SOFT NEWS 20th Century Invention Timeline 1900 to 1949 The Greatest Inventions That Transformed the Early 1900s

[Knoxville's Joker]

My how we have grown in the past 100 years.

Great 20th Century Inventions From 1900 to 1949

Technology and science have progressed at an accelerated rate during the 20th century, as the highlights of the inventions of the first 50 years show.

www.thoughtco.com

By Mary Bellis

Inventions Expert
Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell.

Updated on January 24, 2020
Technology, science, inventions, and re-inventions have progressed at an accelerated rate during the hundred years of the 20th century, more so than any other century.

We began the 20th century with the infancy of airplanes, automobiles, and radio, when those inventions dazzled us with their novelty and wonder.

We ended the 20th century with spaceships, computers, cell phones, and the wireless Internet all being technologies we can take for granted.

1900​

• The zeppelin invented by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
• Charles Seeberger redesigned Jesse Reno's escalator and invented the modern escalator.

1901​

• King Camp Gillette invents the double-edged safety razor.
• The first radio receiver successfully received a radio transmission.
• Hubert Booth invents a compact and modern vacuum cleaner.

1902​

• Willis Carrier invents the air conditioner.
• The lie detector or polygraph machine is invented by James Mackenzie.
• The birth of the Teddy Bear.
• George Claude invented neon light.

1903​

• Edward Binney and Harold Smith co-invent crayons.
• Bottle-making machinery invented by Michael J. Owens.
• The Wright brothers invent the first gas motored and manned airplane.
• William Coolidge invents ductile tungsten used in lightbulbs.

1904​

• Teabags invented by Thomas Suillivan.
• Benjamin Holt invents a tractor.
• John A Fleming invents a vacuum diode or Fleming valve.

1905​

• Albert Einstein published the Theory of Relativity and made famous the equation, E = mc2.
• Mary Anderson receives a patent for windshield wipers.

1906​

• William Kellogg invents Cornflakes.
• Lewis Nixon invents the first sonar-like device.
• Lee Deforest invents electronic amplifying tube (triode).

1907​

• Leo Baekeland invents the first synthetic plastic called Bakelite.
• Color photography invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere.
• The very first piloted helicopter was invented by Paul Cornu.

1908​

• The gyrocompass invented by Elmer A. Sperry.
• Cellophane invented by Jacques E. Brandenberger.
• Model T first sold.
• J W Geiger and W Müller invent the geiger counter.
• Fritz Haber invents the Haber Process for making artificial nitrates.

Bettmann Archive / Getty Images

1909​

• Instant coffee invented by G. Washington.

1910​

• Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture.
• Georges Claude displayed the first neon lamp to the public on December 11, 1910, in Paris.

1911​

• Charles Franklin Kettering invents the first automobile electrical ignition system.

1912​

• Motorized movie cameras invented, replaced hand-cranked cameras.
• The first military tank patented by Australian inventor De La Mole.
• Clarence Crane created Life Savers candy.

1913​

• The crossword puzzle invented by Arthur Wynne.
• The Merck Chemical Company patented, what is now know as, ecstasy.
• Mary Phelps Jacob invents the bra.

1914​

• Garrett A. Morgan invents the Morgan gas mask.

1915​

READ MORE
The Most Important Inventions of the 19th Century
By Mary Bellis

• Eugene Sullivan and William Taylor co-invented Pyrex in New York City.

1916​

• Radio tuners invented, that received different stations.
• Stainless steel invented by Henry Brearly.

1917​

• Gideon Sundback patented the modern zipper (not the first zipper).

1918​

• The superheterodyne radio circuit invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong. Today, every radio or television set uses this invention.
• Charles Jung invented fortune cookies.

1919​

• The pop-up toaster invented by Charles Strite.
• Short-wave radio invented.
• The flip-flop circuit invented.
• The arc welder invented.

1920​

• The tommy gun patented by John T Thompson.
• The Band-Aid (pronounced 'ban-'dade) invented by Earle Dickson.

