Computer History - 1800's
Updated: 10/11/2017 by Computer Hope
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1801 | Frances Joseph-Marie Jacquard first demonstrates the Jacquard Loom. |
| 1804 | Frances Joseph-Marie Jacquard completes his fully automated loom that is programmed by punched cards. |
| 1809 | An early but crude telegraph type device is invented in 1809 by Samuel Soemmering. |
| 1810 | Hayyim Slonimski is born in 1810. |
| 1811 | Alexander Bain is born in 1811. |
| 1811 | Johann Bischoff passes away April 14, 1811 (Age:75) |
| 1814 | Izrael Staffel is born in 1814. |
| 1815 | Giovanni Caselli is born April 25, 1815. |
| 1815 | George Boole is born November 2, 1815. |
| 1815 | Ada Lovelace is born December 15, 1815. |
| 1816 | Werner Siemens is born December 13, 1816. |
| 1816 | Charles Stanhope passes away December 15, 1816 (Age: 63) |
| 1817 | Édouard-Léon Martinville is born April 25, 1817. |
| 1818 | Samuel Hopkins passes away in 1818. |
| 1819 | Christopher Sholes is born February 14, 1819. |
| 1820 | Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar creates the "Arithometer", the first reliable, useful, and commercially successful calculating machine. The calculator could not only add but also subtract, multiply, and divide. |
| 1821 | Pafnuty Chebyshev is born May 16, 1821. |
| 1822 | In early 1822, Charles Babbage begins developing the Difference Engine. |
| 1823 | Baron Jons Jackob Berzelius discovers silicon (Si), which today is the basic component of an integrated circuit (IC). |
| 1825 | The earliest known surviving photograph is taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1825 of a view of a courtyard from his window. |
| 1827 | Alessandro Volta passes away March 5, 1827 (Age: 82) |
| 1827 | Georg Simon Ohm introduces Ohm's law in the book Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet. |
| 1828 | Harrison Dyar becomes the first person in the United States to invent a Telegraph type device. |
| 1830 | Samuel Soule is born January 25, 1830. |
| 1830 | Edweard Muybridge is born April 9, 1830. |
| 1830 | Jean Fourier passes away May 16, 1830 (Age: 62) |
| 1831 | Joseph Henry of Princeton invents the first working telegraph. |
| 1832 | Semen Korsakov uses punch cards for the first time to store and search for information. |
| 1832 | On October 21, 1832 Pavel Schilling becomes the first to transmit signals between two telegraphs in different rooms of his apartment. |
| 1833 | Joseph Niépce passes away July 5, 1833 (Age: 68) |
| 1834 | The Committee now known as the ITU is founded May 17, 1865. |
| 1834 | Joseph Jacquard passes away August 7, 1834 (Age: 82) |
| 1835 | Elisha Gray is born August 2, 1835. |
| 1835 | William Jevons is born September 1, 1835. |
| 1836 | Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail begin developing a code (later called Morse code) that used different numbers to represent the letters of the English alphabet and the ten digits. |
| 1837 | Charles Babbage first purposed the Analytical Engine, which was the first computer to use punch cards as memory and a way to program the computer. |
| 1838 | Fredrik Idestam is born October 28, 1838. |
| 1841 | Edmund Barbour is born in 1841. |
| 1842 | Jacob Auch passes away March 20, 1842 (Age: 77) |
| 1843 | Thomas Fowler passes away March 31, 1843 (Age: 66) |
| 1844 | Joseph Clement passes away February 28, 1844 (Age: 65) |
| 1844 | Samuel Morse dispatches the first telegraphic message over a line from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore on May 24, 1844. The now famous message was: "What hath God wrought" |
| 1845 | In 1845, Izrael Staffel demonstrated the Staffel's calculator at the industrial exhibition in Warsaw. |
| 1845 | Wilhelm Rontgen is born March 27, 1845. |
| 1845 | Willgodt Odhner is born August 10, 1845. |
| 1845 | Jean-Maurice-Emile Baudot is born September 11, 1845. |
| 1846 | Royal Earl House patented a printing telegraph that used 28 piano-style keys to represent each letter in the alphabet and make it easier for everyone to send messages. |
| 1847 | Thomas Edison is born February 11, 1847. |
| 1847 | Alexander Graham Bell is born March 3, 1847. |
| 1847 | Siemens is founded on October 12, 1847. |
| 1849 | John Ambrose Fleming is born November 29, 1849. |
| 1849 | George Grant is born December 21, 1849. |
| 1850 | Charles Flint is born January 24, 1850. |
| 1850 | Karl Braun is born June 6, 1850. |
| 1850 | William Sturgeon passes away December 4, 1850 (Age: 67) |
| 1851 | Western Union was founded. |
| 1851 | Emile Berliner is born May 20, 1851. |
| 1852 | Ada Lovelace passes away November 27, 1852 (Age: 36) |
| 1853 | Semen Korsakov passes away December 1, 1853 (Age: 65) |
