Date |
Event |
c. 1900 BC |
Some Egyptian hieroglyphs are written in non-standard characters, a code apparently intended to add a little mystery. Possibly as little as 250 years later a small part of the Leiden, or Ipuwer, papyrus (dates much disputed) was partly in cipher |
c. 1500 BC |
A Sumerian pottery glaze recipe is written in code |
600–500 BC |
Hebrew scribes use the ATBASH cipher |
487 BC |
Greek use of the scytale device is recorded |
60–50 BC |
Julius Caesar’s shift cipher is used |
AD 0–400 (date unknown) |
The Kama Sutra of Vatsayana lists cryptography as the 44th and 45th of 64 arts (yogas) for men and women |
805–873 |
Lifespan of Abu Al-Kindi, the first genuine cryptanalyst |
c. 1214–94 |
Lifespan of Roger Bacon (Dr Mirabilis), who described ciphers in use |
1379 |
Gabrieli di Lavinde publishes the first-known nomenclators |
1391 |
Treatise on the Astrolabe, attributed to English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, contains some enciphered passages |
1412 |
Subh al-a‘sha, a 14-volume encyclopedia written by Shihab al-Din al-Qalqashand, includes material on cryptology |
1466–7 |
Leon Battista Alberti invents the cipher disc to allow encryption using two alphabets |
16th century |
Religious disputes make secret communication more important, stimulating the use of nomenclators and ciphers and the growth of the deciphering ‘black chambers’ |
1516 |
First printed book on cryptology, Steganographia by Johannes Trithemius, is published |
1563 |
Giovanni Battista Porta creates the first-known polygraphic substitution cipher |
1586 |
Blaise de Vigenère publishes his Vigenère square |
1587 |
Mary, Queen of Scots is executed after her codes are broken |
17th century |
Antoine and Bonaventure Rossignol develop the Great Cipher (date of creation unknown) |
1623 |
Francis Bacon produces his bilateral code |
1781 |
Benjamin Franklin invents the homophonic substitution cipher |
1790s |
Thomas Jefferson invents the Jefferson wheel, then forgets about it |
1791 |
Optical telegraph is demonstrated |
1811 |
Major George Scovell cracks the French codes, helping Wellington win the Peninsular War |
1838 |
Morse code is invented |
1844 |
Invention of the electric telegraph stimulates new interest in code making |
1854 |
Playfair cipher is invented by Charles Wheatstone |
1891 |
Bazières cylinder develops as a reinvention of the Jefferson wheel |
1914–18 |
World War I encourages the development and use of ciphers, field codes and cryptanalysis |
1914 |
Code-breaking Room 40 is set up at Admiralty House, London |
1917 |
US enters the war as a result of the deciphered Zimmerman telegram |
1918 |
Gilbert S. Vernam and Joseph Mauborgne devise the Vernam cipher one-time pad |
1924 |
Enigma machine first shown |
1939–45 |
Codes and ciphers play an important role in concealing and revealing communications during World War II |
1974 |
Story of how Enigma had been solved is told |
1976 |
Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange scheme introduces the idea of public key encryption |
1977 |
RSA algorithm makes public key encryption feasible |
1990s |
The rapid global rise of the internet and email communication highlights the issue of digital cryptography |
1990 |
First research is published on quantum cryptography |
1991 |
Phil Zimmerman releases his Pretty Good Privacy program |