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From Gutenberg to the Internet Timeline An Annotated Chronology of the History of Information from about 30,000 B.C.E. to the present, by Jeremy M. Norman. |
| 1920194019501960 |
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| June 1840 | Felix Mendelssohn's "Festgesang", a cantata for male chorus, brass, and tympani, composed for the city of Leipzig's 1840 quadricentennial celebration of the invention of printing, is first performed in the town square by a chorus of 200 men, 16 trumpets, and 20 trombones, during ceremonies dedicating a new statue of Gutenberg. |
1842 |
The British government abandons financial support for the construction of Babbage’s Difference Engine no. 1. |
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Luigi Federico Menabrea, later to be prime minister of Italy, publishes the first description of the functional organization and mathematical operation of Babbage’s Analytical Engine, including the first published computer programs. |
1843 |
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, translates Menabrea’s paper, adding annotations that provide further insight into Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, a machine that incorporates many of the concepts of the programmed digital computer. Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage . . . with Notes by the Translator. (See Reading 6.1.) |
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In Germany ground wood pulp begins to be used in papermaking instead of linen rags. |
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The Scheutzes, inspired by Lardner’s account of Babbage’s Difference Engine, construct the first working difference engine. |
| April 7 | In a paper on Light and Ventilation delivered at the Royal Institution Michael Faraday attributes decay in leather bookbindings and chairs to the heat and sulphur fumes emanating from the illuminating gas then used. |
1844 |
Samuel F. B. Morse transmits the first message on a United States experimental telegraph line (Washington to Baltimore) using the “Morse code” that will become standard in the United States and Canada. The message, taken from the Bible, Numbers 23:23 and recorded on a paper tape, had been suggested to Morse by Annie Ellworth, the young daughter of a friend. It is “What hath God wrought?” |
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The anonymous author of the sensational evolutionary treatise Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation includes a lengthy quote from Babbage’s discussion of programming the Difference Engine from the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise to explain how evolutionary change might occur through time. This is one of the earliest references to computing within the context of biology. |
1845 |
The Atlantic Cable is proposed. |
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William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone perfect a single-needle telegraph apparatus, soon adopted throughout England. |
1846 |
Richard Hoe of New York patents the horizontal rotary printing press, dramatically increasing the speed of printing. |
1847 |
George Boole publishes The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, leading to what eventually will be called Boolean algebra. Years later, in 1938,Claude Shannon in his master’s thesis will recognize that the true/false values in Boole’s two-valued logic are analogous to the open and closed states of electric circuits |
| Physicist Joseph Henry, first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (founded in 1846), and a pioneer in telegraphic research, realizes that storms in the United States generally move from west to east. He writes in the Smithsonian's 1847 annual report that "the extended lines of telegraph will furnish a ready means of warning the more northern and eastern observers to be on the watch for the first appearance of an advancing storm." By 1849, Henry will work out an arrangement with a number of telegraph companies to allow free transmission of local weather data to the Smithsonian. He will propose to supply "the most important stations" with barometers and thermometers. By the end of the 1849 150 volunteers throughout the United States will report weather observations to the Smithsonian regularly by telegraph. This will become the basis for the first national weather service where weather observations from distant points can be "rapidly" collected, plotted and analyzed at one location -- the beginnings of "surface weather analysis". | |
1848 |
The first WH Smith railway bookstall is opened. Railroad transportation provides a whole new market for printing, publishing, and bookselling. Inexpensive novels or Yellowbacks will be published to supply a wider range of society. It becomes a common practice to publish novels in weekly, fortnightly or monthly parts to spread the cost. |
| The Boston Public Library founded this year is the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States. | |
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The Associated Press (AP) is founded in the United States to reduce the high cost of telegraphic transmissions among six highly competitive newspapers. |
| 1848 | The Prudential is founded. Its original name is The Prudential Mutual Assurance, Investment and Loan Association. It is the first of the great industrial life insurance companies that will handle the policies of millions of people. |
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| 1920194019501960 |
(This page was last revised on
October 30, 2006
. Please report errors
and broken links to jnorman@jnorman.com.) |
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