|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 |
|
1890 |
Herman Hollerith patents an electromechanical machine for tabulating information stored on punched cards. This is used in the 1890 United States census--the first major data-processing project to use electrical machinery. Data-processing time is reduced by 80 percent over manual methods. (See Reading 4.3.) |
|
William S. Burroughs begins commercial production of his dependable key-driven printing adding machine. |
|
Dorr E. Felt introduces the Comptometer, a nonprinting key-driven calculating machine whose chief advantages are speed, versatility, and ease of use. |
1891 |
The logarithmic and trigonometric tables of Gaspard Riche de Prony, compiled in 19 volumes of manuscript, mostly by hairdressers unemployed after the French Revolution, are finally published in an abbreviated form in one volume. They are the most monumental work of calculation ever carried out by human computers. |
| 1892 | The A T & T long-distance telephone network extends from New York to Chicago. |
|
Heinrich Hertz publishes his collected papers on electromagnetic waves. In this form Marconi will learn about Hertz’s work and begin work on the development of radio. |
| Francis Galton publishes a detailed statistical model of fingerprint analysis and identification, and encourages their use in forensic science in his book, Finger Prints. | |
1893 |
Karl Benz invents a four-wheel automobile. Charles and Frank Duryea produce the first automobile built in America during this year. |
|
The " Millionaire" mechanical calculator is introduced in Switzerland. It allows direct multiplication by any digit and is used by government agencies and scientists, especially astronomers, well into the twentieth century. |
September |
The recently established Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung holds an exhibition in Munich of Mathematical and Mathematical-Physical Models, Apparatus, and Instruments. This is the first international exhibition limited to mathematical devices, including calculating instruments; it reflects the huge growth in the field since the London exposition of 1876. The exhibition had been planned for the previous year but was canceled because of an outbreak of cholera in northern Germany. |
1894 |
Philibert Maurice d'Ocagne publishes Le Calcul Simplifiée par Procèdes Mécaniques et Graphiques. This contains the first systematic classification of calculating machines. |
Thomas Edison introduces the Kinetograph, "the first practical moving picture camera, and the Kinetoscope, a hand-cranked, single-viewer, lighted box to display the resulting films. Kinetescope parlors were supplied with fifty-foot film snippets shot by Edison employee W.K. Dickson, the device's chief inventor, in their 'Black Maria' studio. The invention was a widely imitated, international success." |
|
1895 |
Guglielmo Marconi invents wireless telegraphy (radio). (See Reading 5.4.) |
| Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine found the Institut International de Bibliographie. In 1931 this will be renamed the International Federation for Information and Documentation. | |
| February 13 | Louis Jean and Auguste Marie Louis Nicholas Lumiere patent the cinematographe, a three-in-one motion picture camera, developer and projector. "The first footage ever to be shot on the device was shot on 19 March 1895; the film was La sortie des usines Lumière. . . . The first paying show was on 28 December in Paris at the Grand Café in the Boulevard des Capucines." The Lumiere brothers are credited with the invention of cinematography. Prior to inventing the cinematographe they invented sprocket holes in the film strip as a means of getting the film through the camera and projector. |
| November 8 | Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovers X-rays. They become the first system of medical imaging. |
|
The first mainline railway is electrified. |
|
About 240,000 telephones are in use in the United States. |
1896 |
Hollerith founds the Tabulating Machine Company. This will eventually evolve into IBM. |
|
Lord Northcliffe founds the Daily Mail. It will soon achieve a daily circulation of 1,000,000. |
| 1897 | Karl Ferninand Braun builds the first cathode ray tube (CRT). |
| Before he is appointed Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam, with the assistance of Charles Ammi Cutter, develops the Library of Congress Classification (LCC). This and the Dewey Decimal Classification become the most widely used systems of library classification. | |
| 1898 | In his annual report for this year Librarian of Congress John Russell Young comments on the "questionable quality of the paper upon which so much of the Library material is printed." Referring to the wood pulp paper that is inferior to paper previously made from linen rags, Young warns that many of the works coming into the Library "threaten in a few years to crumble into a waste heap, with no value as record." |
| January 14 | Death of the The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman, and photographer, best known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. In addition to his published writings, which included Alice in Wonderland, Dodgson maintained a meticulous ledger recording his incoming and outgoing correspondence over his lifetime. As a reflection of how many letters an individual could exchange in this era before telephone, Dodgson/Carroll wrote or received approximately 98,000 letters. |
| February | Halsey William Wison publishes the first issue of the Cumulative Book Index .
"As a bookseller, Wilson had to constantly search through publishers' catalogs in order to keep track of currently published books that his customers might want. It was tedious and time-consuming work that prompted him to long for a comprehensive, up-to-date index of published works. He eventually decided to create such an index himself. What made the concept work economically was Wilson's idea to keep the publication current by placing each entry on a printer's "slug," which could then be later sorted with slugs from new entries. It may have been an obvious solution to someone who had experience as a job printer, but it was a revolutionary concept in bibliographical publishing. In February 1898 Wilson first published Cumulative Book Index, a comprehensive alphabetic list of currently published books in English, featuring the key elements of future Wilson indexes: the listing of author, title, and subject. The work sold for $1 to 300 subscribers, who would then receive periodically updated versions." |
|
| 1920194019501960 |
(This page was last revised on
February 3, 2008
. Please report errors
and broken links to jnorman@jnorman.com.) |
Home | About this Book | Timeline ©2005
| historyofscience.com
| normanpublishing.com Site design and development by tikibobpublishing.com |
