Timeline of electrical and electronic engineering facts for kids

Electrical and electronic engineering is all about how we use electricity to make things work! It's about designing and building everything from your phone and computer to giant power plants and the internet. This field has a long and exciting history, full of amazing discoveries and inventions that changed the world.

Early Sparks: Discovering Electricity

People have known about electricity for a very long time, even if they didn't understand it.

Ancient Discoveries

• 600 BC: The ancient Greek thinker Thales of Miletus noticed something cool. When he rubbed fur on amber (a fossilized tree sap), it could pick up light things like feathers. This was an early observation of static electricity.
• 1600: English scientist William Gilbert studied electricity carefully. He even gave it the name "electricus," which comes from the Greek word for amber. He also explained how Earth acts like a giant magnet!
• 1660: A German scientist named Otto von Guericke built the first machine that could create static electricity. You could say it was the very first electric generator!
• 1720: English scientist Stephen Gray figured out that some materials let electricity flow through them easily (these are called conductors), while others don't (these are insulators).
• 1745: Two scientists, Ewald Georg von Kleist and Pieter van Musschenbroek, independently invented the Leyden jar. This was the first device that could store an electric charge, like a very early battery!
• 1752: The famous American scientist Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning is a form of electricity. He did this with his famous kite experiment. He also explained how Leyden jars worked.

Electricity Gets Moving

• 1780: Italian scientist Luigi Galvani found that electricity could make muscles twitch in living things. This was called Galvanic action.
• 1785: French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb figured out the law that describes how electric charges attract or repel each other. It's called Coulomb's law.
• 1800: Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the first true battery. This was a huge step because it provided a steady flow of electricity.
• 1820: Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted made an accidental but amazing discovery: electric currents create magnetic fields! This linked electricity and magnetism forever.
• 1820: Just a week later, French physicist André-Marie Ampère published his own law about how electric currents create magnetic fields. He also came up with the right-hand screw rule to figure out the direction of these fields.
• 1825: English physicist William Sturgeon created the first electromagnet. This is a magnet that can be turned on and off with electricity.
• 1827: German physicist Georg Ohm introduced the idea of electrical resistance. This is how much a material resists the flow of electricity.
• 1831: English physicist Michael Faraday discovered the law of induction. This explains how changing magnetic fields can create electric currents. This was key for generators and transformers.
• 1831: American scientist Joseph Henry developed an early DC motor, a machine that uses electricity to create motion.
• 1832: French inventor Hippolyte Pixii created an early DC generator, which turns motion into electricity.
• 1836: Irish priest and scientist Nicholas Callan invented the transformer. This device can change the voltage of electricity, making it easier to send power over long distances.
• 1839: French scientist Edmond Becquerel discovered the Photovoltaic Effect. This is the principle behind solar cells, where light can create electricity.

Connecting the World: Telegraphs and Telephones

Electricity quickly became vital for communication.

• 1844: American inventor Samuel Morse developed the telegraph and the Morse code. This allowed messages to be sent over long distances using electrical signals.
• 1862: Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell published his famous four equations. These equations describe how electricity, magnetism, and light are all connected. They are the foundation of modern electrical engineering.
• 1866: The first successful Transatlantic telegraph cable was laid. This allowed instant communication between Europe and North America!
• 1876: Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. This invention changed how people communicated forever.
• 1877: American inventor Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, a machine that could record and play back sounds.
• 1888: German physicist Heinrich Hertz proved that electromagnetic waves (like radio waves) exist. This laid the groundwork for radio communication.
• 1894: Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi started developing the first radio wave-based wireless telegraphy system. He was a pioneer of radio.
• 1895: Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose experimented with very high-frequency radio waves using a semiconductor to detect them.
• 1895: Russian physicist Alexander Popov built a radio receiver that could detect lightning strikes.
• 1901: Guglielmo Marconi achieved the first transatlantic radio transmission. This was a huge step for global communication.

Lighting Up and Seeing More

Electricity also brought new ways to light our homes and see the world.

• 1876: Russian engineer Pavel Yablochkov invented the electric carbon arc lamp, an early form of electric street lighting.
• 1878: English engineer Joseph Swan invented the Incandescent light bulb, a practical light bulb that used a glowing filament.
• 1879: Thomas Edison introduced a long-lasting filament for the incandescent lamp, making it more practical for everyday use.
• 1895: The discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen revolutionized medicine and science.
• 1897: German inventor Karl Ferdinand Braun invented the cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO). This device lets scientists "see" electrical signals.
• 1901: American engineer Peter Cooper Hewitt invented the Fluorescent lamp, a more energy-efficient way to create light.
• 1908: Scottish engineer Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton laid out the basic ideas for Television.
• 1923: Vladimir K. Zworykin developed the first television camera tube, the Ikonoskop, using the Braun tube.
• 1926: Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a CRT television with 40-line resolution. This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver.
• 1928: Kenjiro Takayanagi was the first to transmit human faces in half-tones on television.
• 1930: Manfred von Ardenne invented Europe's first fully electronic television camera tube, the flying-spot scanner.
• 1931: Public electronic television was first shown at the Berlin Radio Exhibition.
• 1936: The first mobile television camera was used for live broadcasts of the Olympic Games in Berlin.
• 1938: Werner Flechsig invented the shadow mask method for color picture tubes. This allowed for separate control of the three primary colors.
• 1944: Scottish Engineer John Logie Baird developed the first color picture tube.

