Innovation, science

Coal, gas, iron and steam � see Appendix 2 below See also Economics and Coal, See also coal mining

Games,Toys � see Appendix 4 below

Hygiene �see Appendix 6 below

Music Video Entertainment and Sound� -see Appendix 11 below

Postal Services � See Appendix 12 below

Robotics � see Appendix 13 below

20 May 1982, Merle Anthony Truve, US physicist, died.

9 April 1981, Nature magazine published a paper with the longest-ever scientific word, with 207,000 letters.

1980, In the USA, the United States Synthetic Fuel Corporation was created, to attempt to ensure energy security.

8 January 1980, John William Mauchly, US engineer, died.

9 February 1979, Dennis Gabor, physicist who invented holography, died aged 78.

17 May 1977, Erwin Wilhelm Mueller, Hungarian-US physicist, died in Washington DC.

10 September 1975, Sir George Paget, Thomson, English physicist, died in Cambridge.

25 August 1975, John Ray Dunning, US physicist, died in Key Biscayne, Florida, USA.

3 February 1975, William David Coolidge, US physicist, died in Schenectady, New York, USA.

13 July 1974, Peter Blackett, British physicist, died aged 76.

20 February 1973, Marie Goeppert Mayer, German-US physicist, died in San Diego, California.

12 April 1971, Igor Yevgenyevich, Russian physicist, died in Moscow.

21 November 1970, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, Indian physicist, died in Bangalore.

19 August 1968, George Gamow, Russian-US physicist, died in Boulder, Colorado.

17 May 1968. The director of the Transport Studies Centre predicted that in the future people would be �piped� in high speed pneumatic trains like oil and gas.

22 September 1966, Vladimir Iosofovich, Soviet physicist, died in Moscow.

29 April 1966, William Eccles, physicist, died.

10 March 1966, Frits Zernike, Dutch physicist, died in Naarden.

20 July 1965, The McLaren baby buggy was patented by Owen Findlay, Banbury, UK. It replaced much more cumbersome and heavier prams, and its easy folding made it very easy to take on board public transport.

1963, In Sweden, Aktiebolaget Flymo produced the first hover lawn mower, invented by Karl Dalhman.

15 September 1962, William Weber Coblentz, US physicist, died in Washington DC.

20 August 1961, Percy Williams Bridgman, US physicist, died in Randolph, New Hampshire, USA.

30 June 1961, Lee de Forrest, US inventor, died in Hollywood, California.

20 August 1960, Plastic carrier bags were used for the first time, by a Swedish shoe retailer.

9 October 1959, Henry Tizard, English inventor, died aged 74.

18 April 1955. Albert Einstein, born 14 March 1879, died in Princeton, New Jersey, of a stroke. He was born to a middle class German family of Jewish ancestry. Einstein graduated in 1900 from the Federal institute of technology in Zurich; he worked hard in the laboratory but skipped lectures. He completed his general theory of relativity in 1915 and received the Nobel Prize in 1922. He became an American citizen in 1940.

30 March 1954, Fritz Wolfgang London, German physicist, died in Durham, North Carolina.

17 June 1948, The transistor was patented in New Jersey for Bell Telephones.

2 May 1947, James Dyson, inventor, was born.

25 February 1947, Louis Carl Heinrich Paschen, German physicist, died in Potsdam, East Germany.

21 November 1946, The first commercial aerosol sprays were marketed in the US by Airosol Inc of Kansas. The US army had discovered the usefulness of aerosol insect sprays whilst fighting the Japanese in the rainforests of south east Asia.

7 May 1944, Stuart Ballantine, US physicist, died in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.

23 February 1944, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Belgian-born American chemist, inventor of a plastic called Bakelite, died.

3 October 1941. The aerosol was patented by L D Goodhue and W N Sullivan.

22 February 1941, Dayton Clarence Miller, US physicist, died in Cleveland, Ohio.

30 July 1940, Sir Clive Sinclair, inventor, was born

20 April 1940. The electron microscope was first demonstrated in America.

11 October 1938, Leroy Hood, scientist, was born.

23 November 1937, Sir Jagadischandra Bose, Indian physicist, died in Giridh.

13 May 1937, Trevor Bayliss, inventor of the wind up radio and torch., was born.

12 March 1935, Michael Idvorsky Pupin, Yugoslav-US physicist, died in New York.

13 January 1934, Paul Ulrich Villard, French physicist, died in Bayonne.

1933, In Germany, Ernst Ruska built the first electron microscope that was more powerful than a light microscope, magnification x 12,000.

24 October 1932, Pierre Gilles de Gennes, physicist, was born.

10 July 1932, Richard Threlfall, English chemist and engineer, died aged 70.

14 March 1932, US inventor George Eastman died in Rochester, New York.

6 October 1931, Riccardo Giacconi, physicist, was born.

9 May 1831, Albert Abraham Michelson, German-US physicist, died in Pasadena, California.

8 September 1930, The first roll of Scotch Tape (Sellotape) was made. Although introducing a new product to US consumers during the recession was risky, in fact the mood of thriftiness at the time ensured the success of the product as it was used for mending and fixing things. The UK version, called Sellotape, was introduced in 1937.

5 April 1929, Ivar Glaever, Norwegian-US physicist, was born in Bergan, Norway. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on superconductors and semiconductors.

1927, The first petrol driven chainsaw was demonstrated in the forests of Thuringia, Germany. This greatly speeded up wood harvesting and forest clearance.

27 March 1923, Sir James Dewar, Scottish scientist, inventor of the vacuum flask, died aged 80.

28 December 1919, Johannes Robert Rydberg, Swedish physicist, died in Lund.

20 April 1918, Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, died in New York City.

14 April 1917, Dr Zamenof, Polish linguist and inventor of Esperanto, died.

22 August 1915, Canadian-US physicist James Hillier was born in Brantford, Ontario.

28 July 1915, US physicist Charles Hard Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina. In 1953 he developed the maser, precursor of the laser.

