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around 600 BC |
Thales, a Greek, found that when amber was rubbed with silk, it became electrically charged and attracted objects. He had originally discovered static electricity. | ||
1600 | William Gilbert(England) first coined the term quot;electricity quot; from quot;elektron, quot; the Greek word for amber. Gilbert wrote about the electrification of many substances. He was also the first person to use the terms electric force, magnetic pole, and electric attraction. | ||
1660 | |||
1675 | Stephen Gray (England) distinguished between conductors and nonconductors of electrical charges. | ||
1745-46 | |||
1752 | Ben Franklin (U.S.) tied a key to a kite string during a thunderstorm, and proved that static electricity and lightning were the same thing. | ||
1800 | Alessandro Volta (Italy) invented the first electric battery. The quot;volt quot; is named in his honor. | ||
1808 | Humphry Davy(United Kingdom) invented the first effective quot;arc lamp. quot; The arc lamp was a piece of carbon that glowed when connected by wires to a battery. | ||
1820 | Separate experiments by Hans Christian Oersted(Denmark), Andre-Marie Ampere (France), and Francios Arago confirmed the relationship between electricity and magnetism. | ||
1821 | Michael Faraday (England) discovered the principle of electro-magnetic rotation which would later be the key to developing the electric motor. | ||
1826 | Georg Ohm (Germany) defined the relationship between power, voltage, current and resistance in quot;Ohms Law. quot; | ||
1831 | |||
1832 | Using Faraday's principles, Hippolyte Pixii(France) built the first quot;dynamo, quot; an electric generator capable of delivering power for industry. Pixxi's dynamo used a crank to rotate a magnet around a a piece of iron wrapped with wire. | ||
1835 | Joseph Henry(U.S.) invented the electrical relay, which could send electrical currents long distances. | ||
1837 | Thomas Davenport(U.S.) invented the electric motor, an invention that is used in most electrical appliances today. | ||
1839 | Sir William Robert Grove(Scotland) developed the first fuel cell, a device that produces electrical energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen. | ||
1841 | James Prescott Joule(England) showed that energy is conserved in electrical circuits involving current flow, thermal heating, and chemical transformations. A unit of thermal energy, the Joule, was named after him. | ||
1844 | Samuel Morse( U.S.) invented the electric telegraph, a machine that could send messages long distances across wires. | ||
1860's | Mathematical theory of electromagnetic fields published. J.C. Maxwell (Scotland) created a new era of physics when he unified magnetism, electricity and light. Maxwell's four laws of electrodynamics ( quot;Maxwell's Equations quot;) eventually led to electric power, radios, and television. | ||
1876 | Charles Brush(U.S.) invented the quot;open coil quot; dynamo (or generator) that could produce a study current of electricity. | ||
1878 | |||
1879 | |||
1881 | The electric streetcar was invented by E.W. v. Siemens | ||
1882 | |||
1883 | Nikola Tesla (U.S. immigrant from Austrian Empire) invented the quot;Tesla coil quot;, a transformer that changed electricity from low voltage to high voltage, making it easier to transport over long distances. | ||
1884 | |||
1886 | William Stanley, Jr. (U.S.) developed the induction coil transformer and an alternating current electric system. | ||
1888 | |||
1893 | |||
1895-1896 | The Niagara Falls hydropower station opened. It originally provided electricity to the local area. One year later, when a new alternating current (AC) powerline was opened, electric power from Niagara Falls was sent to customers over 20 miles away in Buffalo, New York. | ||
1897 | Joseph John Thomson (England) discovered the electron. | ||
1901 | The first power line between USA and Canada was opened at Niagara Falls. | ||
1903 | |||
1908 | J. Spangler (U.S.) invented the first electric vacuum cleaner. | ||
1909 | The world's first pumped storage plant opened in Switzerland. | ||
1911 | W. Carrier(U.S.) invented electric air conditioning. | ||
1913 | |||
1920 | The Federal Power Commission (FPC) was established for licensing hydroelectric projects. | ||
1921 | Lakeside Power Plant in Wisconsin became the world's first power plant to burn only pulverized coal. | ||
1922 | Connecticut Valley Power Exchange (CONVEX) started pioneering interconnection between utilities. | ||
1933 | The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created. It was the first Federal power authority and was designed to provide regional power. | ||
1935 | Some ldquo;New Deal rdquo; legislation passed during the Roosevelt Administration was designed to regulate public utilities and bring electricity to rural America.
|
||
1936 | |||
1942 | Due to ldquo;Rural electrification, rdquo; almost half of American farms had electricity compared to 11 percent in 1932. | ||
1943-46 | The first general purpose electronic digital computer, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), was built. | ||
1947 | The transistor was invented by scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories. | ||
1950 | |||
1951 | Charles Ginsburg (U.S.) invented the first videotape recorder (VTR). | ||
1953 | IBM's 701 EDPM was the first commercially successful general-purpose computer. | ||
1954 | |||
1957 | Shippingport Reactor in Pennsylvania was the first nuclear power plant to provide electricity to customers in the U.S. | ||
1958 | First commercial modem developed by AT amp;T. | ||
1961 | |||
1962 | |||
1963 | A direct communications link was established between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) and the United States. | ||
1964 | International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) used light emitting diodes (LEDs) on circuit boards in an early mainframe computer. | ||
1972 | The arcade game Pong was created by Nolan Bushnell. | ||
1973 | |||
1975 | Robert S. Ledley (United States) was granted a patent for a quot;diagnostic X-ray systems quot; also known as CAT-Scans. | ||
1976 | First commercial fiber-optic cable is installed in Chicago for telephone signals. | ||
1977 | The first network of automated teller machines (ATMs) was developed. | ||
1981 | The computer considered by most historians to be the first true portable computer was the Osborne 1 created by Adam Osborne(U.S.). | ||
1990's | Advances in light emitting diode (LED) technology led to the wide-scale commercialization of blue and green solid-state sources as well as the development of white LEDs. | ||
1993 | The first PDAs or Personal Digital Assistants are released by the Apple Corporation(U.S.). | ||
1998 | Ericsson, IBM, Intel, and Nokia cooperated to develop Bluetooth technology that allows wireless communication between mobile phones, laptops, pcs, printers, digital cameras, and video gam consoles. | ||
2001 | The iPOD, a portable media player, was launched by the Apple Corporation. | ||
2004 | With the full color range of the high power light emitting diodes (LEDs), more advanced architectural designs and stage and studio lighting were developed. Colored LEDs reduce power consumption. | ||
Last Revised: October 2007
Sources:
National Energy Education Development Project, Intermediate Energy Infobook, 2005-2006.
California Energy Commission, Energy Quest (http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/time_machine/index.php), October 2007.
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