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Does the inventions fit the timeline with regards to structures built before power tools 1895? Did horses and buggies transport tons of marble, steel, wood, concrete….before cars 1893? Were airplanes invented in 1903 and 66 years later in 1969, man lands on the moon?

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Technology timeline

by Chris Woodford. Last updated: February 12, 2023.

Inventions don't generally happen by accident or in a random order: science and technology progress in a very logical way, with each new discovery leading on from the last. You can see that in our mini chronology of invention, below. Please note: it's not meant to be a complete history of everything, and it doesn't include inventions or technologies that aren't covered somehow, somewhere on this website. It's really just another way to explore the articles on the site (for which there is also an A-Z index).

https://www.explainthatstuff.com/timeline.html

Date	Invention or discovery	Articles on Explain that stuff
Prehistory
4–5 billion years ago	Sun starts to produce energy.	Solar cells Energy
~3.5 million years ago	Humans make the first tools from stone, wood, antlers, and bones.	Tools and machines
1–2 million years ago	Humans discover fire.	Biofuels Candles Car engines Jet engines
10,000 BCE	Earliest boats are constructed.	Ships and boats
8000– 9000 BCE	Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture.	Biofuels Water
6000– 7000 BCE	Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle East.	Brick (ceramics)
Ancient times
4000 BCE	Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments.	Iron and steel
3500– 5000 BCE	Glass is made by people for the first time.	Glass
3500 BCE	Humans invent the wheel.	Tools and machines Wheels and axles
3000 BCE	First written languages are developed by the Sumerian people of southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq).	Communications Typewriters
~2500 BCE	Ancient Egyptians produce papyrus, a crude early version of paper.	Paper Communications
3000– 600BCE	Bronze Age: Widespread use of copper and its important alloy bronze.	Copper Alloys Metals
2000 BCE	Water-raising and irrigation devices like the shaduf (shadoof), invented by the Ancient Egyptians, introduce the idea of lifting things using counterweights.	Cranes Elevators Tools and machines
c1700 BCE	Semites of the Mediterranean develop the alphabet.	Communications
1000 BCE	Iron Age begins: iron is widely used for making tools and weapons in many parts of the world.	Iron and steel
600 BCE	Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity.	Electricity Static electricity History of electricity
500BCE– 900CE	Nazca people of Peru are believed to have experimented with balloon flight.	Hot-air balloons
400BCE– 300BCE	Chinese experiment with flying kites.	Airplanes History of flight
~250 BCE	Ancient Egyptians invent lighthouses, including the huge Lighthouse of Alexandria.	Fresnel lenses
~300– 200 BCE	Chinese invent early magnetic direction finders.	Compasses
~250 BCE	Archimedes invents the screw pump for moving water and other materials.	Tools and machines
c.150– 100 BCE	Gear-driven, precision clockwork machines (such as the Antikythera mechanism) are in existence.	Clockwork
c.50 BCE	Roman engineer Vitruvius perfects the modern, vertical water wheel.	Turbines
62 CE	Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, pioneers steam power.	Steam engines Steam turbines
105 CE	Ts'ai Lun makes the first paper in China.	Paper
27 BCE–395 CE	Romans develop the first, basic concrete called pozzolana.	Steel and concrete
Middle Ages
~600 CE	Windmills are invented in the Middle East.	Wind turbines
700–900 CE	Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.	Bullets Fireworks Space rockets
800–1300 CE	Thanks to inventors such as the Banū Mūsā brothers and al-Jazari, the Islamic "Golden Age" sees the development of a wide range of technologies, including ingenious clocks and feedback mechanisms that are the ancestors of modern automated factory machines.	Clockwork Cams and cranks Robots
1000 CE ??	Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses to frames that fit onto people's faces.	Lenses
1206	Arabic engineer al-Jazari invents a flushing hand-washing machine, one of the ancestors of the modern toilet.	Toilets
1232 CE	Chinese repel Mongol invaders using early rockets.	Space rockets
1450	Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printing press, using rearrangeable metal letters called movable type.	Printing
1470s	The first parachute is sketched on paper by an unknown inventor.	Parachutes
16th century
1530s	Gerardus Mercator helps to revolutionize navigation with better mapmaking.	Satellite navigation
1590	A Dutch spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen makes the first compound microscope.	Microscopes Electron microscopes
1596	Sir John Harington describes one of the first modern flush toilets.	Toilets
17th century
~1600	Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.	Thermometer
1600	William Gilbert publishes his great book De Magnetedescribing how Earth behaves like a giant magnet. It's the beginning of the scientific study of magnetism.	Magnetism History of electricity
1609	Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes new astronomical discoveries.	Space telescopes
mid-17th century	Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently develop microscopes.	Microscopes Electron microscopes
1643	Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.	Barometers
1650s	Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used to keep time).	Pendulum clocks