17 July 1915, Sir Sandford Fleming, inventor, was born.

15 February 1915, Emile Hilaire Amagat, French physicist, died in Saint Satur.

1 April 1912, Pyotr Nicolaievich Lebedev, Russian physicist, died in Moscow.

31 December 1911. Marie Curie received her second Nobel prize, unprecedented in the history of the award.

16 September 1910, Ole Evinrude patented the outboard motor.

28 February 1909, Professor Linus Pauling, American chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was born.

23 October 1908, Pavel E Cherenkov, physicist, was born in St Petersburg, Russia.

17 December 1907, Lord Kelvin, physicist and inventor, died.

26 December 1906, German physicist Ernst August Friedrich Ruska was born in Heidelberg.

23 October 1905, Swiss-US physicist Felix Bloch was born in Zurich, In 1927 he proved that some electrons could travel through a crystal array without being scattered.

14 January 1905, Ernst Abbe, German physicist (born 1840) died in Jena.

25 December 1904, German-Canadian physicist Gerhard Hertzberg was born in Hamburg, Germany. In 1971 he was awarded the Nobel prize for his work on the geometry of molecules in gases.

31 October 1904. The radio valve was invented by John Fleming at London University.

16 September 1904, Willis Carrier filed US patent no. 808897 for air conditioning. The basic idea of air conditioning had been known since Roman times, when it was noted that cool vapour rose from water thrown on hot stones. In 1902 a Brooklyn printer, Sackett-Williams, told Carrier that he had a problem with changing heat and humidity altering the colours unpredictably on his printing. Willis Carrier designed the first air conditioning unit, which weighed 30 tons. Dust control was added in 1906.

24 May 1904, Engineer and inventor Friedrich Seimens died.

1902, The first commercially-succesful petrol driven lawn mower was marketed.

28 July 1902, Karl Popper, scientist, was born (died 1994)

9 June 1902, The automatic coin vending machine, or �automat�, was invented in Philadelphia, USA.

9 May 1902, Henry Morton, US scientist and President of the Stevens Institute of Technology since its founding in 1870, died aged 65.

8 August 1901, Ernest Lawrence, US physicist who invented the first subatomic particle accelerator and the first colour TV tube, and won the Nobel Physics prize in 1939, was born.

16 April 1901, Henry Augustus Rowland, US physicist, died (born in Pennsylvania 27 November 1848)

20 January 1901, Zenobe Theophile Gramme, Belgian-French inventor, died at Bois Colombes, France.

1900, The paper clip was patented by Johann Vaaler, a Norwegian working in Germany. In 1989 a gaint statue of a paperclip was erected in his honour in Oslo.

10 December 1900. The first Nobel prizes were awarded.

29 May 1900, The word "escalator" was introduced into the English language, as the Patent and Trademark Office formally granted the trademark to Charles Seeberger for a moving stairway However, Seeberger lost the trademark fifty years later when a patent commissioner ruled that the term had become generic, in Haughton Elevator Co. v. Seeberger,

16 August 1899. Death of German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, inventor of the Bunsen burner.

27 August 1898, John Hopkinson, English engineer, died (born 27 July 1849).

18 November 1897, Sir Henry Doulton, English inventor, died (born 25 July 1820).

13 August 1897, Sir Isaac Holden, British inventor, died (born 7 May 1807).

12 June 1897, Carl Elsener took out a patent for the Swiss Army Knife.

18 September 1896, Armand Fizeau, physicist, died (born 23 September 1819)

22 December 1895, The physicist Wilhelm Roentgen made a radiograph (X-ray photograph) of his wife�s hand.

8 November 1895. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X rays, during an experiment at the University of Wurtzburg. He made the first radiograph, or X-ray, of his wife�s hand, on 22 December 1895.

30 January 1894. Charles King of Detroit received a patent for the pneumatic hammer.

11 July 1893, Kokichi Mikimoto harvested the first cultured pearl at his pearl farm, after 5 years work. The pearl was imperfect; it took another 10 years to create a perfectly spherical one.

23 February 1893, The diesel engine was patented by Rudolf Deisel.

7 May 1890, James Nasmyth, inventor of the first steam hammer, died in London.

11 October 1889, James Joule, who established the First Law of Thermodynamics, died.

27 April 1889, Frederick Barnard, scientist, died in New York City (born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, 5 May 1809)

24 August 1888, Rudolf Clausius, German physicist, died (born 2 January 1822).

1887, The first semi-automatic glass bottle making machine was invented by John Ashley in Yorkshire, UK. It could produce 200 bottles an hour, but required manually feeding with molten glass, In 1898 MJ Owens of the USA imvented a fully auromatic bottle making machine. This in turn was improved on by Henry W Ingle of the US in 1925. Bottles could now be made faster and lighter than before.

19 December 1887, Balfour Stewart, Scottish physicist, died in Drogheda, Ireland (born 1 November 1828 in Edinburgh)

17 October 1887, Robert Hunt, English scientist, died (born 6 September 1807).

22 January 1887, Sir Joseph Whitworth, the engineer who standardised screw threads, died at Monte Carlo.

12 April 1886, Thaddeus Fairbanks, inventor, died (born 17 January 1796)

1885, The first mechanical dishwasher was invented by Frenchman Eugene Daquin. The first electric dishwasher was made in 1922.

