page_title: 1900s (decade)
section_title: Technology
hierarchical_section_title: 1900s (decade) / Science and technology / Technology
caption_attribution_description: 1903 Ford Model A photographed by DougW of RemarkableCars.com at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, NV.
context_page_description: The 1900s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1900, and ended on December 31, 1909. The term "nineteen-hundreds" is often also used to mean the entire century of years from 1900 to 1999. The Edwardian era covers a similar span of time.
  The decade saw the widespread application of the internal combustion engine including mass production of the automobile, as well as the introduction of the typewriter. The Wright Flyer performed the first recorded controlled, powered, sustained heavier than air flight on December 17, 1903. Reginald Fessenden of East Bolton, Quebec, Canada made what appear to be the first audio radio broadcasts of entertainment and music ever made to a general audience.
  First-wave feminism saw progress, with universities being opened for women in Japan, Bulgaria, Cuba, Russia, and Peru. In 1906, Finland granted women the right vote, the first European country to do so. The foundation of the Women's Social and Political Union by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903 led to the rise of the Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland. Cuba, Bulgaria, and Norway became independent.
context_section_description: Widespread application of the internal combustion engine including mass production of the automobile. Rudolf Diesel demonstrated the diesel engine in the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris using peanut oil fuel (see biodiesel). The Diesel engine takes the Grand Prix. The exposition was attended by 50 million people. The same year Wilhelm Maybach designed an engine built at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft—following the specifications of Emil Jellinek—who required the engine to be named Daimler-Mercedes after his daughter, Mercédès Jellinek. In 1902, the Mercedes 35 hp automobiles with that engine were put into production by DMG.
  Wide popularity of home phonograph. "The market for home machines was created through technological innovation and pricing: Phonographs, gramophones, and graphophones were cleverly adapted to run by spring-motors (you wound them up), rather than by messy batteries or treadle mechanisms, while the musical records were adapted to reproduce loudly through a horn attachment. The cheap home machines sold as the $10 Eagle graphophone and the $40 (later $30) Home phonograph in 1896, the $20 Zon-o-phone in 1898, the $3 Victor Toy in 1900, and so on. Records sold because their fidelity improved, mass production processes were soon developed, advertising worked, and prices dropped from one and two dollars to around 35 cents.". In 1907, a Victor Records recording of Enrico Caruso singing Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Vesti la giubba" becomes the first to sell a million copies.
  1899–1900 – Thomas Alva Edison of Milan, Ohio, invents the nickel-alkaline storage battery. On May 27, 1901, Edison establishes the Edison Storage Battery Company to develop and manufacture them. "It proved to be Edison's most difficult project, taking ten years to develop a practical alkaline battery. By the time Edison introduced his new alkaline battery, the gasoline powered car had so improved that electric vehicles were becoming increasingly less common, being used mainly as delivery vehicles in cities. However, the Edison alkaline battery proved useful for lighting railway cars and signals, maritime buoys, and miners lamps. Unlike iron ore mining with the Edison Ore-Milling Company, the heavy investment Edison made over ten years was repaid handsomely, and the storage battery eventually became Edison's most profitable product. Further, Edison's work paved the way for the modern alkaline battery."
  1900 – The Brownie camera is invented; this was the beginning of the Eastman Kodak company. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie was introduced in February 1900,
  1900 – The first zeppelin flight occurs over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany on July 2, 1900.
  1901 – First electric typewriter is invented by George Canfield Blickensderfer of Erie, Pennsylvania. It was part of a line of Blickensderfer typewriters, known for its portability.
  1901 – Wilhelm Kress of Saint Petersburg, Russia creates his Kress Drachenflieger in Austria-Hungary.  Power was provided by a Daimler petrol engine driving two large auger-style two-bladed propellers, the first attempt to use an internal combustion engine to power a heavier-than-air aircraft. 
  1901 – Gustave Whitehead allegedly flies his Whitehead No. 21 on August 14, 1901, near Bridgeport, Connecticut.  The feat, if true, exceeded the best of the Wright brothers first powered flights by 540 m (1770 ft) and preceded the Kitty Hawk flights by more than two years, but is not accepted by most aviation historians
  1901 – The first radio receiver (successfully received a radio transmission). This receiver was developed by Guglielmo Marconi.  Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare Strand, County Wexford, Ireland in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall and Clifden in County Galway.  He soon made the announcement that on 12 December 1901, using a 152.4-meter (500 ft) kite-supported antenna for reception, the message was received at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland (now p
caption: Ford Model A was the first car produced by Ford Motor Company beginning production in 1903.
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