1687	Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion and gravity.	Motion Gravity
1700s	Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.	Pianos
18th century
1701	English farmer Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of agriculture by inventing the horse-drawn seed drill.	Tractors
1703	Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary number system now used in virtually all computers.	How computers work History of computers
1712	Thomas Newcomen builds the first practical (but stationary) steam engine.	Steam engines
1700s	Christiaan Huygens conceives the internal combustion engine, but never actually builds one.	Car engines
1737	William Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc on a large scale.	Metals
1757	John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that enables sailors to measure latitude.	Satellite navigation
1730s– 1770s	John Harrison develops reliable chronometers (seafaring clocks) that allow sailors to measure longitude accurately for the first time.	Quartz clocks and watches Satellite navigation
1756	Axel Cronstedt notices steam when he boils a rock—and discovers zeolites.	Zeolites
1769	Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the world's first speech synthesizer.	Speech synthesizers
1770s	Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a place now called Ironbridge in England.	Bridges
~1780	Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer.	Pyrometers
1783	French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air balloon.	Hot-air balloons
1791	Reverend William Gregor, a British clergyman and amateur geologist, discovers a mysterious mineral that he calls menachite. Four years later, Martin Klaproth gives it its modern name, titanium.	Titanium
19th century
1800	Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as a Voltaic pile).	Electricity Batteries History of electricity
1801	Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated cloth-weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns help to inspire programmable computers.	History of computers
1803	Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine.	Paper
1806	Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique and uses it to identify a number of new elements.	Electrolyzers
1806	Sir William Congreve develops long-range military rockets, based on an earlier Indian technology known as the Mysore rocket.	Space rockets
1807	Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp.	Xenon lamps
1814	George Stephenson builds the first practical steam locomotive.	Steam engines
1816	Robert Stirling invents the efficient Stirling engine.	Stirling engines
1820s– 1830s	Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.	Electricity generators Electric motors Hub motors
1824	Nicolas Sadi Carnot sets out his hugely influential theory of engine efficiency.	Heat engines
1827	Joseph Nicéphore Niépce makes the first modern photograph.	Photography Digital cameras
1830s	William Sturgeon develops the first practical electric motor.	Electric motors Hub motors
1830s	Louis Daguerre invents a practical method of taking pin-sharp photographs called Daguerreotypes.	Digital cameras Photography
1830s	William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way of making and printing photographs using reverse images called negatives.	Digital cameras Photography
1830s– 1840s	Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, in England, and Samuel Morse, in the United States, develop the electric telegraph (a forerunner of the telephone).	Telephones
1836	Englishman Francis Petit-Smith and Swedish-American John Ericsson independently develop propellers with blades for ships.	Propellers
1839	Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable form of rubber (vulcanized rubber) after many years of unsuccessful experimenting.	Rubber
1840s	Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlines the theory of the conservation of energy.	Energy Great physics experiments
1840s	Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive fax machine based on chemical technology.	Fax machines
1849	James Francis invents a water turbine now used in many of the world's hydropower plants.	Turbines Water
1850s	Henry Bessemer pioneers a new method of making steel in large quantities.	Iron and steel
1850s	Louis Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving food by heating it to kill off bacteria.	Pasteurization
1850s	Italian Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanical fax machine called the pantelegraph.	Fax machines
1860s	Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus Otto pioneer the internal combustion engine.	Car engines Cars, history of
1860s	James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves must exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism.	Radio
1860s	Fire extinguishers are invented.	Fire extinguisher
1861	Elisha Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake.	Elevators
1867	Joseph Monier invents reinforced concrete.	Reinforced concrete
1868	Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.	Typewriters
1871	Frank Wenham, a British aeronautical engineer, invents the wind tunnel.	Wind tunnels Aerodynamics
1876	Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone, though the true ownership of the invention remains controversial even today.	Telephones
1870s	Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the first practical method of recording and playing back sound on metal foil.	CD players MP3 players