1921​

• Artificial life begins -- the first robot built.

1922​

• Insulin invented by Sir Frederick Grant Banting.
• The first 3-D movie (spectacles with one red and one green lens) is released.

1923​

• Garrett A. Morgan invents a traffic signal.
• The television or iconoscope (cathode-ray tube) invented by Vladimir Kosma Zworykin.
• John Harwood invented the self-winding watch.
• Clarence Birdseye invents frozen food.

1924​

• The dynamic loudspeaker invented by Rice and Kellogg.
• Notebooks with spiral bindings invented.

1925​

• The mechanical television a precursor to the modern television, invented by John Logie Baird.

1926​

• Robert H. Goddard invents liquid-fueled rockets.

1927​

• Eduard Haas III invents PEZ candy.
• JWA Morrison invents the first quartz crystal watch.
• Philo Taylor Farnsworth invents a complete electronic TV system.
• Technicolor invented, which allowed the widespread creation of color movies.
• Erik Rotheim patents an aerosol can.
• Warren Marrison developed the first quartz clock.
• Philip Drinker invents the iron lung.

1928​

• Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
• Bubble gum invented by Walter E. Diemer.
• Jacob Schick patented the electric shaver.

1929​

• American, Paul Galvin invents the car radio.
• Yo-Yo re-invented as an American fad.

RapidEye / Getty Images

1930​

• Scotch tape patented by 3M engineer, Richard G. Drew.
• The frozen food process patented by Clarence Birdseye.
• Wallace Carothers and DuPont Labs invent neoprene.
• The "differential analyzer", or analog computer invented by Vannevar Bush at MIT in Boston.
• Frank Whittle and Dr. Hans von Ohain both invent a jet engine.

1931​

• Harold Edgerton invented stop-action photography.
• Germans Max Knott and Ernst Ruska co-invent the electron microscope.

1932​

• Polaroid photography invented by Edwin Herbert Land.
• The zoom lens and the light meter invented.
• Carl C. Magee invents the first parking meter.
• Karl Jansky invents the radio telescope.

1933​

• Frequency modulation (FM radio) invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong.
• Stereo records invented.
• Richard M. Hollingshead builds a prototype drive-in movie theater in his driveway.

1934​

• Englishman Percy Shaw invents cat eyes or roads reflectors.
• Charles Darrow claims he invented the game Monopoly.
• Joseph Begun invents the first tape recorder for broadcasting - first magnetic recording.

1935​

• Wallace Carothers and DuPont Labs invents nylon ( polymer 6.6.)
• The first canned beer made.
• Robert Watson-Watt patented radar.

1936​

• Bell Labs invents the voice recognition machine.

1937​

• Chester F. Carlson invents the photocopier.
• The first jet engine is built.

Monty Rakusen / Getty Images

1938​

• The ballpoint pen invented by Ladislo Biro.
• Strobe lighting invented.
• LSD was synthesized on November 16, 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann of Sandoz Laboratories.
• Roy J. Plunkett invented tetrafluoroethylene polymers or Teflon.
• Nescafe or freeze-dried coffee invented.

1939​

• Igor Sikorsky invents the first successful helicopter.

1940​

• Dr. William Reich invents the orgone accumulator.
• Peter Goldmark invents modern color television system.
• Karl Pabst invents the jeep.

1941​

• Konrad Zuse's Z3, the first computer controlled by software.
• Aerosol spray cans invented by American inventors, Lyle David Goodloe and W.N. Sullivan.
• Enrico Fermi invents the neutronic reactor.

1942​

• John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry built the first electronic digital computer.
• Mueller designs a turboprop engine.

1943​

• Synthetic rubber invented.
• Richard James invents the slinky.
• James Wright invents silly putty.
• Swiss chemist, Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD.
• Emile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau invented the aqualung.

1944​

• The kidney dialysis machine invented by Willem Kolff.
• Synthetic cortisone invented by Percy Lavon Julian.