20 January 1885, LA Thompson patented the roller coaster.

26 March 1885, The first cremation in modern times, of Mrs Pickersgill, took place at Woking.

10 March 1869, The first scientifically-designed cremator was used, in Padua, Italy, by Dr L Brunetti to cremate the body of a 35-year-old woman

19 November 1883, Sir William Siemens, inventor, died in London, UK.

15 September 1883, Joseph Plateau, Belgian physicist, died.

17 June 1881, James Starley, British inventor, died (born 1830 in Sussex)

4 November 1879. James R Ritty of Dayton, Ohio patented the first cash register. Pilfering by bartenders from Ritty�s saloon so undermined his health that he went on a sea voyage to Europe to recover. On board the ship, Ritty saw a machine that recorded the number of revolutions made by the ship�s propellers, which gave him the initial idea. In 1884 he formed the National Cash Register Company.

24 January 1879, Heinrich Geissler, physicist, died (born 26 May 1814)

28 February 1875, Sir Goldsworth Gurney, inventor, died

18 August 1874, Sir William Fairbairn, Scottish engineer, died (born 19 February 1789).

21 June 1874, Anders Jonas Angstrom, Swedish physicist (born 13 August 1814 in Logdo) died in Upsala.

27 November 1873, Auguste de la Rive, Swiss physicist, died (born 9 October 1801).

1871, Pierre Colignon, French-American, invented the first folding deck chair.

30 September 1870, Physicist Jean Baptiste Perrin was born in Lille, France.

26 October 1868, Thomas Edison applied for a patent for his electronic voting machine.

11 February 1868, Jean Foucault, French physicist who invented the gyroscope, died in Paris.

10 February 1868, Sir David Brewster, Scottish physicist, died in Allerly, Roxburghshire.

1865, Rudolf JE Clausius coined the term entropy to describe the degradation of energy in a closed system.

25 May 1865, Pieter P Zeeman was born in Sommaire, Netherlands. In 1896 he discovered that spectral lines of gases in a magnetic field are split, now known as the Zeeman effect.

10 February 1863, Alanson Crane patented the fire extinguisher.

7 June 1862, Hungarian-German physicist Philipp von Lenard was born in Poszony, Bratislava. In 1892 he studied cathode rays.

7 November 1865, The Repeating Light Company of Springfield, Massachusetts manufactured the first pocket lighter.

18 January 1861, John Heathcoat, English inventor, died (born 7 August 1783).

12 October 1860, Elmer Sperry, prolific inventor, notably of the gyroscopic compass, was born in Corland, New York State.

14 September 1860, Niagara Falls was illuminated for the first time.

12 July 1859. (1) William Goodale patented the paper bag manufacturing machine.

(2) Robert Stephenson, engineer, died.

5 July 1859, Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French inventor, died (born 31 March 1777).

15 May 1859, Pierre Curie, French scientist, was born in Paris. He was the son of a physician.

19 February 1859, Svante August Arrhenius, Swedish physicist and chemist, was born near Uppsala.

28 July 1858. The first use of fingerprinting. William Herschel, a British civil servant in India, took the entire palm print of a Bengali hired to surface roads, to ensure that he did not back out of the contract.

6 September 1857, Johann Salomo Schweigger, physicist, died in Halle, Germany.

29 October 1856, Paul Curie, physicist, was born.

10 July 1856, Nikola Tesla was born.� His father, the Reverend Milutin Tesla, was a Greek Orthodox priest, and his mother Duka Mandic was the daughter of a priest who made handcraft tools.

9 July 1856, Amedeo Avogadro, Count of Quarenga, died in Turin, Italy.

27 September 1854, The Lady Isabella waterwheel at Laxey, Isle of Man was completed.� It was the largest in the UK, at 72 foot 6 inches in diameter, and was once used for draining a lead mine.

11 August 1854, Macedonio Melloni, Italian physicist, died (born 11 April 1798).

2 October 1853, Dominique Arago, physicist, died in Paris (born 26 February 1786 in Estagel, Perpignan).

17 March 1853, Death of Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who coined the term Doppler effect to explain the apparent change of frequency of a wave when the source is moving relative to the observer.

17 September 1851, Chemist and physician John Kidd died in Oxford, England.

2 September 1851, William Nicol, Scottish physicist, died in Edinburgh.

6 May 1851, Linus Yale patented the Yale lock.

27 July 1849, John Hopkinson, English engineer, was born (died 27 August 1898)

27 November 1848, Henry Augustus Rowland, US physicist, was born in Pennsylvania (died 16 April 1901)

17 March 1849. Elastic bands patented, by Stephen Perry�s London rubber company.

28 August 1845, The first edition of Scientific American was published.

26 August 1845, Philippe Gerard, French inventor, died (born 1 February 1775).

27 March 1845, Wilhelm von Roentgen, German scientist and discoverer of X-Rays, was born in Lennep, Prussia.

17 March 1845, Rubber bands were patented and first made by Perry and Co of London.

27 July 1844, John Dalton, chemist and physicist, died.� He developed modern atomic theory and also made advances in meteorology.

24 November 1842, James Nasymth received a patent for the steam hammer.

12 November 1842, The physicist and Nobel Prize winner Lord Rayleigh was born at Witham, near Maldon, Essex.

20 September 1842. Sir James Dewar, Scottish physician and chemist, and inventor of the vacuum flask, was born at Kincardine on Forth, in Fife.