1870s	Lester Pelton invents a useful new kind of water turbine known as a Pelton wheel.	Turbines
1877	Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a forerunner of the record player and CD player.	Record players Sound
1877	Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending distress flares at sea.	Flares
1880	Thomas Edison patents the modern incandescent electric lamp.	Incandescent lamps
1880	Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie discover the piezoelectric effect.	Piezoelectricity
1880s	Thomas Edison opens the world's first power plants.	Power plants
1880s	Charles Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine).	Autoclaves
1880s	Charles and Julia Hall and Paul Heroult independently develop an affordable way of making aluminum.	Aluminum
1880s	Carrie Everson invents new ways of mining silver, gold, and copper.	Copper
1881	Jacques d'Arsonval suggests heat energy could be extracted from the oceans.	OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)
1883	George Eastman invents plastic photographic film.	Digital cameras Plastics
1884	Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine.	Steam turbines Turbines
1885	Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.	Car engines
1886	Josephine Cochran invents the dishwasher.	Dishwashers
1888	Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals.	LCD screens and displays
1888	John Boyd Dunlop patents air-filled (pneumatic) tires.	Pneumatics
1888	Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current (AC) electric induction motor and, in opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes a staunch advocate of AC power.	Electricity Electric motors Induction motors Power plants
1899	Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at a safe distance.	Pyrometers
1890s	French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent movie projectors and open the first movie theater.	Projection TV
1890s	German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine—a more efficient internal combustion engine without a sparking plug.	Diesel engines
1890s	Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky figures out the theory of space rockets.	Space rockets
1894	Physicist Sir Oliver Lodge sends the first ever message by radio wave in Oxford, England.	Radio
1895	German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.	X rays
1895	American Ogden Bolton, Jr. invents the electric bicycle.	Electric bikes
1884	Charles G. Curtis develops the compound, impulse steam turbine.	Steam turbines
1898	Nikola Tesla invents remote, radio control.	Remote control
20th century
1901	Guglielmo Marconi sends radio-wave signals across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Canada	Radio
1901	The first electric vacuum cleaner is developed.	Vacuum cleaners
1903	Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build the first engine-powered airplane.	Airplanes History of flight
1905	Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect.	Photoelectric cells
1905	Samuel J. Bens invents the chainsaw.	Chainsaws
1906	Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner.	Air conditioners
1906	Mikhail Tswett discovers chromatography.	Chromatography
1907	Leo Baekeland develops Bakelite, the first popular synthetic plastic.	Plastics
1907	Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.	Clothes washer
1906-8	Frederick Gardner Cottrell develops the electrostatic smoke precipitator (smokestack pollution scrubber).	Air pollution Electrostatic smoke precipitators
1908	American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches the Ford Model T, the world's first truly affordable car.	Car engines Cars, history of
1909	German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz develop the glass electrode, enabling very precise measurements of acidity.	pH meters
1910	Romanian-born Henri-Marie Coandă builds a simple jet plane, but it never actually flies.	Jet engines History of flight
1912	American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic chemistry that leads to practical, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (though they don't appear in a practical, commercial form until the 1990s).	Lithium-ion batteries
1912	Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter, a detector for radioactivity.	Geiger counters
1916	Robert Hutchings Goddard, an American physicist, publishes influential ideas on building space rockets.	Space rockets
1919	Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes.	Mass spectrometers
1920s	John Logie Baird develops mechanical television.	Television LCD TV
1920s	Philo T. Farnsworth invents modern electronic television.	Television LCD TV
1920s	Robert H. Goddard develops the principle of the modern, liquid-fueled space rocket.	Bullets Space rockets
1920s	German engineer Gustav Tauschek and American Paul Handel independently develop primitive optical character recognition (OCR) scanning systems.	OCR
1920s	Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can generate microwaves from electricity.	Magnetrons Microwave ovens
1921	Karel Capek and his brother coin the word "robot" in a play about artificial humans.	Robots
1921	John Larson develops the polygraph ("lie detector") machine.	Forensic science
1928	Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals for air conditioners and refrigerators.	Air conditioners Refrigerators
1928	The electric refrigerator is invented.	Refrigerators
1920s– 1930s	Frank Whittle of England and Hans Pabst von Ohain of Germany develop rival jet engines.	Jet engine
1930s	Peter Goldmark pioneers color television.	Television LCD TV
