Time Line of Discoveries and Inventions
This timeline includes important events, discoveries and inventions that
have contributed to our present day chemistry class. Many of the entries have
not yet been completed. The projects are researched by individual students in my
CHM 1030 class.[Landmarks that are not directly related to chemistry are colored coded and
are included to help understand the development of a time period or an event that changed the
world.] Click here to check any date in history. [Time lines]
8000 BC Fermentation
7000 BC Jericho [oldest city finally excavated in 1951]
6000 BC Linen fabric made
5000 BC Cu mines in Egypt
Beginning of Bronze Age
4000 BC Metals used:
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Bronze [alloy of Cu & Sn], more on copper
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Ag
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Au
Gold
Papyrus used in Egypt
3500 BC Wheel cart used & potter's wheel Mesopotamia
2800 BC Glass invention & Calendar
[ collapse of bronze age]
Beginning of Iron Age
2500 BC Fe discovered
2000 BC Hg used in Egypt & code of Hammurabi
History of Time
1500 BC Sundial used in Egypt
1000 BC Chaldeans use H2O clocks
800 BC Iron utentsils
600 BC olive tree brought to Italy by Greeks
450 BC carrier pigeons used in Greece for communication
400 BC NaCl used in food and in commerce
Sugar used
350 BC Fe used in China [time line of Chinese developments]
215 BC Great wall of China built to keep foreigners out [1400 miles long]
40 BC Atomic theory
31 BC Start of Roman Empire
Age of Alchemy [more history of alchemy]
4 BC ..................................................1661
0
BC and AD are replaced by BCE [before common era] and CE [common era]
time line
4-6 AD Christ born [BC & AD based on birth of this person]
50 First use of soap by Romans [learned from Gauls]
100 World's population 0.25 billion
271 First form of compass used in Japan
306-337 Emperor Constantine crowned
330 Constantinople capital of East
410 Rome sacked & modern beginning of Alchemy
476 Roman Empire ends in West
480-543 Rule of Benedict
600 Book printing in China
Porcelain manufactured
Chinese use explosives
700 Water wheels used in Europe
720 Arabs invent acids
751 Chinese paper makers captured by Arabs
760 Arabic numerals
782 Chemistry studied apart from Alchemy
800 Coronation of Charlemagne
850 Gunpowder used in China
900 Manufacture of sulfuric acid
1000 Widespread fear of the end of world
 Improvement of harness for horses
 Better food production [due to 3 field system of crop rotation]
 Windmills invented as new source of power
1054 Schism of East & West
1066 Halley's comet observed
1090 Water driven mechanical clock in Peking
1095 First Crusades
1100 Rise of towns
1119 First University [Bologna in Italy]
1151 China use explosives for warfare
1158 Munich center of NaCl trade
1180 First glass windows
1190 Compass comes to Europe from China
1211 Genghis Khan invades China
1215 Magna Carta signed
1271 Marco Polo journeys to China
1278 Glass mirror invented
1290 Glasses invented [1518 spectacles for short sighted manufactured]
1300's Universities started & Start of witch hunts
1300 World's population 0.5 billion
1332 Plague starts in India
1374 Black Death Europe [1/3 of population dies]
1450 Greatest fear of witches and greatest number of death; lasts 200 yrs
1453 Printed Word
Gutenberg Bible
& Constantinople falls to Turks
1489 First use of +, - in mathematics
1492 America discoveredColumbus
1499 Sb discovered in Hungary
1500
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Start of Italian Renaissance
First Pb pencils
1512 Copernicus Heliocentric Universe
1513 Florida discovered
1517 Luther's 95 Theses on Wittenberg door
1519 Magellan circumnavigates the globe
1531 Halley's comet causes wave of superstition
1534 Henry VIII breaks from Roman Church
1582 Gregorian calandar [Jan 1 is new year's day not March 25]
1589 Forks introduced into France
1590 Microscope invented
1592 Galileo invents thermometer
1602 BaS discovered by Cascarido
1608 Telescope invented by Lippershey
1610



