There are 82 remaining fragments of the mechanism that contain a total of 30 gears. The largest piece contains 27 of the gears. (Image copyright of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project)

100-150 BC

The Antikythera Mechanism, discovered more than 100 years ago in a Roman shipwreck, was used by ancient Greeks to display astronomical cycles.

Arabic Numerals:

Invented around 600AD

Introduced to Europe around 1200AD

(Greatly facilitate computations)

1492

Leonardo Da Vinci describes the flying machine in his notebooks.

1435

The Gutenberg Bible,

(Also known as the 42-line bible, or the Mazarin

Bible)

is the first book printed on a printing press with

movable type.

1609

Galileo Galilei builds the optical refracting telescope.

1623

Wilhelm Schickand engineers the mechanical calculator, which can add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

1712

Thomas Newcomer makes the 1st commercially available steam engine.

1735

Carolus Linneas proposes taxonomic system for naming species. Humans get a new name:

Homo Sapiens.

1822

Mathematician Charles Babbage conceives Difference Engine No.1

(Considered the first mechanical computer)

1840

Ada Lovelace, assistant to Babbage, conceives the first programming language for his computer.

1859

Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.

1876

Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone

1877

Thomas Edison perfects

carbon-thread incandescent

light bulbs

(reconstruction)

1881

Nicola Tesla, electrical engineer and physicist, discovers principles of alternating current, invented numerous devices and procedures that were seminal to development of radio

and harnessing electricity. (Pictured: Tesla Coil)

E=mc2

1905

Albert Einstein publishes special theory of relativity, stating the equivalence of matter and energy in the now famous equation

(above).

Clifford Berry with the Atanasoff-Berry Computer

1939

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry complete prototyep of digital computer: it’s able to store data and do addition and subtraction using

binary code.

1946

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer

(ENIAC) one of the world’s 1st electronic computers, delivered to the US Army.

1957

Sputnik I, first man-made satellite, goes up, Laika the dog, first living creature in space, flies aboard Sputnick II.

1969 Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.

Arpanet, precursor to the Internet, officially commissioned.

1976 Apple Computer developed by Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak.

1984

William Gibson coins the term “cyberspace” in his novel “Necromancer.”

1989

Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics lab.

1998

Larry Page and Sergey Brin found Google.