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Curated category

English inventions

  • Incandescent light bulbIn 1761, Ebenezer Kinnersley demonstrated heating a wire to incandescence. However such wires tended to melt or oxidize very rapidly in the presence of air.
  • Steam turbineIn 1884, Sir Charles Parsons unveiled a machine that would change the world. His first model connected to a dynamo generated electricity for lighting.
  • Stainless steelIn 1798, Louis Vauquelin presented chromium to the French Academy for the first time. This element would eventually become the key ingredient in a new type…
  • SubmarineIn 1538, a demonstration took place in Toledo before Emperor Charles V and ten thousand spectators. Two Greeks showed how one could penetrate the bottom of…
  • ZX SpectrumOn the 25th of July 1961, three years after passing his A-levels, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to advertise his inventions and buy components.
  • Self-propelled artilleryDuring the Thirty Years' War, early 17th-century experiments created batteries that towed light field guns. Most or all of the crew rode horses into battle…
  • Newcomen atmospheric engineIn 1606, the Spaniard Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont demonstrated a steam-powered water pump. He received a patent for this device and successfully used it to…
  • Puddling (metallurgy)The Eiffel Tower stands as a monument to puddled iron, its lattice structure relying on the malleable metal produced by this process.
  • Colossus computerIn August 1941, a blunder by German operators led to the transmission of two versions of the same message with identical machine settings.
  • Cast ironIn 1948, engineers developed a new form of cast iron that changed the material's behavior forever. This ductile cast iron contains graphite in the shape of…
  • InductorAn electric current flowing through a conductor generates a magnetic field surrounding it. The magnetic flux linkage generated by a given current depends on…
  • Bessemer processHenry Bessemer filed his first patent application in October 1855, securing the legal rights to his steel-making method a year later.
  • Plate glassA fragment of Roman window glass dates from the 1st to 4th century CE. This early artifact shows that flat glass existed over two thousand years ago.
  • Rapid transitIn 1863, the Metropolitan Railway opened in London as the world's first rapid transit system. It used steam locomotives and ran partially underground.
  • Steam engineIn the first century AD, Hero of Alexandria described a device called the aeolipile. This Hellenistic mathematician and engineer in Roman Egypt created a…
  • BombeIn November 1938, six Polish machines called bombas were delivered to the Biuro Szyfrów. Cryptologist Marian Rejewski had spent seven years breaking German…
  • Vacuum tubeIn 1904, John Ambrose Fleming patented a device called the oscillation valve. This invention marked the birth of modern electronics by controlling electric…
  • Web browserIn 1990, Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the very first web browser named WorldWideWeb. This software allowed users to view documents stored on a server for the…
  • Association footballThe word association football emerged from a meeting on the morning of the 26th of October 1863 at the Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London.