1st Chemistry book
Galileo proves earth revolves around sun
Galileo improves telescope
1612 1st manual for making glass
1615 Galileo faces Inquisition first time & 1616 prohibited from further scientific study
1622 January first adopted as 1st day of new year [used to be March 25]
1625 Glauber discovers Glauber's salt
1631 X used in math in England
1641 Arsenic used as a medicine
1643 Torricelli invents barometer
1650 ~ 500 million people in the world
1657 Fountain pens used in Paris
& Huygens designs pendulum for clock
1658 Hooke invents balance spring for watch [history of time pieces]
1661 Boyle writes definition of chemical elements
1665 Hooke invents microscope
1666 Newton's law of gravity
1668 Leeuwenhoek describes rbc with microscope
1669 P prepared by Brand an alchemist from Hamburg
1674 First microbe observed
1695 Epsom salts discovered [MgSO4] England by Grew
1698 Tax on beards in Russia
1700


Tax on unmarried women in Berlin
NH4Cl discoved in France by Tournefort
1702 First steam engine Newcomen used to pump water from mines
1705 Halley predicts return of comet in 1758
1714 Fahrenheit Hg thermometer
1730 Zn smelting in England
1732 Boerhaave writes Elements of Chemistry
1733 Great Bell of Moscow cast [193 tons]
1742 Celsius invents centigrade thermometer
1743 First settlement in South Dakota
1750 Industrial Revolution [some date start as 1769]
1752 Liberty bell cast [England finally accepts Gregorian calendar]
1754 Black discovers "carbolic acid gas" [CO2]
1756 Chocolate Factory in Germany
1766 Cavendish discovers hydrogen less dense than air
1769 First lightning rods used on tall buildings
1771 O2 discovered Lavoisier
1772 Priestly and Rutherford independently discover N2
1774
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
Gahn isolates Mn
Scheele discovers Cl and Ba
1775-1783 American Revolution
1775
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
Priestly discovers HCl & H2SO4
Lavoisier proves that air contains oxygen and nitrogen gases
Watts perfects steam engine
1776 US Declaration of Independence
1777 Lavoisier proves that air consists mainly of O2 and N2
1780 Matches invented
1781 W discovered by Scheele
1785 Chemical bleaching by Berthollet
1790


Lavoisier has table of 31 chemical elements
Serfdom abolished in Europe [people free personally in law, to marry, to migrate &
choose occupations]
1793 Cotton gin invented Whitney
1795 Metric System in France adopted
1797 Cr discovered Vauguelin
1799 Rosetta stone found [allowed deciphering of hieroglyphics]
1800 Volta produces electricity from battery of Zn & Cu
1802 Dalton introduces atomic theory
1803 Berzelius discovers Cerium
1804 Wollaston finds Pd in Pt
1806


Davy discovers electrolytic method for making pure K & Na
End of the Holy Roman Empire
1807
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
Gay-Lussac's combinatin of gases
Fulton Steam ship
1809 Braille system for blind
1810 Appert develops techniques for canning food
1817 Berzelius discovers Se & Li
1818


Berzelius publishes molecular weight of 2000 compounds
Stromeyer & Hermann discover Cd
1823 Faraday liquefy Cl
1827

Wohler obtains Al from clay

Walker invents sulfur friction matches
1829


Stephenson's steam locomotive [16 mph called "rocket"]
Daguerre & Niepce form partnership for photographic inventions
1830 Beginning of sewing machine by Thimonnier
1831 Sauria develops method to make matches ignite without blowing up
1836 Phillips patents white P matches in US
[1848 Bottger's matches called safety matches]
1834 McCormic patents reaping machine
1835 Halley's comet reappears
1839


Goodyear discovers vulcanization (rubber + sulfur + heat) [commerical use of rubber]
Macmillian first bicycle
1840 Beginning of railroad construction
1841 First university degree granted to women in US
1844 Morse's telegraph message between Baltimore and Washington
1846 Howe improves sewing machine[1850 Singer perfects sewing machine]
1847 Sobrero prepares nitroglycerine
1848 Beginning of women's suffrage
1849 Fizeau measures speed of light
1855


Audemars patents production of rayon [made from wood pulp]
E.coli discovered [most highly studied of bacteria]
1856 Bessemer refines steel [burns off C in molten Fe ore with oxygen]
First plastic manufactured
Beginning of Steel Age
1857 Pasteur proves fermentation caused by living organisms
1859 Darwin's Origin of Species
1860 Bunsen & Kirchoff discover Cs & Rubidium
1861-1865 American Civil War
1864 Pasteur
invents pasteurization of wine
1865 Emancipation Proclamation in US
1866 Nobel invents dynamite
1869


