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3000 BCE
Swords
Ancient Egyptians invented the sword during the Bronze Age. Other cultures soon adopted swords, and they became popular. The sword evolved from the dagger and was made of copper or tin bronze. The sword symbolized liberty and faith and was said to be the emblem for military honor. -
3000 BCE
Bow and arrow
People in Africa invented hunting bows and arrows, probably about 64,000 years ago. Some of the earliest arrowheads came from South Africa. Bows were used for hunting and archery. -
2500 BCE
Ships
Around this time, 2500 B.C. the ancient Egyptians began to build wooden boats that were able to withstand sailing across oceans. The ancient Egyptians used reeds to build what are thought to be the first sailing boats in the world. The reed boats had sails and a mast and were used on the Nile River. The vikings also built longboats which it took 60 men to row. -
1500 BCE
Pulley System
It was known that in 1500 B.C.E people in Mesopotamia used rope pulleys for hoisting water. One of the first names we associate with pulleys is that of Archimedes, a famous Greek scientist born in Syracuse. Archimedes studied many areas of science and invented many devices, and it is said that he used pulleys to drag a ship out of the ocean and onto land. -
400 BCE
Camera
The first pinhole camera (also called the Camera Obscura) was invented by Alhazen in 945. The first cameras were used not to create images but to study optics. The Arab scholar Alhazen is generally credited as being the first person to study how we see. He invented the Camera Obscura to demonstrate how light can be used to project an image onto a flat surface. Earlier references to the camera obscura have been found in Chinese texts dating to about 400 B.C. -
236 BCE
Elevator
According to the writings of Vitruvius, the Greek mathematician Archimedes created a primitive elevator in 236B.C. that was operated by hoisting ropes wound around a drum and rotated by manpower applied to a revolving cylinder. In ancient Rome, a complex of rooms, animal pens and tunnels stood beneath the Colosseum. At various intervals, elevators powered by hundreds of men using winches and counterweights brought gladiators and large animals up through vertical shafts into the arena for battle. -
wheelchair
The 1st known wheelchair was invented in 1595 and was called the invalid chair. It was made for Phillip II of Spain by an unknown inventor. In 1783, John Dawson of Bath, England, invented a wheelchair named after the town of Bath. Dawson designed a chair with two large wheels and one small one. The Bath wheelchair outsold all other wheelchairs throughout the early part of the 19th century. It was known to be uncomfortable and was later fixed to the liking of all people. -
wheelchair
The first known wheelchair was invented in 1595 and was called the Invalid chair. It was made foe Phillip II of Spain by an unknown inventor. In 1783, John Dawson of Bath, England, invented a wheelchair named after the town of Bath. Dawson designed a chair with two large wheels and one small one. The Bath wheelchair outsold all other wheelchairs throughout the early part of the 19th century. The wheelchair was known to be very uncomfortable. They then fixed the wheelchair to the liking's -
Record player
This technology has quite the storied history. The first version of the turntable was created by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. He created the phonautograph in France way back in 1857. Yet this device could not play sound back. Rather, it inscribed airborne noise onto paper for visual study. The phonautograph was mainly used in lab settings. The phonautograph then evolved into a record player. Thomas Edison got credited for this invention in 1877. Then everyone would make a better system. -
Phones
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. And then in 1900, on December 23 on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., an inventor named Reginald Fessenden accomplished a remarkable feat: He made the first wireless telephone call. He was the first to transmit the human voice via radio waves, sending a signal from one radio tower to another. -
Airplane
Wilbur and Orville Wright were American inventors and pioneers of aviation. In 1903 the Wright brothers achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight. They achieved their own milestone two years later when they built and flew the first fully built airplane. This led to their fame that would be with them for the rest of their lives. -
Spaceship
No one person invented the first spacecraft, but rather it was the work of a very large team. The first ship to safely put a man in space and orbit the earth was Vostok 1, piloted by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Sergei Korolëv was the lead designer of the Soviet space program at the time, but many other people were involved in the process. The Russians were the first to send a man in space.