30 September 1841. The stapler was patented by Samuel Slocum.

23 January 1840, Ernst Abbe, German physicist, was born in Jena (died 1905).

18 November 1839, August Kundt, German physicist, was born (died 21 May 1894).

18 February 1838, Ernst Mach, Austrian scientist, was born in Moravia.

17 January 1834, Giovanni Aldini, Italian physicist, died in Milan (born in Bologna 10.4 1762).

1 January 1833, The first fire brigade to have full time permanent staff was established in London.

24 August 1832, Sadi Carnot, physicist, died (born 1 June 1796)

16 May 1831, David Hughes, English-American inventor of the teleprinter and microphone, was born in London.

3 December 1830, Frederick, Baron Leighton, President of the Royal Society, was born.

14 November 1830, Henry Bell, Scottish engineer, died in Helensburgh (born in Linlithgowshire 1767).

18 May 1830. Edwin Budding of Stroud signed an agreement for the manufacture of his invention, the lawnmower. The first customer was Regents Park Zoo. See 27 April 1828.

14 January 1830, Johann Georg Repsold, scientific instrument maker, died in Hamburg (born 23 September 1771 in Hanover)

16 May 1828, Sir William Congreve, British inventor, died (born 20 May 1772)..

1827, Brownian Motion, the rapid vibration of tiny particles suspended in water, was first noted by the botanist Robert Brown (1773-1858). He also noted that small particles of inorganic matter such as carbon and metal dust were subject to this motuon, but he could not explain the phenomenon.

7 April 1827, Friction matches, the invention of Stockton on Tees chemist John Walker, went on sale. In 1826 Walker was mixing antimony and chlorate of potash with a stick; when he rubbed the stick to clean it, it caught fire. Such matchsticks would catch fire if rubbed on any rough surface, even each other, and in 1855 the first safety match was by the Swedish firm of Johan Edvard Lundstrom. In Britain, Bryant and May bought the rights to these matches where they went on sale in August 1855.

3 November 1825, The Hungarian Academy of Sciences was founded.

26 June 1824, The physicist and mathematician Lord Kelvin was born in Belfast as William Thomson.

24 July 1824, The result of the first public opinion poll was published in the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian.� The poll was conducted at Wilmington to determine voters� intentions in the 1824 Presidential election.

4 April 1823, Sir William Siemens, British inventor, was born in Hanover (died 19 November 1883 in London)

1822, Steel coiled springs were patented in Austria by Georg Junigl.

2 January 1822, Rudolf Clausius, German physicist, was born (died24 August 1888).

25 July 1820, Sir Henry Doulton, English inventor, was born (died 18 November 1897).

18 September 1819, Jean Foucault, French scientist, was born in Paris.

24 December 1818, Physicist James Joule was born at Salford, Manchester.

20 April 1818, Heinrich Gobel, inventor, was born.

25 November 1814, Julius Mayer, German physicist, was born.

25 August 1814, Benjamin Thompson, scientist who researched heat (born in North Woburn, Massachusetts, on 26 March 1753), died near Paris, France.

22 April 1814, William Pole, English engineer, was born was born in Birmingham (died 30 December 1900)

1811, Amedeo Avogadro proposed what is now known as Avogadro�s Law � that equal volumes of gas at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of molecules.

21 August 1811, William Kelly, US steelmaker who invented ther pneumatic method of steel manufacture, was born in Pittsburgh, Pernnsylvania (died 1888)

3 August 1811, Elisha Graves Otis, US inventor, was born in Halifax, Vermont.

14 October 1801, Joseph Plateau, physicist, was born.

18 August 1809, Matthew Boulton, partner of James Watt, British engineer, died in Soho, London.

5 May 1809, Frederick Barnard, scientist, was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts (died in New York City 27 April 1889).

19 August 1808, James Nasymth, Scottish engineer who invented the first steam hammer, was born in Edinburgh.

1807, Thomas Young coined the word �energy�.

6 September 1807, Robert Hunt, English scientist, was born (died 17 October 1887).

7 May 1807, Sir Isaac Holden, British inventor, was born (died 13 August 1897).

19 July 1806, Alexander Bache, US scientist, was born in Philadelphia (died 17 February 1867 in Newport, Rhode Island).

20 December 1805, Thomas Graham, chemist whose 1829 paper on gaseous diffusion introduced Graham�s Law, was born in Glasgow.

21 December 1803, Sir Joseph Whitworth, engineer, was born.

9 October 1801, Auguste de la Rive, Swiss physicist, was born (died 27 November 1873).

11 April 1798, Macedonio Melloni, Ita;lian physicist, was born (died 11 August 1854).

18 April 1796, Johan Wilcke, physicist, died.

17 January 1796, Thaddeus Fairbanks, inventor, was born (died 12 April 1886).

13 January 1796, John Anderson, Scottish scientist (born 1726 in Roseneath, Dumbartonshire) died in Glasgow.

21 May 1792, Gustave Gaspard Coriolis, French engineer who was the first to describe the effect of the Earth�s rotation on the atmosphere, was born in Paris (died 1843).

22 January 1791, Horace Benedict de Saussure, Swiss physicist who built the first hygrometer, died in Geneva aged 58.

12 February 1791, Peter Cooper, US inventor, was born (died 4 April 1883).

19 February 1789, Sir William Fairbairn, Scottish engineer, was born (died 18 August 1874).

1787, Charles� Law, that gases expand proportionately to a rise in their temperature, was first formulated.

7 August 1783, John Heathcoat, English inventor, was born (died 18 January 1861).

1782, Josiah Wedgewood invented the pyrometer, for checking the temperature in the furnaces used to fire pottery.

11 December 1781, Sir David Brewster, scientist, was born (died 10 February 1868).

17 March 1782, Swiss physicist Edward Bernoulli died.

6 December 1778, Joseph Gay-Lussac, French scientist, was born in St Leonard.

30 April 1777, Carl Friedrich Gauss, scientist, was born.� His father, Gerhard Gauss, was a labourer and bricklayer, and his mother, Dorothea Gauss, was a maid.

