Curated category
Industrial Revolution
- UrbanizationThousands of years ago, a small group of hunter-gatherers gathered around a fire in what is now the Indus Valley. They were not yet farmers, but they were…
- Industrial RevolutionIn 1799, French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto announced that France had entered the race to industrialise. This marked the earliest recorded use of the phrase…
- Blast furnaceA blast furnace operates on the principle of chemical reduction where carbon monoxide converts iron oxides to elemental iron.
- Factory systemIn 1721, John Lombe opened a water-powered silk mill in Derby that processed raw silk into finished thread. This facility employed over two hundred workers…
- Watt steam engineJames Watt stood before a model Newcomen engine in 1763 at the University of Glasgow. He was an instrument maker tasked with repairing the machine for…
- Cotton-spinning machineryThe spinning wheel appeared in the Islamic world by 1030. It traveled to China by 1090 and reached Europe and India during the 13th century.
- 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…
- Great DivergenceSamuel P. Huntington coined the term "Great Divergence" in 1996 to describe a specific socioeconomic shift where Western Europe and its settler offshoots…
- Textile manufacture during the British Industrial RevolutionIn 1734, John Kay stood in a workshop in Bury, Lancashire, and invented the flying shuttle. This device allowed a single weaver to produce cloth twice as…
- History of coal miningIn 25,000 to 23,000 BC, a settlement on Landek Hill in Ostrava, Petřkovice used black coal for heating. This site represents the oldest intentional use of…
- Soho FoundryMatthew Boulton and James Watt established the Soho Foundry in 1795 at Smethwick, West Midlands. They built the factory on land purchased that same year near…
- Second Industrial RevolutionIn the year 1870, a quiet shift occurred in the global economy that would reshape human civilization. This period marked the start of what historians now…
- CromfordThe River Derwent flows southward from its sources on Bleaklow in the Dark Peak. This fast-moving water has cut a deep valley through limestone geology in…
- Slater MillSamuel Slater stood in Belper, England, as a young apprentice under industrialist Jedediah Strutt. He memorized the design of cotton spinning machines…
- Bridgewater CanalFrancis Egerton, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, owned coal mines in Worsley that supplied fuel for England's Industrial Revolution.
- Leblanc processIn 1783, King Louis XVI and the French Academy of Sciences offered a prize of 2400 livres for a method to produce alkali from sea salt.
- British industrial architectureAbraham Darby I made Coalbrookdale the focus of the Industrial Revolution from around 1700. His company produced goods made of cast iron, ranging from…
- CottonopolisRichard Arkwright opened the world's first steam-driven textile mill on Miller Street in Manchester in 1781. This single building marked a turning point from…
- Pre-industrial societyThe Industrial Revolution began between 1750 and 1850. This period marks the end of pre-industrial society. Before these years, machines did not perform…
- CoalbrookdaleThe valley of Coalbrookdale held a bloomsmithy called Caldebroke Smithy before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This early ironworks belonged to Much…
- Uxbridge, MassachusettsIn September of 1663, John Eliot sold the Squimshepauk plantation to settlers for twenty-four pounds sterling. This transaction marked the beginning of…