1897. -
First radio commercial broadcasting
KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October 1920 received its license and went on the air as the first US licensed commercial broadcasting station on November 2, 1920 with the presidential election results as its inaugural show, but was not broadcasting daily until 1921. -
Television is invented
Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1927. The system was designed by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor who had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14. -
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The first computer is built
ENIAC, in full Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer, built during World War II by the United States. The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet, weighing almost 50 tons. -
First available commercial computer
First commercially available computer released, for simple arithmetic and data handling. It was called the Remington Rand Univac and was produced in the United States. Remington Rand then became an early American computer manufacturing company. -
The first e-mail is sent
First email is sent by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson. The e-mail was simply a message to himself and it read something along the lines of: QWERTYUIOP. Ray Tomlinson is credited as the inventor of networked email. -
The first call on a handheld mobile phone is made
Motorola engineer Martin Cooper stood on sixth avenue in New York City on April 3, 1973 as he made the first call on a handheld mobile phone. -
First personal computer invented
A small firm named MITS made the first personal computer, the Altair in 1974. -
The first laptop is invented
The laptop computer was released in 1981. It was called Osborne 1 and had a screen no bigger than a matchbox. -
The internet is invented
Computer scientists Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn are credited with inventing the Internet. -
First mobile phone launched
First mobile phone launched, costing $4,000. A 10-hour charge provided 30 minutes use. -
The internet becomes available to the public
On April 30, 1993 computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the world's first web browser and editor. -
The smartphone was developed
The tech company IBM is widely credited with developing the world's first smartphone. The smartphone was named Simon and went on sale in 1994. It featured a touchscreen, email capability and a handful of built-in apps, including a calculator and a sketch pad. -
Pay TV is invented
Pay television is a broadcasting service in which viewers pay by subscription to watch a particular channel. -
Google is launched
Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. Working from their dorm rooms, they built a search engine that used links to determine the importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web. They called this search engine Backrub. Soon after, Backrub was renamed Google. -
Skype is released
Skype launches instantly connecting people around the world via video. Skype was founded by Niklas Zennström of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark. The number of registered users of Skype was about 50 million in 2005 and increased more than 10-fold to more than 600 million just five years later. -
Myspace is created
Myspace is born and a new age of social media begins. Myspace is an American social networking service. From 2005 to early 2009, it was the largest social networking site in the world. Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe were the co-founders of Myspace. -
Facebook is created
Facebook, Inc. is an American multinational technology company based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, roommates and students at Harvard College. -
Youtube launches
YouTube launches with a video of the site’s co-founder at the zoo. This clip that has garnered almost 40 million views. YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google. It was launched in February 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is the second most visited website, with more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. -
Twitter is launched
Twitter, online microblogging service for distributing short messages. Twitter incorporates aspects of social networking Web sites, such as Myspace and Facebook, with instant messaging technologies to create networks of users who can communicate throughout the day with brief messages, or “tweets.”The service was designed in 2006 by Evan Williams and Biz Stone, each of whom worked at Google before leaving. -
Apple iPhone is released
The iPhone is launched and smartphones usage explodes. -
Instagram is launched
Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The Massachusetts-born Stanford University grad created the app because of his love of photography. The photo-sharing app has since become a global sensation, amassing over a billion users and making Systrom a billionaire. -
Snapchat is launched
Snapchat was founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy, all students at Stanford University. It was originally released as "Picaboo" by the co-founders. Right afterward, Spiegel and Murphy forced Brown out of the company, and relaunched the company as Snapchat. Snapchat is now one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world. The site has 360 million active monthly users, as of January 2020, with three billion “snaps” (photos and videos) generated every day. -
Tiktok is released
TikTok allows users to watch, create, and share 15-second videos shot on cellphones. The app was launched in 2016 by the Chinese technology company ByteDance. The app was originally called 'musical.ly' but was but was renamed after it was aquired by the ByteDance company. Tiktok is now one of the most popular social media platforms with 1 billion active global users.
