History of energy

The history of energy

By Amets Gorospe
  • 200,000 BCE

    The energy at Prehistory

    The energy at Prehistory
    The first evidence of the use of an external energy source by humans came a lot of years ago with the discovery of fire. It took several thousand years for humans to learn to control fire at will whenever they needed to warm themselves, cook, or defend themselves from beasts. Later, new discoveries were involved in energy. The invention of the wheel (3500 BC) and the sail facilitated transportation by land and sea. The first, exploiting animal strength; the second, the energy of the wind. c
  • 1000

    During The Middle Ages

    During The Middle Ages
    In the Middle Ages, hydraulic and wind mills emerged to grind cereals or pump water. The use of coal as a source of combustion energy instead of wood also began to proliferate.
    China is owed the discovery of gunpowder at the end of the Middle Ages, which provided great destructive power from the chemical energy it stored.

  • 17-18 centuries

    17-18 centuries
    At the end of the 17th century, important progress took place in Physics and Chemistry, which would lead to the development of the steam engine, a pillar of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Its applications in maritime transport and railways became widespread worldwide.

  • The XIX century

    The XIX century
    The combustion of wood sustained this development until the mid-19th century until, first with coal and then with oil, fossil fuels took on a role that still exists. Knowledge about Electricity and Electromagnetism made it possible to transform electrical energy into mechanical energy. This is how direct and then alternating electric current motors arrived, and at the end of the s. XIX, Nikolaus August Otto would invent the internal combustion engine.

  • 20-21 centuries

    20-21 centuries
    The bases of Nuclear Energy would be discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, with the first artificial fission of the Uranium atom being carried out in 1938 by Otto Hahn. Four years later, Enrico Fermi would build the first nuclear reactor. At the same time, its military applications would be developed, put into practice in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and whose threat would mark the Cold War between the US and the USSR during the second half of the 20th century.