31 March 1777, Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French inventor, was born (died 5 July 1859).

17 November 1776, James Ferguson, Scottish inventor, died (born 25 April 1710).

9 June 1776, Amedeo Avogadro, physicist who formulated Avogadro�s law, was born in Turin (died in Turin 9 July 1856).

1 February 1775, Philippe Gerard, French inventor, was born (died 26 August 1845).

25 November 1774, Henry Baker, English scientist, died in London (born in London 8 May 1698).

20 May 1772, Sir William Congreve, British inventor, was born (died 16 May 1828).

23 September 1771, Johann Georg Repsold, scientific instrument maker, was born in Hanover (died 14 January 1830 in Hamburg)

10 May 1771, Thomas Wedgwood, inventor, was born.

25 September 1769, The first recorded cremation in Britain. The body of Honoretta Pratt was burnt in her open grave at� St Georges Burial Ground, London.

20 April 1764, Rudolph Ackerman, German inventor, was born (died 30 March 1834).

10 April 1762, Giovanni Aldini, Italian physicist, was born in Bologna (died 17 January 1834 in Milan).

7 June 1761, John Rennie, British engineer, was born in Haddingtonshore, Scotland.

1760, Joseph Black discovered latent heat of fusion and vapourisation, and specific heat.

29 November 1759, Nicolas Bernoulli, scientist, died (born 10 October 1687).

20 March 1750, Martin van Marum, Dutch physicist, was born (died 26 December 1837).

10 September 1749, Emilie du Chatelet, physicist, died.

1 January 1748, Jean Bernoulli, physicist, died (born in Basel 27 July 1667).

2 April 1742, James Douglas, physicist, died.

28 May 1738, Dr Joseph Guillotin, inventor of the Guillotine, was born.

20 June 1726, The first municipal fire brigade was established, at Beverley, Yorkshire.

31 July 1718, John Canton, English scientist (died 22 March 1772) was born.

18 May 1710, Jean Bernoulli, scientist, was born (died 1790).

25 April 1710, James Ferguson, Scottish inventor, was born (died 17 November 1776).

11 October 1705, Guillaume Amontons, French scientist, died in Paris (born 31 August 1663 in Paris).

3 March 1703, The scientist Robert Hooke died.

29 January 1700, Daniel Bernoulli, scientist, was born (died 17 March 1782).

8 May 1698, Henry Baker, English scientist, was born in London (died in London).

16 February 1698, Pierre Bouguer, French scientist, was born (died15 August 1758).

30 December 1691, Robert Boyle, scientist, died.� He formulated Boyle�s Laws on gases.

1687, Newton stated the Laws of Motion of bodies.

10 October 1687, Nicolas Bernoulli, scientist, was born (died 29 November 1759).

11 May 1686, Otto von Guericke, German scientist, died (born 20 November 1602).

1683, In Oxford, Britain, the Ashmolean Museum was opened as a centre for experimental science.

1682, Isaac Newton proposed the Law of Gravitation. See also astronomy.

31 December 1679, Giovanni Borelli, Italian physicist, died in Rome (born in Naples 28 January 1608).

27 July 1667, Jean Bernoulli, physicist, was born in Basel (died 1 January 1748).

1665, Isaac Newton worked out a system of �fluxions� � precursor of modern calculus. He also began work on a theory of gravity.

1663, Pascal showed that the pressure of a liquid depended on its depth and density.

31 August 1663, Guillaume Amontons, French scientist, was born in Paris (died 11 October 1705 in Paris).

1662, Robert Boyle first proposed Boyles Law for gases; that the volume of an �ideal� gas varies inversely to the pressure when the temperature is held constant.

28 November 1660, The Royal Society was founded in England.

1643, From Galileo�s note that �water would not rise in a pump above 18 cubits�; his pupil, Torricelli deduced the existence of air pressure. In 1648 Pascal demonstrated that air pressure falls with increasing altitude. This led to the invention of the barometer.

18 July 1635, Robert Hooke, English scientist, was born in Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

1632, Galileo introduced the concept of relativity by pointing out that experiments done in a closed cabin on a ship cannot be used to tell if the ship is moving or not.

25 January 1627, Robert Boyle, Irish chemist and physicist, was born at Lismore Castle, Munster, Eire.

19 June 1623. Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, was born in Clermont. He invented the first calculating machine; other research of his led to the invention of the syringe and the hydraulic press; and so to Pascal�s law of pressure.

1620, The term �gas� first used, by van Helmont, to describe substances like air. It was a variant of the Flemish word for �chaos�.

28 January 1608, Giovanni Borelli, Italian physicist, was born in Naples (died in Rome 31 December 1679).

20 November 1602, Otto von Guericke, German scientist, was born (died 11 May 1686).

1590, Galileo discovered that all bodies fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass.

1581, An earthquake in the Italian town of Pisa set the great chandeliers in the church swinging. A 17 year old student called Galileo noticed that, timed by his own pulse, the time of each swing was constant regardless of the range of the swing.

24 September 1541, Paracelsus, scientist and occultist, died..

1537, Niccolo Tartaglia�s book, Della Nova Scientai, intitiated the science of ballistics.

2 May 1519. Leonardo Da Vinci died, at the Chateaux Cloux near Amboise, aged 67.

17 December 1493, Paracelsus, scientist and occultist, was born. He died on 24 September 1541.

1490, Leonardo da Vinci observed that liquids tend to crawl up tubes with a small diameter; the first observation of capillary action,

285, Pappus of Alexandria described �five machines� in use.These were the cogwheel, lever, pulley, screw and wedge.

271, The compass began to be used in China.

