Humanity

Chronology

1. 1200 BCE – 550 BCE (c.)

   The Iron Age spreads

   Across the Near East, South Asia and eventually Europe and East Asia, iron smelting displaced bronze as the working metal of tools and weapons.

2. 100 BCE – 200 CE (c.)

   Rome engineers a Mediterranean world

   Roads, aqueducts, concrete, sewers and standardized coinage: Rome's infrastructure ran from Britain to Syria, engineered to a shared specification.

3. 1438 – 1533 (c.)

   The Inca road network: Qhapaq Ñan

   Some 40,000 km of roads stitched a mountain empire together, run by relay runners — chasqui — carrying knotted quipu records instead of writing.

4. 1769 – 1776

   Watt's separate condenser

   James Watt's improvement cut the fuel hunger of the Newcomen engine; with Matthew Boulton he industrialized engine-making itself.

5. 1825 – 1830

   The railways bind distance to a timetable

   The Stockton & Darlington ran in 1825; by 1830 the Liverpool & Manchester — won by Stephenson's Rocket at Rainhill — showed steam rail as a business.

6. 1879 – 1882

   Edison lights the night

   Edison's Menlo Park lab delivered a practical incandescent lamp, then the Pearl Street station (1882) to power it — light sold as a service.

7. 1885 – 1886

   Benz drives the first automobile

   Karl Benz's Patent-Motorwagen, then Bertha Benz's long-distance drive, proved a self-propelled road vehicle could work — and sell.

8. 1903

   The Wright Flyer leaves the ground

   Orville and Wilbur Wright flew a powered, controlled, sustained heavier-than-air machine for twelve seconds at Kitty Hawk.