Year
|
Event
|
600 BC |
Ancient Greek philosopher
Thales of Miletus described
static electricity by rubbing fur on substances such as
amber
|
1600 |
English scientist
William Gilbert coined the word electricus after careful experiments. He also explained the magnetism of Earth.
|
1660 |
German scientist
Otto von Guericke invented a device that creates static electricity. This is the first ever electric generator.
|
1705 |
English scientist
Francis Hauksbee made a glass ball that glowed when spun and rubbed with the hand
|
1720 |
English scientist
Stephen Gray made the distinction between insulators and conductors
|
1745 |
German physicist
Ewald Georg von Kleist and Dutch scientist
Pieter van Musschenbroek invented
Leyden jars
|
1752 |
American scientist
Benjamin Franklin showed that lightning was electrical by flying a kite and explained how
Leyden jars work
|
1780 |
Italian scientist
Luigi Galvani discovered
Galvanic action in living tissue
|
1785 |
French physicist
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb formulated and published
Coulomb's law in his paper Premier Mémoire sur l’Électricité et le Magnétisme
|
1785 |
French mathematician
Pierre-Simon Laplace developed the
Laplace transform to transform a linear differential equation into an algebraic equation. Later, his transform became a tool in circuit analysis.
|
1800 |
Italian physicist
Alessandro Volta invented the battery
|
1804 |
Thomas Young:
Wave theory of light,
Vision and color theory
|
1808 |
Atomic theory by
John Dalton
|
1816 |
English inventor
Francis Ronalds built the first working
electric telegraph
|
1820 |
Danish physicist
Hans Christian Ørsted accidentally discovered that an electric field creates a magnetic field
|
1820 |
One week after Ørsted's discovery, French physicist
André-Marie Ampère published his law. He also proposed the
right-hand screw rule
|
1821 |
German scientist
Thomas Johann Seebeck discovered
thermoelectricity
|
1825 |
English physicist
William Sturgeon developed the first
electromagnet
|
1827 |
German physicist
Georg Ohm introduced the concept of
electrical resistance
|
1831 |
English physicist
Michael Faraday published the
law of induction (Joseph Henry developed the same law independently)
|
1831 |
American scientist
Joseph Henry in the United States developed a prototype
DC motor
|
1832 |
French instrument maker
Hippolyte Pixii in France developed a prototype
DC generator
|
1833 |
Michael Faraday developed the laws of
electrolysis
|
1833 |
Michael Faraday invented the
thermistor
|
1833 |
English physicist
Samuel Hunter Christie invented the
Wheatstone bridge (It is named after
Charles Wheatstone who popularized it)
|
1836 |
Irish priest (and later scientist)
Nicholas Callan invented the
transformer in Ireland
|
1837 |
English scientist
Edward Davy invented the
electric relay
|
1839 |
French scientist
Edmond Becquerel discovered the
Photovoltaic Effect
|
1844 |
American inventor
Samuel Morse developed telegraphy and the Morse code
|
1844 |
Woolrich Generator, the earliest
electrical generator used in an industrial process.
[3]
|
1845 |
German physicist
Gustav Kirchhoff developed the two laws now known as Kirchhoff's Circuit laws
|
1850 |
Belgian engineer
Floris Nollet invented (and patented) a practical AC generator
|
1851 |
Heinrich Daniel Ruhmkorff developed the first coil, which he patented in 1851
|
1855 |
First utilization of AC (in electrotherapy) by French neurologist
Guillaume Duchenne
|
1856 |
Belgian engineer
Charles Bourseul proposed
telephony
|
1856 |
First electrically powered lighthouse in England
|
1860 |
German scientist
Johann Philipp Reis invented the
Microphone
|
1862 |
Scottish physicist
James Clerk Maxwell published the four equations bearing his name
|
1866 |
The
Transatlantic telegraph cable
|
1873 |
Belgian engineer
Zenobe Gramme who developed the DC generator accidentally discovered that a DC generator also works as a DC motor during an exhibit in Vienna.
|
1876 |
Paper capacitor manufacturing started
|
1876 |
Russian engineer
Pavel Yablochkov invented the electric carbon
arc lamp
|
1876 |
Scottish inventor
Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone
|
1877 |
American inventor
Thomas Edison invented the
phonograph
|
1877 |
German industrialist
Werner von Siemens developed a primitive
loudspeaker
|
1878 |
First electric street lighting in Paris, France
|
1878 |
First hydroelectric plant in Cragside, England
|
1878 |
William Crookes invents the Crookes tube, a prototype of Vacuum tubes
|
1878 |
English engineer
Joseph Swan invented the
Incandescent light bulb
|
1879 |
American physicist
Edwin Herbert Hall discovered the
Hall Effect
|
1879 |
Thomas Alva Edison introduced a long-lasting filament for the incandescent lamp.
|
1880 |
French physicists
Pierre Curie and
Jacques Curie discovered
Piezoelectricity
|
1882 |
First thermal power stations in London and New York
|
1883 |
English physicist
J. J. Thomson invented
waveguides
|
1887 |
German American inventor
Emile Berliner invented the
gramophone record
|
1888 |
German physicist
Heinrich Hertz proves the existence of electromagnetic waves, including what would come to be called radio waves.
