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The wheel was invented around 3500 BC in Mesopotamia -
Gutenberg's printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany around 1440, revolutionized the dissemination of knowledge by allowing the mass production of books at a much lower cost than handwriting. -
The steam engine became the driving force of the Industrial Revolution through early versions by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, but it was the improvements by James Watt that made it truly revolutionary -
A telegraph is a system for transmitting and receiving messages over a long distance using electrical signals or radio waves -
The device transmitted voice over wires using an electromagnetic system that converted sound waves into electrical signals and back again -
In 1879, Thomas Edison created the first practical, commercially viable incandescent light bulb by developing a long-lasting carbon-filament bulb -
The first powered flight was achieved by Wilbur and Orville Wright on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with their aircraft, the Wright Flyer. -
The first general-purpose electronic computer was the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), completed in 1945. It was a large, programmable machine designed to solve complex mathematical problems, like calculating artillery firing tables during World War II. While it wasn't the first electronic device to compute, its combination of being general-purpose and programmable set it apart from earlier machines -
In 1971, Intel released the Intel 4004, the world's first commercial microprocessor, putting the central processing unit (CPU) onto a single chip for the first time -
In 1980, personal computers (PCs) were a nascent but rapidly growing field, primarily of interest to hobbyists and businesses. Key characteristics included: -
In 1990, internet access was primarily through dial-up modems, and mobile phones were bulky, expensive, and limited to voice calls, though the introduction of 2G networks began to bring digital capabilities like short text messages (SMS) to these devices. The groundwork for the World Wide Web was laid, but its public access and mobile functionality were still years away -
In the year 2000-2010, smartphones and tablets as they are known today did not exist, and social networks were in their infancy, primarily existing as early websites rather than integrated mobile platforms. -
Things continue to advance that will help us in the future thanks to AI.