istoryworld
Events relating to technology
Ten days after the first human ascent in a hot-air balloon the feat is repeated, again in Paris, in a version lifted by hydrogen
Louis XVI watches through his telescope the first balloon flight with living passengers – a sheep, a cock and a duck
A hot-air balloon rises from a Paris garden, carrying the first human aeronauts – Pilàtre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes
Benjamin Franklin, irritated at needing two pairs of spectacles, commissions from a lens-grinder the first bifocals
English ironmaster Henry Cort patents a process for puddling iron which produces a pure and malleable metal
The first mail coach leaves Bristol for London, introducing a new era of faster transport
Scottish engineer James Watt devises the governor, the first example of industrial automation
French inventor Claude Chappe develops a hilltop signalling system, for which he coins the words telegraph and semaphore
Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, enormously speeding up the process of separating cotton fibres from the seeds
A steam tug designed by William Symington, the Charlotte Dundas, goes into service on the Forth and Clyde canal
Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick drives a steam carriage in London, from Holborn to Paddington and back
Richard Trevithick runs the first locomotive on rails, pulling heavy weights a distance of 9 miiles (15 km) near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales
A Scottish clergyman, Alexander Forsyth, invents the percussion cap to help in his pursuit of wildfowl
US engineer Robert Fulton launches a steamboat, the Clermont, on New York's Hudson river
Work begins at Cumberland in Maryland on the construction of America's National Road
William Hedley's Puffing Billy, the first steam locomotive running on smooth rails, goes to work at Wylam colliery
The Times, England's oldest daily newspaper, becomes the first to print on a steam press
English chemist Humphry Davy invents a safety lamp that shields the naked flame and prevents explosions in mines
Scottish engineer John McAdam builds the first macadamized road, in the Bristol region of southwest England
René Laënnec, reluctant to press his ear to the chest of a young female patient, finds a solution in the stethoscope
French physicist Augustin Jean Fresnel develops a more efficient form of lens for use in lighthouses
Active (later called Locomotion) is the engine on the first passenger railway, between Stockton and Darlington
Work begins on the 363-mile Erie Canal that will link the Hudson River to Lake Erie
Scottish engineer Thomas Telford completes two suspension bridges in Wales, at Conwy and over the Menai Strait
The locomotive Rocket, built by George and Robert Stephenson, defeats two rivals in the Rainhill trials, near Liverpool