1945​

• Vannevar Bush proposes hypertext.
• The atomic bomb invented.

1946​

• The microwave oven invented by Percy Spencer.

1947​

• British/Hungarian scientist, Dennis Gabor, developed the theory of holography.
• Mobile phones first invented. Although cell phones were not sold commercially until 1983.
• Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley invented the transistor.
• Earl Silas Tupper patented the Tupperware seal.

1948​

• The Frisbee ® invented by Walter Frederick Morrison and Warren Franscioni.
• Velcro ® invented by George de Mestral.
• Robert Hope-Jones invented the Wurlitzer jukebox.

Glow Images / Getty Images

1949​

• Cake mix invented.

 

[West]

And all done under no to vary little (3%after 1930s) mandated payroll taxes and liabilities. Also before frivolous lawsuits that today get settled out of court, causing everyone's general and mandated liabilities to explode.

Up to 1950 our nation was made of mostly strong independent individuals who employed the majority in the private sectors. Good manufacturing, industrial and fabrication jobs.

Today the highest/best paid is government or related jobs. There's millions of them. Including crony capitalism there's even more. Finding a good job today in the private sectors is much harder to find. And even then the fed and state governments steal over half of the employees all in cost to keep them on the payroll. So the manufacturing etc...goes away. By design.

 

[Hfcomms]

• Carl C. Magee invents the first parking meter.

And drivers everywhere despise him if they knew who he was.

 

[Old Gray Mare]

Didn't see refrigerator on the list. IMHO that's a big one.

 

[hiwall]

The first tractors.
"For thousands of years, farming was driven by the muscle of either animals or humans. With the invention of the steam engine, industrialists brought steam power to farms. The inventions of the reaper and steel plow began a rush to mechanize farming. In the early 20th century, hundreds of companies were experimenting with vehicles to bring power farming to agriculture. By 1929, Deere, Ford and International Harvester were among the few dozen companies that remained, but the tractor form we recognize today had finally emerged and began rapidly replacing muscle as the primary source of power on the farm."

Tractor Wars : Iowa PBS : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

For thousands of years, farming was driven by the muscle of either animals or humans. With the invention of the steam engine, industrialists brought steam...

archive.org

 

[Firebird]

My aunt, born in 1887, lived to see the Apollo missions, the amazing transformations she saw in her lifetime!

 

[Delta]

I've kept my eyes open for information on Richard Jackson, who I have been told invented the electrical system (first 6 volt) for automobiles and was responsible for introducing electric auto headlights and electric starters--but have found nothing. He sold out is patents and company in 1929 (good timing!) and retired to southern California.

 

[mikeabn]

1906- Dreadnought, the first all-big gun battleship and powered by turbine engines, is launched, sparking a world-wide naval race contributing to the start of WW I.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

Also omitted from the list:


1936 - George ORTOLANO invented and patented the first commercially successful ice crushing machine. This machine, called the SnoWizard, created an entirely new industry — the SnoBall industry.

The SnoBall industry is quite popular in NewOrleans - especially in the summer (summer is 9 months long in New Orleans).

But it is also popular in places like Florida and Hawaii, where the end product is sometimes called Hawaiian ice shavings instead of snoballs.

 

[Knoxville's Joker]

