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Lightning Rod
Benjamin Franklin's electricity experiments lead him to a valuable application -- the lightning rod, which when placed at the apex of a barn, church steeple, or other structure, conducts lightning bolts harmlessly into the ground. -
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. -
Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney patents his machine to comb and deseed bolls of cotton. His invention makes possible a revolution in the cotton industry and the rise of "King Cotton" as the main cash crop in the South, but will never make him rich. Instead of buying his machine, farmers built bogus versions of their own. -
Interchangeable Parts
Eli Whitney contracts to manufacture 10,000 muskets for the U.S. Army. At the time, an entire musket would be made by a single person, without standardized measurements. Whitney divided the labor into several discrete steps and standardized parts to make them interchangeable. -
Steam-Powered Pumping Station
The Fairmount Water Works harnesses steam power to provide water for the city of Philadelphi -
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. -
Threshing Machine
John A. and Hiram Abial Pitts invent a machine that automatically threshes and separates grain from chaff, freeing farmers from a slow and laborious process. -
Telegraph
Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrates his telegraph by sending a message to Baltimore from the chambers of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. The message, "What hath God wrought?," marks the beginning of a new era in communication. -
Passenger Elevator
Elisha Graves Otis dramatically demonstrates his passenger elevator at the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York by cutting the elevator's cables as it ascends a 300 foot tower. Otis' unique safety braking system prevents the elevator from falling; his business prospects rise. -
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. -
Oil Pipeline
Built in the oil fields at Pithole, Pennsylvania, Samuel van Syckel's five-mile, pump-operated pipeline made oil transport infinitely easier. No one appreciated this less than the Teamsters, who saw the pipeline as a threat to their business and destroyed it. The determined van Syckel hired a crew of "pipeline protectors" and rebuilt the pipeline -
Web Offset Printing
William Bullock introduced a printing press that could feed paper on a continuous roll and print both sides of the paper at once. Used first by the Philadelphia Ledger, the machine would become an American standard. It would also kill its maker, who died when he accidentally fell into one of his presses. -
Mimeograph
While using paraffin in an attempt to invent and improve telegraphy tape, Thomas Alva Edison discovers a way to make duplicate copies of documents instead. -
The abacus
The abacus, the first known calculator, invented in Babylonia -
Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell patents his telephone, built with the assistance of young self-trained engineer Thomas A. Watson. Elisha Gray, who developed a similar device at about the same time, will unsuccessfully challenge Bell's patent -
Phonograph
Working with a team of engineers at his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratories, Thomas Alva Edison perfects a system of sound recording and transmission. The first recording replayed is a voice saying "Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow. -
Typewriter
Inspired by a Scientific American article featuring a British attempt at a typing machine, Christopher Latham Sholes invents his own. In 1873 he sells an improved prototype to Remington and Sons, gunsmiths, of Ilion, New York, who begin to mass produce the machines. Among the first works to be produced on a typewriter is Mark Twain's "Adventures of Tom Sawyer. -
First U.S. Patent
The United States issues its first patent to William Pollard of Philadelphia. His machine roves and spins cotton
