Energy
How Electricity Moved from the Laboratory to Everyday Life
Electricity went from laboratory curiosity to a system of generation and distribution through many inventors, engineers, and commercial and patent disputes.
1880–1945
Electric age and mass communication
Electricity left the laboratory for streets, homes, and factories. The telephone, cinema, radio, and television created new ways to transmit voice, image, and sound, while wars accelerated research in calculation and electronics that would lead to the first computers.
Articles
Communication
The Evolution of the Telephone
The telephone grew out of collective and contested research on sending the voice over wires, and evolved from manual switchboards to global digital networks.
Image and sound
The History of Sound Recording and Reproduction
From the 1857 phonautograph to Edison's phonograph, Berliner's disc, magnetic tape, the cassette, the CD, and the MP3: the technical path of recorded sound.
Image and sound
The Technical Development of Cinema
The technical history of cinema, from optical toys and chronophotography to the 1895 projectors, synchronized sound, Technicolor, and the problem of film preservation.
Communication
Radio and Wireless Transmission
How the theory of electromagnetic waves became ship-to-shore wireless telegraphy and then broadcasting, with patent disputes, the vacuum tube, FM, and spectrum regulation.
Image and sound
How Television Developed
The technical history of television, from Nipkow and Baird's mechanical scanning to electronic tubes, patent disputes, color, satellites, Brazilian TV, and digital broadcasting.
Computing
From Mechanical Calculators to the First Computers
From the 17th century to 1951, mechanical calculators, punched cards and wartime projects led to the first electronic computers and the stored program.
Milestones
- 1882
First urban electric grids
Stations such as Holborn Viaduct in London and Pearl Street in New York begin distributing electricity for lighting.
Read: Electricity → - 1895
Public film screenings
The Lumière brothers hold a paid screening in Paris on December 28, 1895. Other inventors demonstrated systems in the same years.
Read: Cinema → - 1901
Claimed transatlantic radio signal
Guglielmo Marconi announces reception of a signal between England and Newfoundland. The technical proof of the feat is debated.
Read: Radio → - 1913
Moving assembly line
Ford adopts the moving assembly line at Highland Park, in the United States, cutting the production time of the Model T.
Read: Factories → - 1920
Regular broadcasting in the United States
Station KDKA in Pittsburgh begins regular broadcasts in November 1920.
Read: Radio → - 1936
Regular television service in London
The BBC begins a regular television service, one of the first in the world.
Read: Television →