Nineteenth century inventions 1800 to 1899 - Inventions of the 1800s

theinventors.org

800	Frenchmen, J.M. Jacquard invents the Jacquard Loom. Count Alessandro Volta invents the battery
1804	Freidrich Winzer (Winsor) was the first person to patent gas lighting. Richard Trevithick, an English mining engineer, developed the first steam-powered locomotive. Unfortunately, the machine was too heavy and broke the very rails it was traveling on.
1809	Humphry Davy invents the first electric light - the first arc lamp.
1810	German, Frederick Koenig invents an improved printing press. Peter Durand invents the tin can.
1814	George Stephenson designs the first steam locomotive. The first plastic surgery is performed in England. German, Joseph von Fraunhofer invents the spectrocope for the chemical analysis of glowing objects. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was the first person to take a photograph. He took the picture by setting up a machine called the camera obscura in the window of his home in France. It took eight hours for the camera to take the picture.
1815	Humphry Davy invents the miner's lamp.
1819	Samuel Fahnestock patents a "soda fountain". René Laënnec invents the stethoscope.
1823	Mackintosh (raincoat) invented by Charles Mackintosh of Scotland.
1824	Professor Michael Faraday invents the first toy balloon. Englishmen, Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement, the modern building material.
1825	William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet.
1827	John Walker invents the modern matches. Charles Wheatstone invents the microphone.
1829	American, W.A. Burt invents a typewriter. Frenchmen, Louis Braille invents braille printing. William Austin Burt patents a typographer, a predecessor to the typewriter.
1830	Frenchmen, B. Thimonnier invents a sewing machine.
1831	American, Cyrus H. McCormick invents the first commercially successful reaper. Michael Faraday invents a electric dynamo.
1832	Englishmen, Louis Braille invents the stereoscope.
1834	Henry Blair patents a corn planter, he is the second black person to receive a U.S. patent. Jacob Perkins invents an early refrigerator (really an ether ice machine).
1835	Englishmen, Henry F. Talbot invents Calotype photography. Solymon Merrick patents the wrench. Englishmen, Francis Pettit Smith invents the propeller. Charles Babbage invents a mechanical calculator.
1836	Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericcson co-invent the propellor. Samuel Colt invented the first revolver.
1837	Samuel Morse invents the telegraph. English schoolmaster, Rowland Hill invents the postage stamp.
1838	Samual Morse invents Morse Code.
I839	American, Thaddeus Fairbanks invents platform scales. American, Charles Goodyear invents rubber vulcanization. Frenchmen, Louis Daguerre and J.N. Niepce co-invent Daguerreotype photography. Kirkpatrick Macmillan invents a bicycle. Welshmen, Sir William Robert Grove conceives of the first hydrogen fuel cell.
1840	Englishmen, John Herschel invents the blueprint.
1841	Samuel Slocum patents the stapler.
1842	Joseph Dart builds the first grain elevator.
1843	Alexander Bain of Scotland, invents the facsimile.
1844	Englishmen, John Mercer invents mercerized cotton.
1845	American, Elias Howe invents a sewing machine. Robert William Thomson patents the first vulcanised rubber pneumatic tire.
1846	Dr. William Morton, a Massachusetts dentist, is the first to use anesthesia for tooth extraction.
1847	Hungarian, Ignaz Semmelweis invents antisceptics.
1848	Waldo Hanchett patents the dental chair.
1849	Walter Hunt invents the safety pin.
1850	Joel Houghton was granted the first dishwasher patent in 1850. The machine was made of wood and required you to hand-turn a wheel that caused water to splash on the dishes. Houghton's machine barely worked. The first practical dishwasher was invented by a woman named Josephine Cochran in 1886. Dishwashers, however, did not begin appearing in homes until the 1950s.

1851	Isaac Singer invents a sewing machine.
1852	Jean Bernard Léon Foucault invents a gyroscope. Henri Giffard builds an airship powered by the first aircraft engine - unsuccessful design.
1853	George Cayley invents a manned glider.
1854	John Tyndall demonstrates the principles of fiber optics.
1855	Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine motor. Georges Audemars invents rayon.
1856	Louis Pasteur invents pasteurisation.
1857	George Pullman invents the Pullman Sleeping Car for train travel.
1858	Hamilton Smith patents the rotary washing machine. Jean Lenoir invents an internal combustion engine.

 

[Knoxville's Joker]

1861

• Elisha Otis patents elevator safety brakes, creating a safer elevator.
• Pierre Michaux invents a bicycle.
• Linus Yale invents the Yale lock or cylinder lock.

