Contents

Introduction

30,000 BCE Bow and Arrow

3300 BCE Hunter/Gatherer Tools

2550 BCE The Great Pyramid

2000 BCE Inuit Technology

1400 BCE Concrete

625 BCE Asphalt

438 BCE Parthenon

312 BCE Roman Aqueduct System

100 BCE Waterwheel

79 Pompeii

1040 Compass

1144 Basilica of Saint Denis

1300 Catapult

1372 Leaning Tower of Pisa

1492 Square-Rigged Wooden Sailboats

1600 The Great Wall of China

1620 Gunter’s Chain

1670 Mechanical Pendulum Clock

1750 Simple Machines at Yates Mill

1773 Building Implosions

1784 Power Loom

1790 Cotton Mill

1794 Cotton Gin

1800 High-Pressure Steam Engine

1823 Truss Bridge

1824 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

1825 Erie Canal

1830 Tom Thumb Steam Locomotive

1835 Combine Harvester

1837 Telegraph System

1845 Mass Production

1845 Tunnel Boring Machine

1846 Sewing Machine

1851 America’s Cup

1854 Water Treatment

1855 Bessemer Process

1856 Plastic

1858 Big Ben

1859 Oil Well

1859 Modern Sewer System

1860 Louisville Water Tower

1861 Wamsutta Oil Refinery

1861 Elevator

1869 Transcontinental Railroad

1873 Cable Cars

1876 Telephone

1878 Power Grid

1879 Carbon Fiber

1885 Supercharger and Turbocharger

1885 Washington Monument

1886 Statue of Liberty

1889 Eiffel Tower

1889 Hall-Héroult Process

1890 Steam Turbine

1891 Carnegie Hall

1891 Zuiderzee Works

1893 Two-Stroke Diesel Engine

1893 Ferris Wheel

1897 Diesel Locomotive

1899 Defibrillator

1902 Air Conditioning

1903 EKG/ECG

1903 The Wright Brothers’ Airplane

1905 Engineered Lumber

1907 Professional Engineer Licensing

1908 Internal Combustion Engine

1910 Laparoscopic Surgery

1912 Titanic

1913 Woolworth Building

1914 Panama Canal

1917 Laser

1917 Hooker Telescope

1919 Women’s Engineering Society

1919 Under Friction Roller Coaster

1920 Kinsol Trestle Bridge

1920 Radio Station

1921 Robot

1926 Heart-Lung Machine

1927 Electric Refrigeration

1931 Empire State Building

1935 Tape Recording

1936 Hoover Dam

1937 Golden Gate Bridge

1937 Hindenburg

1937 Turbojet Engine

1937 Magnetically Levitated Train

1938 Formula One Car

1939 Norden Bombsight

1939 Color Television

1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge

1940 Radar

1940 Titanium

1941 Doped Silicon

1942 Spread Spectrum

1943 Dialysis Machine

1943 SCUBA

1944 Helicopter

1945 Uranium Enrichment

1945 Trinity Nuclear Bomb

1946 ENIAC—The First Digital Computer

1946 Top-Loading Washing Machine

1946 Microwave Oven

1946 Light Water Reactor

1947 AK-47

1947 Transistor

1948 Cable TV

1949 Tower Crane

1949 Atomic Clock

1949 Integrated Circuit

1950 Chess Computer

1951 Jet Engine Testing

1952 Center-Pivot Irrigation

1952 3D Glasses

1952 Ivy Mike Hydrogen Bomb

1953 Automobile Airbag

1956 Hard Disk

1956 TAT-1 Undersea Cable

1957 Frozen Pizza

1957 Space Satellite

1958 Cabin Pressurization

1959 Desalination

1960 Cleanroom

1961 T1 Line

1961 Green Revolution

1962 SR-71

1962 Atomic Clock Radio Station

1963 Retractable Stadium Roof

1963 Irradiated Food

1964 Top Fuel Dragster

1964 Drip Irrigation

1964 Natural Gas Tanker

1964 Bullet Train

1965 Gateway Arch in St. Louis

1965 Cluster Munition

1966 Compound Bow

1966 Parafoil

1966 Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor

1966 Dynamic RAM

1967 Automotive Emission Controls

1967 Apollo 1

1967 Saturn V Rocket

1968 C-5 Super Galaxy

1968 Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet

1969 Lunar Landing

1969 ARPANET

1969 Space Suit

1970 LCD Screen

1970 Apollo 13

1970 Fiber Optic Communication

1971 Anti-Lock Brakes

1971 Lunar Rover

1971 Microprocessor

1971 CANDU Reactor

1971 CT Scan

1971 Power Plant Scrubber

1971 Kevlar

1972 Genetic Engineering

1973 World Trade Center

1975 Router

1976 The Concorde

1976 CN Tower

1976 VHS Videotape

1977 Human-Powered Airplane

1977 Tuned Mass Damper

1977 Voyager Spacecraft

1977 Trans-Alaska Pipeline

1977 MRI

1978 Nitrous Oxide Engine

1978 Bagger 288

1979 Seawise Giant Supertanker

1980 Flash Memory

1980 M1 Tank

1980 Stadium TV Screen

1981 Bigfoot Monster Truck

1981 Space Shuttle Orbiter

1981 V-22 Osprey

1982 Artificial Heart

1982 Neodymium Magnet

1983 RFID Tag

1983 F-117 Stealth Fighter

1983 Mobile Phone

1983 Gimli Glider

1983 Ethernet

1984 3D Printer

1984 Domain Name Service (DNS)

1984 Surgical Robot

1984 Container Shipping

1984 Itaipu Dam

1985 Bath County Pumped Storage

1985 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)

1985 Virtual Reality

1986 Chernobyl

1986 Apache Helicopter

1990 World Wide Web

1990 The Hubble Space Telescope

1991 Lithium Ion Battery

1991 Biosphere 2

1992 Low-Flow Toilet

1992 Stormwater Management

1993 Keck Telescope

1993 Doom Engine

1994 Channel Tunnel

1994 Digital Camera

1994 Global Positioning System (GPS)

1994 Kansai International Airport

1995 Toy Story Animated Movie

1996 Ariel Atom

1996 HDTV

1997 Prius Hybrid Car

1998 International Space Station

1998 Large Hadron Collider

1998 Smart Grid

1998 Iridium Satellite System

1999 Wi-Fi

2001 Segway

2003 A Century of Innovation

2004 Millau Viaduct

2005 Bugatti Veyron

2005 Georgia Aquarium

2006 Palm Islands

2006 AMOLED Screen

2007 Smart Phone

2008 Quadrotor

2008 Carbon Sequestration

2008 Engineering Grand Challenges

2008 Martin Jet Pack

2008 Three Gorges Dam

2009 National Ignition Facility

2009 Earthquake-Safe Buildings

2009 US President’s Limousine

2010 Solar Impulse Airplane

2010 BP Blowout Preventer Failure

2010 Burj Khalifa

2010 Harry Potter Forbidden Journey Ride

2010 Alta Wind Energy Center

2010 Tablet Computer

2010 The X2 and X3 Helicopters

2011 Fukushima Disaster

2011 Self-Driving Car

2011 Instant Skyscraper

2011 Watson

2012 Curiosity Rover

2012 Human-Powered Helicopter

2013 NCSU BookBot

2014 Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System

2016 Venice Flood System

c. 2020 Vactrains

c. 2024 Brain Replication

c. 2030 Mars Colony

c. 3000 Things We Have Yet to Engineer

Notes and Further Reading

Photo Credits