| 1854 | Augustus DeMorgan and George Boole formalize a set of logical operations now known as DeMorgan transformations. |
| 1854 | George Fairchild is born May 6, 1854. |
| 1854 | Georg Ohm passes away July 6, 1854 (Age: 65) |
| 1854 | George Eastman is born July 12, 1854. |
| 1855 | The Crane Company is founded. |
| 1855 | Johann Gauss passes away February 23, 1855 (Age: 77) |
| 1856 | Nikola Tesla is born July 10, 1856. |
| 1857 | Heinrich Hertz is born February 22, 1857. |
| 1857 | The phonautograph (phonograph) is patented March 25, 1857 by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. The device was capable of transcribing sound to a medium. |
| 1858 | Otto Steiger is born in 1858. |
| 1858 | The OpenVMS Epoch Time is set to start November 17, 1858. |
| 1858 | Jagadish Bose is born November 30, 1858. |
| 1859 | The Elevator is patented on August 9, 1959. |
| 1860 | Herman Hollerith is born February 29, 1860. |
| 1861 | The first known permanent color photograph is taken of a Tartan Ribbon by the photographer Thomas Sutton. To achieve a color image he took a photo of the ribbon three times, each time with a different color, a method developed by James Clerk Maxwell. |
| 1861 | The first transcontinental telegraph line began operation October 24, 1861. |
| 1862 | David Hilbert is born January 23, 1862. |
| 1862 | Vilhelm Bjerknes is born March 14, 1862. |
| 1862 | Dorr Felt is born March 18, 1862. |
| 1862 | Philibert D'Ocagne is born March 26, 1862. |
| 1864 | George Boole passes away December 8, 1864 (Age: 49) |
| 1865 | Nokia is originally founded by Fredrik Idestam as a wood pulp company. |
| 1866 | The first successful Trans-Atlantic cable is laid from Ireland to Newfoundland. |
| 1867 | Michael Faraday passes away August 25, 1867 (Age: 75) |
| 1868 | Christopher Sholes is issued a patent on July 14, 1868 for a typewriter utilizing the QWERTY layout keyboard still used today. |
| 1868 | Paul Otlet is born August 23, 1868. |
| 1869 | Cathode rays are first discovered by Johann Hittorf. |
| 1869 | The company Gray and Barton is formed by Elisha Gray and Enos N. Barton in 1869 and three years later is renamed to the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. |
| 1870 | Mitsubishi is founded. |
| 1870 | Charles Thomas passes away March 12, 1870 (Age: 84) |
| 1871 | Hubert Booth is born July 4, 1871. |
| 1871 | Charles Babbage passes away October 18, 1871 (Age: 79) |
| 1872 | Samuel Morse passes away April 2, 1872 (Age: 80) |
| 1873 | Georg Scheutz passes away May 22, 1873 (Age: 88) |
| 1873 | Lee Forest is born August 26, 1873. |
| 1873 | William Coolidge is born October 23, 1873. |
| 1874 | Thomas Watson is born February 17, 1874. |
| 1874 | Emile Baudot invents the Baudot code in 1874. |
| 1874 | Guglielmo Marconi is born April 25, 1874. |
| 1875 | Tanaka Seizo-sho is established in Japan and later merges with another company called shibaura Seisaku-sho to form Tokyo Shibarura Denki. Later this company's name is shortened to the company that we know today, Toshiba. |
| 1875 | Samuel Soule passes away July 12, 1875 (Age: 45) |
| 1875 | William Eccles is born August 23, 1875. |
| 1875 | The company American Telephone and Telegraph Company that later became AT&T is founded. |
| 1876 | Scottish-Canadian-American Alexander Graham Bell is often credited as inventing the telephone makes the first call March 10, 1876. |
| 1876 | Ericsson is founded. |
| 1877 | Alexander Bain passes away January 2, 1877 (Age: 65) |
| 1877 | The world's first long-distance telephone line is connected between French Corral California with French Lake, 58 miles away. |
| 1877 | The microphone is invented in the United States by Emile Berliner. |
| 1877 | Thomas Edison invents and announces on November 21, 1877 the first phonograph capable of recording and replaying sounds. |
| 1878 | Eadweard Muybridge's "The Horse in Motion" becomes the first motion picture. |
| 1878 | The first keyboard to have a Shift key is introduced on the Remington No. 2 typewriter introduced in 1878 that had one Shift key on the left side of the keyboard. |
| 1878 | Joseph Henry passes away May 13, 1878 (Age: 80) |
| 1878 | Arthur Scherbius is born October 20, 1878. |
| 1879 | Albert Einstein is born March 14, 1879. |
| 1879 | Édouard-Léon Martinville passes away April 26, 1879 (Age: 62) |
| 1879 | Thomas Edison demos incandescent electric light bulb that lasts 13 1/2 hours October 21, 1879. |
| 1879 | James Jacob Ritty patents the world's first cash register November 4, 1879. |
| 1879 | President Rutherford B. Hayes becomes the first president with a phone in the White House and gets the phone number "1." |
| 1880 | Thomas Edison receives patent #223,898 for the Electric Lamp January 27, 1880. |
| 1880 | ASME is founded. |
| 1880 | Albert Hull is born April 19, 1880. |
