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James Watt invents an improved steam engine
One Sunday in 1765, Watt was struck by the idea that was to spark the Industrial Revolution. Walking in a park near the Clyde, he suddenly he realised how he could make the standard Newcomen steam engine more efficient. He could use a separate chamber to condense steam without cooling the rest of the engine. -
The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&M) opened on 15 September 1830. Work on the L&M had begun in the 1820s, to connect the major industrial city of Manchester with the nearest deep water port at the Port of Liverpool, 35 miles (56 km) away. -
First oil well is drilled in Titusville
Drake to drill an oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, which produced oil on Aug. 27, 1859. The well was drilled to a depth of 69.5 feet, and it initially produced 25 barrels a day, the first well to produce oil in commercial quantities. -
Siemens built the first electric train
The first electric passenger train was presented by Werner von Siemens at Berlin in 1879. The locomotive was driven by a 2.2 kW, series-wound motor, and the train, consisting of the locomotive and three cars, reached a speed of 13 km/h. -
Edison lights up a street in Menlo Park using incandescent light bulbs
On October 21, 1879, Edison's light bulb burned for a continuous process and the street became the world's first street to be lit by incandescent light bulbs -
One of the first hydroelectric power plant inaugurated in Niagara Falls
Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse built the first hydro-electric power plant in Niagara Falls and started the electrification of the world. Adam's Power Station (Power House No. 3), the only remains of the old Niagara Falls Power Plant, may become a science museum. -
First electric street lighting in Salamanca
The newspaper El Progreso of September 10, 1884, publishes a note on the first test of electric lighting in Salamanca: «On Monday at eight o'clock at night the electric lighting flashed for the first time in Alamedilla. -
Karl Benz designed the world's first automobile
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen ("Benz patented motor car", translated from the German language) is a car model built by Carl Benz in 1885, considered the first vehicle in history designed to be powered by an internal combustion engine . -
World's first nuclear power station built in Obninsk
The Óbninsk Nuclear Power Plant was a Soviet nuclear power plant located in Óbninsk, 80 km from Moscow, and became operational on July 25, 1954, making it the first civilian nuclear power plant in history. -
Spain’s first nuclear power plant
The first Spanish nuclear power plant: José Cabrera. On July 17th, 1968, only five years after a group of companies and visionary professionals led the launching of nuclear energy in Spain, and three and a half years after construction started, the José Cabrera Nuclear Plant, also known as Zorita, began its operation. -
The world's worst nuclear accident happened at the Chernobyl plant
Chernobyl all-time worst nuclear accident. The meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986 exposed 572 million people to radiation. It was far worse than the 2011 Fukushima accident.