1862

• Dr. Richard Gatling patents the machine gun.
• Alexander Parkes invents the first man-made plastic.

1866

• Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
• J. Osterhoudt patents the tin can with a key opener.
• Englishmen Robert Whitehead invents a torpedo.

1867

• Christopher Scholes invents the first practical and modern typewriter.

1868

• George Westinghouse invents air brakes.
• Robert Mushet invents tungsten steel.
• J P Knight invents traffic lights.

1872

• J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill.
• A.M. Ward issues the first mail-order catalog.

1873

• Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire.

1874

• American, C. Goodyear, Jr. invents the shoe welt stitcher.

1876

• Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
• Nicolaus August Otto invents the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine.
• Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper.

1877

• Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph or tin foil phonograph.
• Eadweard Muybridge invents the first moving pictures.

1878

• Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electic lightbulb.

1880

• The British Perforated Paper Company invents a form of toilet paper.
• Englishmen, John Milne invents the modern seismograph.

1881

• Alexander Graham Bell invents the first crude metal detector.
• David Houston patents the roll film for cameras.
• Edward Leveaux patents the automatic player piano.

1884

• George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film.
• Frenchmen, H. de Chardonnet invents rayon.
• Lewis Edson Waterman invents the first practical fountain pen.
• James Ritty invents the first working, mechanical cash register.
• Charles Parson patents the steam turbine.

1885

• Harim Maxim invents the machine gun.
• Karl Benz invents the first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine.
• Gottlieb Daimler invents the first gas-engined motorcycle.

1886

• Josephine Cochrane invents the dishwasher.
• Gottlieb Daimler builds the world's first four-wheeled motor vehicle.
• John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.

1887

• German, Heinrich Hertz invents radar.
• Rowell Hodge patents barbed wire.
• Emile Berliner invents the gramophone.
• F.E. Muller and Adolph Fick invent the first wearable contact lenses.

1888

• Marvin Stone patents the spiral winding process to manufacture the first paper drinking straws.
• John Boyd Dunlop patents a commercially successful pneumatic tire.
• Nikola Tesla invents the AC motor and transformer.

1889

• Joshua Pusey invents the matchbook.
• Sir James Dewar and Sir Frederick Abel co-invent Cordite - a type of smokeless gunpowder.

1891

• Jesse W. Reno invents the escalator.

1892

• Rudolf Diesel invents the diesel-fueled internal combustion engine.
• Sir James Dewar invents the Dewar flask or vacuum flask.

1893

• American, W.L. Judson invents the zipper.
• Edward Goodrich Acheson invents carborundum.

1895

• Lumiere Brothers invent a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe.
• Lumiere Brothers using their Cinematographe are the first to present a projected motion picture to an audience of more that one person.

1896

• American, H. O'Sullivan invents the rubber heel.

1898

• Edwin Prescott patents the roller coaster.
• Rudolf Diesel receives patent #608,845 for an "internal combustion engine" the Diesel engine.

1899

• I.R. Johnson patents the bicycle frame.
• J.S. Thurman patents the motor-driven vacuum cleaner.

 

[Knoxville's Joker]

1500	The first flush toilets appeared.
1510	Leonardo da Vinci designs a horizontal water wheel. Pocket watch invented by Peter Henlein.
1513	Urs Graf invents etching.
1568	Bottled beer invented in London.
1569	Gerard Mercator invents Mercator map projection.
1589	Englishmen, William Lee invents the knitting machine.
1590	Dutchmen, Zacharias Janssen invents the compound microscope.
1593	Galileo invents a water thermometer.