212 BCE, Archimedes reputed to have used a concave mirror to use the Sun�s rays to set fire to the Roman fleet.

220 BCE,Archimedes discovered the force of buoyancy in liquids.

230 BCE, Oil lamps introduced in Greece.

260 BCE, Archimedes knew of the Law of Moments and the principle of the lever.

265 BCE, Archimedes invented the Archimedes Screw, a device for raising water.

4350 BCE, The horse was domesticated in Europe, providing agricultural power and transportation.

Appendix 2 � Coal, gas, iron and steam

11 February 1931, Sir Charles Pearsons, inventor of the first practical steam turbine, died in Kingston, Surrey.

13 June 1854, Sir Charles Pearsons, engineer who invented the steam turbine, was born in London.

15 November 1839, William Murdock, inventor of coal-gas lighting in 1792, died.

1826, First recorded usage of the word �steam� as a metaphor for power, energy, progress.

19 January 1813. Sir Henry Bessemer, inventor of the blast furnace for converting cast iron to steel, was born at Charlton, Hertfordshire.

28 January 1807. London�s Pall Mall became the first street in the world to be lit by gaslight. This was an initiative to publicise the new method of illumination by German migrant FA Winzer (later Anglicised to Winsor), and his company, the Gas Light and Coke Company, floated in 1812. In 1814 street gas lighting began in Westminister and by the end of 1816 London had 26 miles of gas mains. This rose to 122 miles by 1823 and 600 miles by 1834. By 1823 52 English towns had gas lighting and by 1859 Britain had nearly 1,000 gas works. The gas industry produced many useful chemical by-products such as ammonia, naphtha and crude tar.

1789, James Watt invented the governor, a centrifugal-driven negative feedback device that controlled the speed of a steam engine.

31 March 1763, Abraham Darby (Junior), ironmaster, died.

21 August 1754, William Murdock, inventor of coal-gas lighting in 1792, was born at Auchinlek, Ayrshire.

20 March 1717, Abraham Derby (senior), first ironmaster to use coke to smelt iron, died at Worcester.

12 March 1711, Abraham Darby, iron worker, was born.

2 July 1698, Thomas Savery patented an early steam engine. See also railways, 1699. This engine could be used to pump water out of mines, an increasing problem as miners went ever deeper. However Savery�s (1650-1715) engine was fairly primitive. It could not pump water up from more than 10 metres below it, meaning it had to be installed deep within mines. This was dangerous as Savery�s engine� was prone to explosions. In 1721 Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729), working with Savery, produced an improved atmospheric engine. The full potential of the steam engine was not realised until James Watt (1736-1819) added a condenser in 1769, with the backing of businessman Matthew Boulton.

22 August 1647, Denis Papin, French physicist who helped develop the steram engine, was born in Blois.

60 AD, Hero of Alexandria invented the aeolopile (http://modelengines.info/aeolipile/), a rotating ball full of water with tangential vents that would spin when heated as the steam escaped. It was effectively an early steam engine, but was not put to any practical use.

Appendix 4 � Games, Toys� -� See also Sports and Games.

2 August 2004, The computer game Doom 3 was leaked onto the Internet� and downloaded for free by thousands of people before officially going on sale.

13 October 1998, Gunpei Yoko,� creator of Gameboy, died.

20 November 1996, The Japanese toy company Bandai released the Tamagotchi, a �virtual pet� comprising an LCD display in an egg-shaped pendant attached to a key ring. The owner pressed various buttons to satisfy its �needs� tpo be cleaned, played with, petted, fed etc. If not �cared for�, the Tamagotchi could �die� prematurely.

22 June 1996, The Quake computer game was released. It was both realistic and violent.

23 June 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog premiered as a video game. It proved very popular and sparked many spin-offs.

18 October 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System. Its game console achieved major success with the game �Super Mario Bros�.

1982, Trivial Pursuit was first marketed, in Canada. It was a general knowledge answere game; the area of the question depended on which colour a player landed on, out of six.

10 October 1979, Pac-Man was released in Japan by Namco; it soon became a worldwide craze.

30 January 1975, The Rubik Cube was patented by Erno Rubik in Hungary.

28 August 1967, Death of Charles Darrow, US inventor of the board game Monopoly.

9 March 1959, A doll named Barbara Millicent Roberts, or Barbie for short, was exhibited at the New York Toy Fair, wearing a black and white swimming costume.

13 February 1959, The first Barbie Doll went on sale, priced at US$3 (�2), in a zebra-stripe swimsuit. She was created by Ruth Handler, whose daughter was called Barbara.

28 January 1958, Lego building bricks were patented by Godtfred Christiansen in Billund, Denmark. Lego is short for the Danish for �play well�, Leg-Godt. By a happy coincidence, it also means �I assemble� in Latin.

16 September 1956, Play Doh was invented by Noah and Joseph McVicker in the USA. They were trying to make wallpaper cleaner. It is like modelling clay but easier to use, and rapidly became popular.

11 June 1954, The game Scrabble was patented in the USA (registered trademark January 1950, possibly played as early as 1948). Game aids such as reverse dictionaries were compiled� in the 1950s.

1 November 1945, The Slinky coil was patented by Richard James in Pennsylvania.

4 December 1935. The game of monopoly was born, invented by unemployed engineer Charles Darrow. It is the world�s most successful box game, having sold over 500 million sets.

1934, Dinky Toys, small model cars for children, first appeared.

1922, The� Chinese game Mah-Jong became popular in the West. Its name means �sparrow�, from the figure of a sparrow on one of its suits.

1909, The term �jigsaw� for a puzzle comprising many irregularly-shaped pieces of wood (cut with a jig-saw�) that had to be assembled correctly came into use. The alternative term �zigsaw� was briefly used in the 1910s. See 1794.

1907, Table football was first sold in the USA. It only became popular after World War Two, under the brand name Subbuteo. An alternative name, Wibley Wob, never caught on.

1907, The game of Snakes and Ladders went on sale.