The Electronic Age: From Tubes to Chips

The 20th century saw huge leaps in electronics, moving from large vacuum tubes to tiny transistors and integrated circuits.

• 1905: The Englishman Sir John Ambrose Fleming invented the first electron tube, also known as a diode. This was a key component for early radios.
• 1906: American inventor Lee de Forest invented the triode, an improved electron tube that could amplify electrical signals. This made radio and long-distance telephone calls possible.
• 1912: American engineer Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the Electronic oscillator, a circuit that produces a repeating electronic signal.
• 1917: American engineer Alexander M. Nicholson invented the crystal oscillator, which provides very stable electronic signals.
• 1919: Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the standard AM radio receiver, which made radios much more sensitive and selective.
• 1925: Austrian American engineer Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented the first FET. This type of transistor became very important much later.
• 1933: Edwin Howard Armstrong showed that frequency-modulated (FM) radio transmissions were much clearer and less affected by static than AM radio.
• 1936: Austrian engineer Paul Eisler invented the Printed circuit board (PCB). These boards connect electronic components using copper tracks instead of wires.
• 1936: Scottish Scientist Robert Watson-Watt developed the practical Radar concept. Radar uses radio waves to detect objects.
• 1947: American engineers John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, along with their leader William Shockley, invented the transistor. This tiny device could do the job of a vacuum tube but was much smaller, used less power, and lasted longer. This invention truly started the electronic age!
• 1958: American engineer Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip. This allowed many transistors and other components to be put onto a single small piece of silicon. This led to smaller and more powerful electronic devices.
• 1960: American engineer Theodore Maiman developed the first laser. Lasers have many uses, from reading CDs to surgery.
• 1962: Nick Holonyak invented the LED (Light-Emitting Diode). LEDs are now used everywhere, from indicator lights to energy-efficient lighting.
• 1963: The first home Videocassette recorder (VCR) was introduced, allowing people to record and watch TV shows whenever they wanted.
• 1966: Fiber-optic communication was developed by Kao and Hockham. This technology uses light signals sent through thin glass fibers to transmit huge amounts of information very quickly.
• 2008: American scientist R. Stanley Williams invented the memristor. This new electronic component can "remember" how much charge has passed through it, which could lead to new types of computer memory.

Innovations in Consumer Electronics

Many of these discoveries led to cool gadgets we use every day!

Early Sound and Vision

• 1843: Watchmaker Alexander Bain came up with the idea of showing images as tiny dots with different brightness.
• 1877: Thomas Edison invented the first phonograph, which used a tin foil cylinder to record and play sounds. It was the first time sounds could be saved and played back!
• 1887: German-American Emil Berliner patented his phonograph, which used flat disks instead of cylinders. These flat records were much easier to copy and store.
• 1895: The Lumiere brothers' cinematograph showed moving images for the first time. This was the start of movies!
• 1897: The Italian Guglielmo Marconi sent wireless telegraph messages using electromagnetic waves over five kilometers.
• 1898: The Danish physicist Valdemar Poulsen created the world's first magnetic recording device, using a steel wire. This was an early step towards tape recorders.
• 1906: The first jukebox that played records came out.
• 1920: The first regular radio station, KDKA, started broadcasting in the USA. This was the first time electronics were used to send information and fun to many people.
• 1922: George Frost built the first "car radio" in his Ford Model T.
• 1927: The first industrially made car radio, the "Philco Transitone," came onto the market.
• 1927: The first commercial sound films, like "The Jazz Singer," used sound played in sync with the movie.
• 1927: The American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth developed the first fully electronic television system in the world.
• 1928: John Logie Baird transmitted the first international television pictures from London to New York. He also showed the world's first color television transmission in London.
• 1929: The company Columbia Records developed the first portable record player that could connect to any tube radio.
• 1931: The British engineer Alan Dower Blumlein invented "Binaural Sound," which we now call "Stereo." He also developed the stereo record and the first three-way speaker.
• 1935: AEG and BASF introduced the " Magnetophon K1 " tape recorder and magnetic tapes at the Berlin Radio Show.
• 1948: Three American engineers at Bell Laboratories (John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley) invented the transistor. This made portable radios and other small electronics possible.
• 1948: The Hungarian-American physicist Peter Carl Goldmark invented the vinyl record (first sold in 1952). These records were much quieter and could play for 23 minutes per side, leading to the LP record.
• 1950: The company Zenith marketed the first TV with a cable remote control for changing channels.
• 1951: The CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) broadcast the first color television program in the world in New York.
• 1956: The company Ampex introduced the "VR 1000," the first video recorder.

See also

• Electronics
• History of electronic engineering
• Timeline of historic inventions
• Timeline of computing