2 million years B.C. : the first Stone Age tools
1 million-1.6 million years B.C. : humans master fire
c. 8000 B.C. : the bow and arrow
3500 B.C. : the Sumerian wheel
330 B.C. : Aristotle proclaims Earth is not flat!
A.D. 132 : Zhang Heng's seismometer
c. A.D. 850 : the Chinese alchemist's gunpowder
1504 : Regiomontanus's lunar eclipse
1616 : Galileo's telescope
1665 : Isaac Newton's falling apple
1752 : Ben Franklin's electric kite
1771 : Galvani's circuit and Volta's battery
1783 : the Montgolfiers' hot-air balloon
1796 : Edward Jenner's miracle vaccine
1797 : Garnerin's parachute
1825 : George Stephenson's steam train
1854 : Otis's elevator safety brake
1859 : Darwin's revolutionary evolutionary book
1895 : Röntgen identifies X-rays
1898 : Marie Curie discovers radioactive isotope
1903 : the Wright brothers' flying machine
1926 : Robert Goddard's rocket ship
1936 : Igor Sikorsky's helicopter
1942 : Fermi's chain reaction
1947 : Chuck Yeager's sonic boom
1947 : John Stapp rides on a rocket sled
1953 : Watson and Crick's DNA
1960 : Theodore Maiman's laser beam
1961 : Yari Gagarin goes into orbit
1962 : Rachel Carson's silent spring
1967 : Christian Barnard's human heart transplant
1999 : Dieter Issler's avalance
2008 : the large hadron collider.