9 January 1901, Meccano was patented by Frank Hornby (1863-1936), England. He registered the name as a proprietary brand in 1907.

1794, A �moral jigsaw� (see 1909), called A Map of the Various Paths of Life, was produced. When assembled, it constituted a board game offering children who played it various choiuces in life. The optimal path was from Parental Care Hall to Happy Old Age. However there were diversions available via Dalliance Bench in Off-Guard Parish, or via Misery Square and Remorse Hedge, or along Public Spirit Highway to Devotion Grove.

1760s, John Spilsbury, English engraver, began to mount maps on thin wooden boards and cut them along border lines to produce what he called a �dissected map� for the geographical education of children. These were the first jigsaws, although the term �jigsaw� only came into use from 1909.

14 September 1759, The earliest dated English board game, A Journey Through Europe, or The Play of Geography, invented by John Jeffries, was sold by him at his London home.

Appendix 6 � Hygiene

2020, The UK now had 2,556 public toilets, down from 3,154 in 2015.

1982, 21.5% of French homes possessed no indoor fluhing toilet, down from 45% in 1968 and 73% in 1954. In 1954 90% of French homes had no bath or shower, a figure down to 12.2% by 1984. By 1984 just 10.7% of French homes had no indoor flushing toilet; many of these being old rural farmsteads.

1960, Hitchin Council in the UK became the first to use black plastic polythene bin bags for refuse collection. Previously, rubbish was put loose straight into bins, causing smells and being scattered in the road when the bin was emptied.

21 March 1950, A survey showed that only 46% of British homes had a bathroom.

1949, Air freshener was now a household accessory, to mask �foul odours�.

1948, The first disposable nappies were sold by Saks, Fifth Avenue, New York. Proctor and Gamble test marketed them in the 1950s, and launched the first mass-produced disposable nappies in 1961 under the brand name Pampers.

1944, A survey by the Women�s Institute across Britain of 3,500 villages showed that 1,000 of them ;lacked piped water.

1942, Soft toilet paper first appeared in Britain. It was made at the St Andrews paper mill, Walthamstow, London.

1937, The first tampons were marketed under the name Tampax.

1924, Kleenex, the first face tissues sold in Western countries, was introduced, as Celluwipes (the Japanese had been using them for centuries).

1921, The first commercially produced sanitary towels were marketed under the brand name Kotex.

1914, The first modern sewage plant, designed to treat sewage with bacteria, opened in Manchester.

27 January 1910, Thomas Crapper, toilet inventor, died.

1907, Floor Polish, an early example of a mass-produce dmaterial for housework, went on sale.

1906, Jeyes Fluid, the commercial name of a disinfectant fluid, went on sale in the UK. It was notable for its distinctive strong smell.

30 August 1901, Scotsman Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner. Houses often had no electricity then, and� the motor and pump were so large they were mounted on a horse-drawn cart whilst a tube that might be over 200 metres long was used for suction. Booth later introduced a clear tube so clients could see the dirt being sucked out of their house.

1900, Only 1 in 7 US homes possessed a bath-tub.

31 May 1898, Sir Richard Rawlinson, British sanitation engineer, died in London (born 28 February 1810 in Bristol).

22 May 1892, Dr Washington Sheffield invented the toothpaste tube.

15 March 1891, Sir Joseph William Bazalgette, engineer, died.

1889, The first underground public convenience for women opened in London, at Piccadilly Circus.(see 1885). It was luxuriously appointed, designed to appeal to the wealthy female shoppers patronising London;s West End department stores. However resistance to the provision of female public toilets (men�s public urinals were acceptable) lingered on after 1900, based on notions that it was �unfemale�, �degrading� to use one forf a woman, or that the poor would simply use them for ordinary washing.

1885, The first underground public convenience (for men only) opened at the Royal Exchange, London. See 1852 and 1889.

17 February 1883, The vacant / engaged toilet sign was patented by Mr Ashwell of Herne Hill, London.

1882, Just 2% of New York homes have piped water. Almost every house has a backyard privy.

19 September 1876, Melville R Bissell of Grand Rapids, Michigan patented the Bissell carpet sweeper, the first practical way to sweep carpets of dust. He suffered from headaches caused by his allergy to straw dust which came from the straw packing he used in his china shop. He invented a sweeper with a sprung brush roller that responded to pressure on the handle.

1871, In the USA, toilet paper was first put on a roll.

1864, In Britain, the first of the Baths and Wash Houses Acts were passed (1864-1896). Then provison of bathing facilities in UK towns was now deemed necessary.

1859, Glasgow opened its new water supply from Loch Katrine; this was a significant developemtn in the hygiene of the city.

1857, The first mass production of toilet paper began, in the USA, pioneered by Joseph Cayetty. Toilet paper had been in use at the Imperial Court of 14^th century China, but most people in 19^th century Europe and America simply used torn up newspaper. Cayett�s paper, at 50 cents for 500 sheets, was not cheap; it was impregnated with aloe as a supposed cure for piles. Gradually the cost fell and it became universally used. The term �toilet paper� was first used by the New York Times in 1888.

11 February 1852, The first flushing public toilet for women opened in Fleet Street, London. The cost was 2d. See 2 February 1852.

2 February 1852, The first public convenience for men opened in Fleet Street, London. See 11 February 1852.

19 September 1851, William Lever, soap maker and philanthropist, later Lord Leverhulme, was born in Bolton.� He was the son of a grocer.

1844, In the UK, the Commission for Enquiring into the State of Large Towns established a link between dirt and epidemic disease.

28 March 1819, Engineer Sir Joseph William Bazalgette was born.

12 May 1792, A toilet that regularly flushed itself was patented.

1789, Pear�s Soap was first produced.