1930s	Laszlo and Georg Biro pioneer the modern ballpoint pen.	Digital pens
1930s	Maria Telkes creates the first solar-powered house.	Passive solar Solar cells
1930s	Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber used in wetsuits) and nylon, the first popular synthetic clothing material.	Kevlar Nomex Nylon Wetsuits
1930s	Robert Watson Watt oversees the development of radar.	Radar
1930s	Arnold Beckman develops the electronic pH meter.	pH meters
1931	Harold E. Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for high-speed photography.	Xenon lamps
1932	Arne Olander discovers the shape memory effect in a gold-cadmium alloy.	Shape memory alloys
1936	W.B. Elwood invents the magnetic reed switch.	Reed switches
1938	Chester Carlson invents the principle of photocopying (xerography).	Photocopiers
1938	Roy Plunkett accidentally invents a nonstick plastic coating called Teflon®.	GORE-TEX® Nonstick pans
1939	Igor Sikorsky builds the first truly practical helicopter.	Helicopters
1940s	English physicists John Randall and Harry Boot develop a compact magnetron for use in airplane radar navigation systems.	Magnetrons Radar
1942	Enrico Fermi builds the first nuclear chain reactor at the University of Chicago.	Nuclear power
1945	US government scientist Vannevar Bush proposes a kind of desk-sized memory store called Memex, which has some of the features later incorporated into electronic books and the World Wide Web (WWW).	Electronic books World Wide Web
1945	Arthur C. Clarke conceives the idea of the communications satellite, a space-based signal "mirror" that can bounce radio waves from one side of Earth to the other.	Satellites
1947	John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invent the transistor, which allows electronic equipment to made much smaller and leads to the modern computer revolution.	Amplifiers Electronics History of computers Transistors
1949	Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—striped patterns that are initially developed for marking products in grocery stores.	Barcodes and barcode scanners
1950s	Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the maser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word "laser" and builds the first optical laser in 1958.	Lasers
1950s	Stanford Ovshinksy develops various technologies that make renewable energy more practical, including practical solar cells and improved rechargeable batteries.	Batteries Electric bicycles Electric cars Solar cells
1950s	European bus companies experiment with using flywheels as regenerative brakes	Flywheels
1950s	Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook with microwaves, inadvertently inventing the microwave oven.	Microwave ovens
1956	British computer pioneer Alan Turing describes an "imitation game" for testing whether machines can think. It's now known as the Turing test.	Artificial intelligence
1952	American John W. Hetrick and German Walter Linderer independently invent the automobile airbag.	Airbags
1954	Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.	Fiber optics
1955	US electrical engineer Eugene Polley invents the TV remote control.	Remote control
1956	First commercial nuclear power is produced at Calder Hall, Cumbria, England.	Nuclear power plants
1956	US computer scientist John McCarthy coins the term "artificial intelligence."	Artificial intelligence
1957	Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch the Sputnik space satellite.	Satellites
1957	Lawrence Curtiss, Basil Hirschowitz, and Wilbur Peters build the first fiber-optic gastroscope.	Fiber optics
1958	Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, working independently, develop the integrated circuit.	History of computers integrated circuits Transistors
1959	IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC-1), the first computer-aided design (CAD) system.	Computer graphics
1960s	Joseph-Armand Bombardier perfects his Ski-Doo® snowmobile.	Snowmobiles
1960	Theodore Maiman invents the ruby laser.	Lasers
1962	William Armistead and S. Donald Stookey of Corning Glass Works invent light-sensitive (photochromic) glass.	Photochromic lenses
1962	Nick Holonyak invents the LED (light-emitting diode) while working at General Electric.	Diodes and LEDs
1963	Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, one of the first computer-aided design programs.	Computer graphics
1964	IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airline ticket reservation system called SABRE.	E-commerce
1965	Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for treating cardiac arrest patients.	Defibrillators
1966	Stephanie Kwolek patents a super-strong plastic called Kevlar.	Kevlar
1966	Robert H. Dennard of IBM invents dynamic random access memory (DRAM).	Computer memory
1967	Japanese company Noritake invents the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD).	Vacuum fluorescent displays
1968	Alfred Y. Cho and John R. Arthur, Jr invent a precise way of making single crystals called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).	Molecular beam epitaxy
1969	World's first solar power station opened in France.	Solar cells Energy
1969	Robert W. Gore develops an ingenious waterproof material called GORE-TEX® by stretching slippery, nonstick PTFE (Teflon®).	GORE-TEX®
1969	Long before computers become portable, Alan Kay imagines building an electronic book, which he nicknames the Dynabook.	Electronic books
1969	Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invent the CCD (charge-coupled device): the light-sensitive chip used in digital cameras, webcams, and other modern optical equipment.	CCDs Digital cameras