Mendeleyev formulates Periodic law for classificatin of Elements
Suez Canal open (shortens route from to Europe to India by 6000 miles)
1873 Remington (gunsmith) produces typewriters
1876 Bell invents telephone [in 100 yrs 750 million people have telephones]
1880 Edison & Swan first practical electric lights
1883 Krakato erupted loudest sound heard
Four time zones in USA
1886

Moissan produces F

Coca-cola
invented by Pemberton [more than 600 million sold daily in 1997]
1888 Eastman perfects Kodak box camera
1891 Zippers invented
[practical use in 1919]
1892 Rayon manufactered in England
1895 First motion pictures
1896 X-rays
1897 Thomson discovers electron
1898 Curie discovers Ra
1898 Effiel Tower built in Paris [tallest building in world]
Neon discovered
1900 World population 1.6 million
1901 Marconi tansmits telegraphic wireless message [radio, TV & cellular phones from this]
1903 Wright brothers power airplane
1904 Kipping discovers Si
1905 Ne lights
1907 first plastic material "Bakelite" [substitute for ivory]
Beginning of Age of Plastics
1908 Ford produces first car
1912

Cellophane manufactered

Titanic sinks 1513 drowned
1913 "isotope" coined as word by Soddy
1914-1918 WWI
1915



Einstein general theory of relativity
Ford produces 10 million cars
Viruses discovered
his time line
1918-1919 22 million people die from influenza pandemic
1920



Women win right to vote in US
Polyester invented
First household refrigerators [ice machine invented 1865 by Lowe]
1921


Calmette & Guerin develop BCG vaccine for TB
Robots invented
1922 Harwood invents self winding wrist watches
1923 Bronsted theory of acids & bases
1924 Baird inventor of 1st TV
[color TV in 1928]
1925 World's population 2 billion
1929



Al chairs
Great Depression
Start of Empire State Bldg [900 ft tall, 102 stories, surpases Eiffel Tower]
1930



Reppe develops artifical fabric
Photoflash bulbs
Landsteiner ABO blood group system
1932 Electron microscope
1933-1945 Holocaust in Europe [more about history of Holocaust]
1933 60,000 artists & scientists emigrate from Germany
1935 Nylon invented
1937 Carothers patents nylon for Dupont
[1939 1st nylon stockings]
1939-1945 WWII
1939


Polyethylene invented
Muller synthesizes DDT
1940 Manhattan project
Atomic Age
1942 Fermi splits atom
1945




Atomic Bomb detonated in New Mexico
Atomic Bomb used in warfare
Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombed
United Nations founded
1946 Xerography process invented Carlson
1947 Transitor invented [used in TV, CD player, faxes and radio]
1950


World Population 2.5 billion
1.5 million TV sets in US
1950-1953 Korean War
1951 color TV sets & electric power from atomic energy
1952 Jericho excavated
1953 DNA 3D structure
1954 Hydrogen bomb tested
1957 Russians launch first space satellite Sputnik I
1958


First moon rocket launched
Satellite launched
1959 Synthetic diamonds DeBeers
1960



Lasers invented
World's population 3 billion]
44% of worlds population illiterate
1961 Berlin Wall
1961-1973 Vietnam War
1968 steps to ban use of DDT
1969

Internet starts [see time line for developments]

Armstrong walks on surface of moon
1972


All volunteer military in US
First e-mail sent by Queen Elizabeth
1973 Pocket calculator
1975


Computer
World's population 4 billion
1977 US confirms testing of neutron bomb
1978


1st test tube baby born in England
US finally returns crown jewels to Hungary after WWII
1980 World's population 5 billion
1984 Toxic gas spill in India
1985 First cases of AIDS
1986


Chernobyl Accidentin Soviet Union
Challengershuttle explodes
1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 million gallons crude oil Alaska
1990-1991 Persian Gulf War
1990 Hubble telescope [more pictures] (about Hubble)
1991

Kuwait oil spill 460 million gallons in Persian Gulf [deliberate]

Kuwait oil field fires
1993 WWW as we know it today
1997 Scottish scientists clone sheep "dolly"
1998 Chemistry Class @ sfcc on web
1999 Chemistry laboratory designed for remote locations. "Kitchen Laboratory" includes,
chemicals, equipement, and CD-ROM for virtual components
2000 millennium changes 21 century
2001 September 11 terrorists attack World Trade Center
2002 Virtual Chemistry CD rom
2003
2004
and Pentegon