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Benjamin Franklin Invents the Lightning Rod
Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, a device that is now used to protect houses and other buildings from being struck by lightning during a storm. Franklin used the lightning rod to prove that lightning was made of electricity. -
The First Battery
Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the forerunner to the modern battery. The device was created to prove that animal tissue does not create its own electricity during a scientific debate with Galvani. This early battery was immediately recognized by other inventors and used to further their own experiments. Volta proved that electricity can travel over wires. -
Michael Faraday Discovers the Principles of Electromagnetism Induction, Generation, and Transmission
Electromagnetic Induction - the production of current in a conductor as it moves through a magnetic field.
Michael Faraday discovered the relationship between and magnetic field and the electric current that it causes. -
Edison Demonstrates the First Incandescent Lightbulb
In 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated his first light bulb in Menlo Park. November of that year, he filed for a patent for a light bulb with a carbon filament. In the following years, he used bamboo filaments. Tungsten, the material he knew would work best, wasn't able to be made into thin wires at the time. His invention changed the way society functioned; it allowed people to not be bound to candles or daylight. -
The First Hydroelectric Power Station
On September 30, 1882, the first hydroelectric power station began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. The power station was initiated by Appleton paper manufacturer H.J. Rogers, who had been inspired by Thomas Edison's plans for an electricity-producing station in New York. -
The Electric Refrigerator is Invented
Michael Faraday and Dr. William Cullen, the pioneers of refrigeration, made discoveries that led General Electric to make, reveal, and sell home refrigerators in the 1910s and 1920s. -
Discovery of Fission
Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, German radiochemists, discover the process of fission in uranium. -
The Transistor is Invented
Scientists were working to find a device that could replace the vacuum tube. The vacuum tube was, then, the only way to amplify signals and serve as switching devices in electronics. Vacuum tubes were expensive, unreliable, consumed too much power, and got very hot. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley (all with PhDs) patented their stab at the problem, and it became the first transistor. -
U.S. Opens Its First Wind Farm
The first large wind farm in the U.S. was installed in California in 1980. People grew more aware of the environment, and their effect on it; this led to the development of lower impact designs, and more alternative eneregy resources. -
Chernobyl Accident Occurs
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in Ukraine, melted down in April of 1986. The meltdown killed one person instantly, and a total 30 in the following months. The Chernobyl plant had a unique design (one that has not been used since the accident) and the meltdown was a result of design flaws and inadequately trained workers.