1604
1608	Hans Lippershey invents the first refracting telescope.
1620	The earliest human-powered submarine invented.
1624	William Oughtred invents a slide ruler.
1625	Frenchmen, Jean-Baptiste Denys invents a method for blood transfusion.
1629	Giovanni Branca invents a steam turbine.
1636	W. Gascoigne invents the micrometer.
1642	Frenchmen, Blaise Pascal invents an adding machine.
1643	Evangelista Torricelli invents the barometer.
1650	Otto von Guericke invents a air pump.
1656	Christian Huygens invents a pendulum clock.
1660	Cuckoo clocks made in Furtwangen, Germany, in the Black Forest region.
1663	James Gregory invents the first reflecting telescope.
1668	Isaac Newton invents a reflecting telescope.
1670	The first reference to a candy cane is made. Dom Pérignon invents Champagne.
1671	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz invents a calculating machine.
1675	Christian Huygens patents the pocket watch.
1676	Robert Hooke invents the universal joint.
1679	Denis Papin invents the pressure cooker.
1698	Englishmen, Thomas Savery invents a steam pump.

18th Eighteenth Century Inventions 1700 to 1799

theinventors.org

1701	Jethro Tull invents the seed drill.
1709	Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
1711	Englishmen, John Shore invents the tuning fork.
1712	Thomas Newcomen patents the atmospheric steam engine.
1717	Edmond Halley invents the diving bell.
1722	French C. Hopffer patents the fire extinguisher.
1724	Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the first mercury thermometer.
1733	John Kay invents the flying shuttle.
1745	E.G. von Kleist invents the leyden jar, the first electrical capacitor.
1752	Benjamin Franklin invents the lightening rod.
1755	Samuel Johnson publishes the first English language dictionary on April 15th after nine years of writing. In the preface Samuel Johnson wrote, "I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven."
1757	John Campbell invents the sextant.
1758	Dolland invents a chromatic lens.
1761	Englishmen, John Harrison invents the navigational clock or marine chronometer for measuring longitude.
1764	James Hargreaves invents the spinning jenny.
1767	Joseph Priestley invents carbonated water - soda water.
1768	Richard Arkwright patents the spinning frame.
1769	James Watt invents an improved steam engine.
1774	Georges Louis Lesage patents the electric telegraph.
1775	Alexander Cummings invents the flush toilet. Jacques Perrier invents a steamship.
1776	David Bushnell invents a submarine.
1779	Samuel Crompton invents the spinning mule.
1780	Benjamin Franklin invents bi-focal eyeglasses. Gervinus invents the circular saw.
1783	Louis Sebastien demonstrates the first parachute. Benjamin Hanks patents the self-winding clock. Joseph Michel Montgolfier and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier invent the hot-air balloon. Englishmen, Henry Cort invents the steel roller for steel production.
1784	Andrew Meikle invents the threshing machine. Joseph Bramah invents the safety lock.
1785	Edmund Cartwright invents the power loom. Claude Berthollet invents chemical bleaching. Charles Augustus Coulomb invents the torsion balance. Blanchard invents a working parachute.
1786	John Fitch invents a steamboat.
1789	The guillotine is invented.
1790	The United States issued its first patent to William Pollard of Philadelphia for a machine that roves and spins cotton.
1791	John Barber invents the gas turbine. Early bicycles invented in Scotland.
1792	William Murdoch invents gas lighting. The first ambulance.
1794	Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin. Welshmen, Philip Vaughan invents ball bearings.
1795	Francois Appert invents the preserving jar for food.
1796	Edward Jenner creates a smallpox vaccination.
1797	Wittemore patents a carding machine. A British inventor, Henry Maudslay invents the first metal or precision lathe.
1798	The first soft drink invented. Aloys Senefelder invents lithography.
1799	Alessandro Volta invents the battery. Louis Robert invents the Fourdrinier Machine for sheet paper making.

 

[Knoxville's Joker]

There is a better timeline given some of the discussion points, from the same site.

 

[West]

Amazing, and it was all done with out government regulations and mandated payroll liabilities. Plus the family unit was never stronger and together than then.

 

[Publius]

A little off topic.

The invention of the inclined screw is about 2,250. years old, Archimedes is said to invented it as a means to move water up hill.
Without the invention of the inclined screw we would not have most of the things we have today as it is used to make the machines that make the things we use every day.