Gregorian Calendar“It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1752. The reason for the shift was the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, devised in 1582. Background Roman Julius Caesar invented the modern calendar. Before … Continue reading "Gregorian Calendar"
Synthetic DyeAs the Industrial Revolution gained steam (OK – bad pun), England’s population became denser. Eventually, the resulting pools of water bred mosquitos that eventually became a malaria epidemic. Perkin, a 15-year-old student, ran crude experiments to create lower-cost quinine, a malaria medicine. One of his processes accidentally produced a strong purple liquid. Useless as a … Continue reading "Synthetic Dye"
NylonNylon is a popular low-cost high-strength silk alternative. It vastly lowered the cost of producing silk-like fabric. Carothers started undergraduate school, at Tarkio College in Missouri, as an English major but switched to chemistry due to an influential professor. He excelled, working as an instructor during his undergraduate years. He went on to earn a … Continue reading "Nylon"
Flushing Toilets / Indoor PlumbingShortly before reaching their third birthday, children learn to use the toilet. Except for Indian children whose parents somehow potty train them as infants, a trick that’d transform the west though remains a total digression towards indoor plumbing. Life was changed for the better when indoor plumbing was invented. Getting back to the toddlers of … Continue reading "Flushing Toilets / Indoor Plumbing"
Mass Market Broadband Internet (DSL & Cable Modems)Broadband definitions continually change, but in 2017 the US definition of broadband is 25Mbps (megabytes per second) downstream and 3Mbps upstream. This is fast enough to stream music, movies, web surf, and read blurbs on innowiki. Background Early internet users used slow dial-up modems. The last mass-produced dial-up model ran at 56Kbps, about 1/450th the … Continue reading "Mass Market Broadband Internet (DSL & Cable Modems)"
Reasonably Priced Business Computer (IBM/360)The IBM/360 is the first mass computer, designed as a general-purpose computer affordable for mid-sized businesses yet powerful enough for large enterprises. Background In 1962, IBM’s revenue was $2.5 billion. CEO Thomas Watson Jr. believed in the vision of a general-purpose computer that supports timesharing, the ability of a computer to do multiple things at … Continue reading "Reasonably Priced Business Computer (IBM/360)"
Modern Computing v1: The Mother of All Demos.On December 9, 1968, the modern world was born. Background Douglas Engelbart, working for the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) showed the future of modern computing to a roomful of people that, for the most part, understood virtually none of it. In a tour de force, Engelbart introduced the world to video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word … Continue reading "Modern Computing v1: The Mother of All Demos."
Electric InstrumentsEarly History Claims about electric instruments date back to 1730 when texts describe a Czech musician who “generated sound by electromagnetic excitation of piano strings.” These claims are either false or the entire history of electricity of incorrect. Until Volta’s Voltaic Pile battery, in 1800, there was no method to produce an ongoing current. Electrical … Continue reading "Electric Instruments"
Visual Web BrowserTim Berners-Lee original world wide web was entirely text-based, mainly used to link textual papers to one another. Mosaic Marc Andreesen, then a student at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, extended Andreesen’s HTML. Andreesen extended the original HTML, adding components describing not only the contents of a page but also how it should be laid … Continue reading "Visual Web Browser"
Photography1816 Nicéphore Niépce The Niépce brothers were hell-bent on creating earth-shattering technology and they did so, twice. First, they created the internal combustion engine. Their native France was still adjusting its socioeconomic climate after the revolution so Claude went to England trying to commercialize the engine. During that time, Nicéphore invented photography. This brings us … Continue reading "Photography"
Stock ExchangeLike insurance, regulated stock exchanges opened the door to high-quality stock offerings which allowed businesses to procure financing. That both lowered the cost of capital and also spread both the risk and returns of an investment to a wider group of people. The Antwerp, formed in 1531, traded what today is called of government debt … Continue reading "Stock Exchange"
Paid Cable Television ChannelsBackground Charles Dolan was a cable TV pioneer who received a license to build a cable television system in lower Manhattan. Due to New York City restrictions, cables needed to run underground, vastly increasing the cost of the infrastructure. New Yorkers lacked enthusiasm. By 1971, Dolan only had 400 subscribers. To increase sales, Dolan eventually … Continue reading "Paid Cable Television Channels"
Transcontinental RailroadBackground After much debate in Washington, DC, and with the civil war brewing, Judah presented a transcontinental railroad a “Think Big” project. Asa Whitney had lobbied for a western railroad starting in 1847 but got nowhere. Somehow, Judah cut through the other issues (especially slavery) to get attention and became a central plank of the … Continue reading "Transcontinental Railroad"
Chemical WarfareChemical warfare refers to using chemicals as a weapon of mass destruction, killing many people at once. Fritz Haber, the inventor of the ammonia extraction process, is also the father of modern chemical warfare. On Jan. 31, 1915, Germany used a type of tear gas on allied troops. Due to the temperature, the chemicals failed … Continue reading "Chemical Warfare"
Clusters of Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)CRISPR is like a word processor for DNA. It allows easy and inexpensive gene editing. Edited genes are passed to future generations, making mutations permanent. Doudna and Charpentier Doudna and Charpentier worked on and invented the technology as a team. First, they worked on plants and, later, on animals. History becomes murkier with the involvement … Continue reading "Clusters of Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)"