|
1888 |
Italian physicist and electrical engineer
Galileo Ferraris publishes a paper on the
induction motor, and Serbian-American engineer
Nikola Tesla gets a US patent on the same device
[4]
[5]
|
1890 |
Thomas Alva Edison invents the
fuse
|
1893 |
During the Fourth International Conference of Electricians in Chicago, electrical units were defined
|
1894 |
Italian inventor
Guglielmo Marconi begins developing the first
radio wave based
wireless telegraphy communication system
[6]
[7]
|
1895 |
Indian physicist
Jagadish Chandra Bose conducts experiments in
extremely high frequency
millimetre waves using a
semiconductor junction to detect
radio waves
[8]
[9]
|
1895 |
In a series of field experiments, Marconi finds that he could transmit radio waves at much greater range than the half-mile maximum physicist of the time were predicting, achieving ranges up to 2 miles (3.2 km) and transmitting over hills
[10]
[11]
|
1895 |
Russian physicist
Alexander Popov finds a use for radio waves, building a
radio receiver that can detect lightning strikes
[12]
|
1895 |
Discovery of
X-rays by
Wilhelm Röntgen
|
1896 |
Electrolytic capacitor patent was granted to
Charles Pollak
|
1897 |
German inventor
Karl Ferdinand Braun invented
cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO)
|
1901 |
First transatlantic radio transmission by Guglielmo Marconi
|
1901 |
American engineer
Peter Cooper Hewitt invented the
Fluorescent lamp
|
1904 |
English engineer
John Ambrose Fleming invented the
diode
|
1906 |
American inventor
Lee de Forest invented the
triode
|
1908 |
Scottish engineer
Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, laid out the principles of
Television.
|
1909 |
Mica capacitor was invented by
William Dubilier
|
1911 |
Dutch physicist
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered
Superconductivity
|
1912 |
American engineer
Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the
Electronic oscillator
|
1915 |
French physicist
Paul Langevin and Russian engineer
Constantin Chilowsky invented
sonar
|
1917 |
American engineer
Alexander M. Nicholson invented the
crystal oscillator
|
1918 |
French physicist
Henri Abraham and
Eugene Bloch invented the
multivibrator
|
1919 |
Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the
standard AM radio receiver
|
1921 |
Metre Convention was extended to include the electrical units
|
1921 |
Edith Clarke invents the "Clarke calculator", a
graphical calculator for solving line equations involving hyperbolic function, allowing electrical engineers to simplify calculations for
inductance and
capacity in
power transmission lines
[13]
|
1924 |
Japanese engineer
Kenjiro Takayanagi began a research program on
electronic television
[14]
|
1925 |
Austrian American engineer
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented the first
FET (which became popular much later)
|
1926 |
Yagi–Uda antenna was developed by the
Japanese engineers
Hidetsugu Yagi and
Shintaro Uda
|
1926 |
Japanese engineer
Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated
CRT
television with 40-line
resolution,
[15] the first working example of a fully
electronic television receiver.
[14]
|
1927 |
Japanese engineer
Kenjiro Takayanagi increased television resolution to 100 lines, unrivaled until 1931
[16]
|
1927 |
American engineer
Harold Stephen Black invented
negative feedback amplifier
|
1927 |
German Physicist
Max Dieckmann invented
Video camera tube
|
1928 |
Raman scattering discovered by Indian physicist
C. V. Raman and Indian physicist
Kariamanickam Srinivasa Krishnan,
[17] providing basis for later
Raman laser
|
1928 |
Japanese engineer
Kenjiro Takayanagi was the first to transmit human faces in half-tones on
television, influencing the later work of
Vladimir K. Zworykin
[18]
|
1928 |
First experimental
Television broadcast in the U.S.
|
1929 |
First public TV broadcast in Germany
|
1931 |
First
wind energy plant in the Soviet Union
|
1934 |
Akira Nakashima,
Claude Shannon and Viktor Shetakov
switching circuit theory lays the foundation for
digital electronics
[19]
|
1936 |
Dudley E. Foster and
Stuart William Seeley developed the
FM detector circuit.
|
1936 |
Austrian engineer
Paul Eisler invented the
Printed circuit board
|
1936 |
Scottish Scientist
Robert Watson-Watt developed the
Radar concept which was proposed earlier.
|
1938 |
Russian-American engineer
Vladimir K. Zworykin developed the
Iconoscope
|
1939 |
Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the FM radio receiver
|
1939 |
Russell and Sigurd Varian developed the first
Klystron tube in the US.
|
1941 |
German engineer
Konrad Zuse developed the first programmable
computer in Berlin
|
1944 |
Scottish Engineer
John Logie Baird developed the first
color picture tube
|
1945 |
Transatlantic telephone cable
|
1947 |
American engineers
John Bardeen and
Walter Houser Brattain together with their group leader
William Shockley invented the
transistor.
|
1948 |
Hungarian-British physicist
Dennis Gabor invented
Holography
|
1950s |
Solid electrolyte
tantalum capacitor was invented by
Bell Laboratories
|
1950 |
French physicist
Alfred Kastler invented the
MASER
|
1951 |
First
nuclear power plant in the US
|
1952 |
Japanese engineer
Jun-ichi Nishizawa invented the
avalanche photodiode
[20]
|
1953 |
First fully transistorized computer in the U.S.
|
1958 |
American engineer
Jack Kilby invented the
integrated circuit (IC)
|
1960 |
American engineer
Theodore Maiman develops the first
laser
|
1962 |
Nick Holonyak invented the
LED
|
1963 |
First home
Videocassette recorder (VCR)
|
1963 |
Electronic calculator
|
1966 |
Fiber-optic communication by Kao and Hockham
|
2008 |
American scientist
R. Stanley Williams invented the
memristor which was proposed by
Leon O. Chua in 1971
|