1778, In England, Joseph Bramah improved on Cumming�s design for a flushing toilet and begn commercial manufacture of them.

1775, In England, the first patent for a flushing toilet was granted to Alexander Cumming.

1589, English writer Sir John Harrington had an early non gravity fed flushing toilet at his house in Kelston, Somerset.

24 December 1508, London houses received piped water for the first time.

1503, The pocket handkerchief came into use in polite society in Europe. In Mediaeval times, people just wiped their faces on their robe sleeves.

589, Earliest reference to toilet paper, in China.

50 AD, Romans learnt the use of soap, from the Gauls.

1550 BCE, Date of the Egyptian Elbers Papyrus, which describes in detail how to make soap from animal fats and vegetable oils, and the uses of this soap for washing.

2000 BCE, The Minoans possessed flushing toilets, using cisterns fed by streams, flushed by a lever.

2800 BCE, Soap was in use in ancient Babylon. Soap is also mentioned in the Bible Book of Jeremiah, and by 1550 BCE it was in use in Egypt.

Appendix 11 � Music Video Entertainment� and Sound

21 April 1989, Nintendo began selling Game Boys in Japan.

2 September 1987, Philips introduced the CD-video.

1983, The first Compact Discs were marketed, in Britain.

1 July 1979, The first Sony Walkman, a portable personal cassette player with headphones, went on sale in Japan.

17 May 1978. Compact Discs created by Philips.

7 June 1975, Sony introduced the Betamax home videotape recorder.

14 April 1956,� The first videotape was demonstrated in Chicago.

1955, The first electronic musical synthesisiser was built. Operating on punched tape, it took up a whole room.

31 January 1955, RCA introduced the first musical synthesiser.

31 August 1951. Long playing 33 rpm records went on sale in West Germany.

10 January 1949 33.3 and 45 rpm vinyl records went on sale in the USA.

26 June 1948, Columbia officially released its new 33.3 rpm long playing records.

22 June 1948. Dr Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records unveiled the first successfully produced micro-groove, or long playing, record.

3 August 1929, Emile Berliner, US inventor of the flat phonographic record, died.

8 December 1924, The Theremin, the world�s first electronic musical instrument, was patented in Germany by Lev Sergievitch Termen, a Russian cellist and electronic engineer, born in St Petersburg in 1896 (died 1993). It worked on the heterodyne principle, that a combination of two radio high frequency sound waves could combine to produce a lower frequency audible sound equal to the difference, As the high frequency waves varied, so did the audible sound. The presence of a human body altered the radio waves, which was how the machine could produce changing sounds as a hand was waved over it. The machine was later superseded by the Moog Synthesiser.

1 April 1924. The first gramophone to automatically change records went on sale, produced by HMV.

19 February 1916, Ernst Mach, Austrian scientist after whom the speed of sound in air is named, died the day after his 78^th birthday.

2 December 1906, Hungarian-US physicist Peter Mark Goldmark was born in Budapest. In 1948 he developed the first long-playing record in the USA.

14 April 1894, Edison�s kinetoscope, or moving pictures, were shown to the public for the first time.

23 November 1889, The first jukebox was installed, in the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco.

16 May 1888, Emile Berliner demonstrated the first gramophone, to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

26 September 1887, The first gramophone player, invented by Emile Berliner, a German immigrant living in Washington DC, was patented.

30 August 1881. Clement Ader of Germany patented the first stereo system, for a telephonic broadcasting service.

15 August 1877, Thomas Alva Edison produced a hand cranked phonograph which cut grooves to record sound and spoke the words �Mary had a little lamb�. His machine reproduced the words in recognisable form. The phonograph was intended as a business machine but soon revolutionised the music business.

23 November 1869, Valdemar Poulson, Danish inventor of the tape recorder, was born.

13 March 1866, Dayton Miller was born in Strongsville, Ohio. In 1912 he invented the photodeik, a devuice that made sound visible as patterns of light.

1822, Arago determined the velocity of sound.

29 November 1803, Christian Johann Doppler was born in Salzburg, Austria. In 1842 he discovered that the frequency of sound waves emitted by a moving source changes according to relative speed towards or away from the observer; this is called the Doppler Effect.

Appendix 12 � Postal Services

19 October 1993, The UK Post Office began selling self-adhesive stamps that didn�t need licking.

1 October 1969, Austria issued the world�s first official post card.

3 October 1959, The postcode system for sorting mail was first used in Britain, in Norwich.

28 July 1959. Postcodes were introduced to Britain by the Postmaster General, along with new postal sorting machines. They were used first in the Norwich area on 3 October 1959.

3 August 1902, First parcel post left the UK for the USA, on board the liner Teutonic.

16 April 1900. The world�s first book of stamps was issued, in the USA.

27 August 1879, Sir Rowland Hill, pioneer of the postal service, died.� He devised the Penny Post in 1840.

24 February 1857, The first shipment of perforated postage stamps was received by the US Government.

3 August 1856, London was divided into postal districts to speed up the mail delivery.

11 April 1855, London�s first six �pillar boxes� were installed, and were painted green.

21 January 1853, Russell L Hawes patented the envelope-folding machine.

23 November 1852. Britain�s first pillar box was erected, in St Helier on Jersey.

3 December 1795. Sir Rowland Hill, who pioneered the postal service, was born in Kidderminster.

Appendix 13 - Robotics

28 September 1990, At the first ever Robot Olympics, held in Glasgow, an 8-legged machine called Penelope built at Edinburgh University won the flat race for robots without wheels, achieving 0.13 metres per second.

14 June 1967. At a telecommunications conference in London, the Postmaster General discussed the imminent arrival of household robots.

1954, The robotic arm was designed by George Devol.

1920, The word �robot� (worker) was coined by Czech playwright Karel Capek.

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