| 1880 | James Bryce is born September 5, 1880. |
| 1881 | Emanuel Goldberg is born on August 31, 1881. |
| 1882 | William Jevons passes away August 13, 1882 (Age: 46) |
| 1882 | Thomas Edison is award patent # 252,442 January 17, 1882 for the carbon microphone used in telephones. |
| 1882 | The first commercial electric power station becomes operational on September 4, 1882. |
| 1882 | Fredrik Bull is born December 25, 1882. |
| 1883 | Edith Clarke is born February 10, 1883. |
| 1883 | American Thomas Edison discovers the Edison effect, where an electric current flows through a vacuum. |
| 1883 | Percy Ludgate is born August 2, 1883. |
| 1884 | Izrael Staffel passes away in 1884. |
| 1884 | Herman Hollerith files his first patent for The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System. |
| 1885 | American Telegraph and Telephone company (AT&T) is incorporated March 3,1885. |
| 1886 | Heinrich Rudolf Hertz proves electromagnetic waves and that electricity is transmitted at the speed of light. |
| 1886 | James Rand is born November 18, 1886. |
| 1887 | Yamaha is founded October 12, 1887. |
| 1888 | Clair Lake is born in 1888. |
| 1888 | National Geographic Society is established on January 27, 1888. |
| 1888 | Nikola Tesla patents the rotating field motor May 1, 1888 and later sells the rights to George Westinghouse. This invention helps create and transmit AC power and today is still a method for generating and distributing AC power. |
| 1888 | William S. Burroughs patents a printing adding machine. |
| 1888 | John Baird is born August 14, 1888. |
| 1888 | Thomas Edison files for a patent for the Optical Phonograph (film camera) on October 17, 1888. |
| 1888 | Eastman Kodak is founded. |
| 1888 | John Loud gets patent for the ballpoint pen October 30, 1888. |
| 1888 | Friedrich Reintzer discovers liquid crystal. |
| 1889 | Herman Hollerith first describes the tabulating machine in his doctoral thesis. |
| 1889 | Nintendo is founded. |
| 1890 | Henry Philips is born in 1890. |
| 1890 | Christopher Sholes passes away February 17, 1890 (Age: 71) |
| 1890 | Vannevar Bush is born March 11, 1890. |
| 1890 | The company we now know as GE is founded in 1890 by Thomas Edison as the Edison General Electric Company. |
| 1890 | Herman Hollerith developed a method for machines to record and store information onto punch cards to be used for the US census. He later formed the company we know as IBM today. |
| 1891 | Phillips is founded. |
| 1891 | Giovanni Caselli passes away June 8, 1891. |
| 1892 | The American company General Electric is founded April 15, 1892. |
| 1892 | Werner Siemens passes away December 6, 1892 (Age: 75) |
| 1893 | The first Underwood typewriter was invented by Franz Xaver Wagner was filed for U.S. Patent 523,698 April 27, 1893. |
| 1893 | On May 1, 1893 Nikola Tesla helps power the worlds first fair powered by AC electricity in Chicago. |
| 1893 | Leslie Comrie is born August 15, 1893. |
| 1894 | Heinrich Hertz passes away January 1, 1894 (Age: 36) |
| 1894 | August Dvorak is born May 5, 1894. |
| 1894 | Norbert Weiner is born November 26, 1894. |
| 1894 | Pafnuty Chebyshev passes away December 8, 1894 (Age:73) |
| 1895 | Guglielmo Marconi became the first person to receive a radio signal in 1895. |
| 1895 | Nortel Networks is founded. |
| 1895 | Paul Galvin is born June 27, 1895. |
| 1895 | The Underwood Typewriter Company is founded in 1895. |
| 1895 | Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X-rays November 8, 1895. |
| 1896 | The Niagara Falls begins generating power from Nikola Tesla AC power generators starting the electric age in America. |
| 1896 | Herman Hollerith starts the Tabulating Machine Company, the company later becomes the well-known computer company IBM (International Business Machines). |
| 1897 | Gertrude Blanch is born. |
| 1897 | Maxwell Newman is born February 7, 1897. |
| 1897 | Emil Post is born February 11, 1897. |
| 1897 | German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the Cathode-Ray Oscilloscope. |
| 1897 | Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, a motion picture viewer on August 31, 1897. |
| 1898 | Alcatel is founded. |
| 1898 | Russell Ohl is born in January 1898. |
| 1898 | Nikola Tesla invents the remote control November 8, 1898. |
| 1899 | Gustav Tauschek is born April 29, 1899. |
| 1899 | Nippon Electric Company is renamed to NEC Corporation July 17, 1899. |
| 1899 | AT&T acquires assets of American Bell, and becomes the parent company of Bell System. |
| 1899 | Sprint is founded. |
| 1899 | Sedlbauer is founded. |
| 1899 | On September 13, 1899 Henry Bliss becomes the first North American pedestrian to be killed by an automobile. |
| 1899 | William D. Middlebrook patents the paper clip on November 9, 1899. |