1969	Astronauts walk on the Moon.	Space rockets
1960s	Douglas Engelbart develops the computer mouse.	Computer mouse
1960s	James Russell invents compact discs.	CD players
1971	Electronic ink is pioneered by Nick Sheridon at Xerox PARC.	Electronic ink and paper
1971	Ted Hoff builds the first single-chip computer or microprocessor.	History of computers
1973	Martin Cooper develops the first handheld cellphone (mobile phone).	Cellphones
1973	Robert Metcalfe figures out a simple way of linking computers together that he names Ethernet. Most computers hooked up to the Internet now use it.	Computer networks Internet
1974	First grocery-store purchase of an item coded with a barcode.	Barcodes and barcode scanners
1975	Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman invent public-key cryptography.	Encryption
1975	Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system.	Smart homes
1976	Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs launch the Apple I: one of the world's first personal home computers	History of computers
1970s– 1980s	James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuum cleaner.	Vacuum cleaners
1970s– 1980s	Scientists including Charles Bennett, Paul Benioff, Richard Feynman, and David Deutsch sketch out how quantum computers might work.	Quantum computers
1980s	Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita develops the Sony Walkman, the first truly portable player for recorded music.	CD players MP3 players
1981	Stung by Apple's success, IBM releases its own affordable personal computer (PC).	History of computers
1981	The Space Shuttle makes its maiden voyage.	Space Shuttle
1981	Patricia Bath develops laser eye surgery for removing cataracts.	Lasers
1981	Fujio Masuoka files a patent for flash memory—a type of reusable computer memory that can store information even when the power is off.	Flash memory
1981– 1982	Alexei Ekimov and Louis E. Brus (independently) discover quantum dots.	Quantum dots
1983	Compact discs (CDs) are launched as a new way to store music by the Sony and Philips corporations.	CD players
1987	Larry Hornbeck, working at Texas Instruments, develops DLP® projection—now used in many projection TV systems.	DLP® projectors
1989	Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.	Internet World Wide Web
1990	German watchmaking company Junghans introduces the MEGA 1, believed to be the world's first radio-controlled wristwatch.	Radio-controlled clocks Quartz clocks and watches
1991	Linus Torvalds creates the first version of Linux, a collaboratively written computer operating system.	Computers Linux
1994	American-born mathematician John Daugman perfects the mathematics that make iris scanning systems possible.	Iris scans
1994	Japanese Masahiro Hara invents a two-dimensional barcode known as the QR Code®.	QR codes and 2D barcodes
1994	Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invent VoIP for sending telephone calls over the Internet.	VoIP
1995	Broadcast.com becomes one of the world's first online radio stations.	Streaming media
1995	Pierre Omidyar launches the eBay auction website.	E-commerce
1996	WRAL-HD broadcasts the first high-definition television (HDTV) signal in the United States.	HDTV
1997	Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi a worldwide standard for wireless Internet.	Wireless Internet
21st century
2001	Apple revolutionizes music listening by unveiling its iPod MP3 music player.	MP3 players
2001	Richard Palmer develops energy-absorbing D3O plastic.	Energy-absorbing materials
2001	The Wikipedia online encyclopedia is founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.	Electronic books
2001	Bram Cohen develops BitTorrent file-sharing.	BitTorrent Internet
2001	Scott White, Nancy Sottos, and colleagues develop self-healing materials.	Self-healing materials
2002	iRobot Corporation releases the first version of its Roomba® vacuum cleaning robot.	Roomba Robots
2004	Electronic voting plays a major part in a controversial US Presidential Election.	Touchscreens
2004	Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discover graphene.	Graphene
2005	A pioneering low-cost laptop for developing countries called OLPC is announced by MIT computing pioneer Nicholas Negroponte.	Computers
2007	Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book) reader.	Electronic books
2007	Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the iPhone.	Cellphones Touchscreens
2010	Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad.	Computers Touchscreens
2010	3D TV starts to become more widely available.	3D Television Television
2013	Elon Musk announces "hyperloop"—a giant, pneumatic tube transport system.	Pneumatics Pneumatic transport tube
2015	Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a mere 30 times less powerful than human brains.	Supercomputers
2016	Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building miniature machines out of molecules.	Nanotechnology
2019	Google claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy"—with a quantum computer that calculates faster than a conventional one.	Quantum computers
2020	DeepMind, Google/Alphabet's artificial intelligence computer program, cracks the classic problem of protein folding.	Neural networks Artificial intelligence
2022	NASA unveils Space Launch System (SLS), a new moon rocket 15 percent more powerful than the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo era.	Space rockets
2023	Microsoft announces a new version of its Bing search engine incorporating ChatGPT, an "artificially intelligent" chatbot, for smarter answers to search queries.	Artificial intelligence