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Timeline of Victorian Science

 

1842     Crawford Long uses ether in a minor operation; Richard    Owen coins term Dinosaur.

1843     Great Britain — first large, iron, screw-propelled steamship

1843     Typewriter invented.

1844      Chambers,     Vestiges of the natural history of creation (at Project Gutenberg). 

1844     Commercial use of Morse's telegraph (Baltimore to Washington).

c. 1845     Turret-lathe.

1846     Pneumatic tire patented

1846     First telegraph cable laid under the Channel. 

1846     Ether used in a major operation.

1846      Elias Howe invents sewing machine.

1847     Boole, Mathematical Logic.

1849     Monier develops reinforced concrete.

1850     Petrol (gasoline) refining first used. 

1850     Isaac Singer commercializes sewing machine

 

1850     Natural Science Honours School established at Oxford.

1851     Singer invents first practical sewing machine. 

1851     Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge.

1853    Elisha Otis invents the elevator safety brake making skyscrapers possible

1854     Bessemer invents steel converter.

1855     William Thomson and William Rankine proclaim a new science of thermodynamics or "energetics," Regius Chair of Technology founded at Edinburgh. 

1855     Yale lock invented

1855     H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology.

1856     Bessemer's converter enables mass production of steel .

1856     H. Perkin produces aniline dyes, permitting brightly colored cottons.

1857    Pasteur experiments with fermentation.

1858     First Trans-Atlantic Cable completed

1858     Cathode rays discovered.

1859     Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species.
James Clerk Maxwell, "Kinetic Theory of Gases

1859     Edwin Drake strikes oil in Pennsylvania. 

1859     Etienne Lenoir demonstrates the first successful gasoline engine.

1860    Science degrees at University of London.

1861    Universal milling machine invented;

1861    James Clerk Maxwell creates first color photograph.

1863      Siemens-Martin open hearth process (along with the Bessemer converter) makes steel available in bulk. Steel begins to replace iron in building: steel framing and reinforced concrete make possible "curtain-wall" architecture — i.e., the skyscraper.

1864    Maxwell's Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field

1867     Lister demonstrates the use of carbolic antiseptic. 

1867     Alfred Nobel produces dynamite, the first high explosive which can be safely handled.

1869     Mendeléev produces the Periodic Table.

c. 1870     Automatic lathe

1873     Maxwell, Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
Christopher Sholes invents the Remington typewriter.

1873     James Clerk Maxwell states the laws of electro-magnetic radiation

1876     Bell invents the telephone. 

1876     Robert Koch discovers the anthrax-causing micro-organism, demonstrates its life cycle and explains how it causes disease after long dormancy.

1877     Thomas Edison invents the phonograph

1877     Gilchrist-Thomas basic process permits using wider range of ores for manufacturing steel

1878    Microphone invented.

1879    Edison invents the incandescent lamp.

1882     Koch isolates tuberculosis bacillus.

1883      First skyscraper (ten stories) in Chicago. 

1883      The Brooklyn Bridge opens. This large suspension bridge, built by the Roeblings (father and son), is a triumph of engineering.

1884    Maxim invents the machine gun, making possible mass slaughter and beginning the mechanization of warfare. 

1884    Carl Kohler uses cocaine as a local anesthetic. 

1884    Koch isolates the cholera bacillus.

1885     Benz develops first automobile to run on internal- combustion engine. 

1885     Pasteur develops hydrophobia vaccine.

1886     R.H. Fitz identifies appendicitis.

1888     Hertz produces radio waves.

1889     Eiffel Tower.

1890      Wm. James, Principles of Psychology

1890     Koch develops tuberculin, which can be used to test for tuberculosis.

1892     Rudolf Diesel invents his namesake.

1894     William Ramsay discovers argon, first of the inert gases.

1895     Lumière brothers develop Cinematograph.

1895     Roentgen discovers X-rays.

1896     Marconi patents wireless telegraph. 

1896     Becquerel discovers radioactivity in uranium.

1897    Joseph Thomson discovers particles smaller than atoms.

1898     Ramsay and Travers discover krypton, neon and xenon.

1899     Aspirin invented.

1900    Planck develops quantum theory.

1900    First Zeppelin built. 

1900    Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.

1901    Marconi transmits first trans-Atlantic radio message (from Cape Cod)

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