-
300
Pingala invents the binary number system
Pingala invents the binary number system -
Mar 16, 1350
Suspension bridges
Suspension bridges built in Peru -
Mar 19, 1510
First pocket watch
Pocket watch invented by Peter Henlein -
Thermometer
Thermometer invented by Galileo Galilei -
Submarine
David Bushnell's "Turtle" submerges by taking water into its tanks and reverses the process to rise. It moves by means of a hand crank propeller. The "Turtle" is used in an attack on Lord Howe's Flagship "Eagle," but attempts to attach a mine to the Eagle's hull fail -
Spray gun
Dr. Alan de Vilbiss of Toledo, Ohio, invented this device to replace swabs as the method of applying medication to oral and nasal passages -
Amphibious Vehicle
Oliver Evans' "Orukter Amphibolos" dredges the waters near the Philadelphia docks. Its steam-powered engine drove either wooden wheels or a paddle wheel. Evans demonstrated his machine in Philadelphia's Center Square, where he passed the hat for money -
Coffee Pot
Coffee drinkers the world over no longer have to chew their brew. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, invents a coffee pot with a metal sieve to strain away the grounds -
Steamboat
Robert Fulton, former miniaturist and landscape painter, opens American rivers to two-way travel. His steamboat the "Clermont" travels 150 miles upstream between New York and Albany at an average speed of 5 mph -
Burglar Alarm
Edwin T. Holmes of Boston begins to sell electric burglar alarms. Later, his workshop will be used by Alexander Graham Bell as the young Bell pursues his invention of the telephone. Holmes will be the first person to have a home telephone -
Oil Well
Drilling at Titusville, Pennsylvania, "Colonel" Edwin Drake strikes oil at a depth of 69.5 feet. Prior to that, oil, which had been used mostly as a lubricant and lamp fuel, had been obtained only at places where it seeped from the ground. Western Pennsylvania witnesses the world's first oil boom -
Repeating Rifle
Repeating rifle
B. Tyler Henry, chief designer for Oliver Fisher Winchester's arms company, adapts a breech-loading rifle invented by Walter B. Hunt and creates a new lever action repeating rifle. First known as the Henry, the rifle will soon be famous as simply the Winchester -
Barbed Wire
Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio, invents the product that will close down the open cattle ranges by closing in cattle onto individual plots of privately owned land. I.L. Ellwood and Company's Glidden Steel Barb Wire will dominate the market; by 1890 the open range will be only a memory -
Antikythera Mechanism
Antikythera Mechanism invented in Rhodes to track movement of the stars -
first calc
The abacus, the first known calculator, invented in Babylonia
