page_title: 19th century
section_title: Inventions
hierarchical_section_title: 19th century / Science and technology / Inventions
context_page_description: The 19th century was a century that began on January 1, 1801, and ended on December 31, 1900.
  The 19th century saw large amounts of social change; slavery was abolished, and the First and Second Industrial Revolutions led to massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit and prosperity. The Islamic gunpowder empires were formally dissolved and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia and almost all of Africa under colonial rule.
  It was marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Zulu Kingdom, First French, Holy Roman and Mughal empires. This paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the United States, the German Empire, the Second French Empire, the Kingdom of Italy and Meiji Japan, with the British boasting unchallenged dominance after 1815. After the defeat of the French Empire, and its Indian allies in the Napoleonic Wars, the British and Russian empires expanded greatly, becoming the world's leading powers. The Russian Empire expanded in the Caucasus, central and far eastern Asia.
context_section_description: 1804: First steam locomotive begins operation.
  1825: Erie Canal opened connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
  1825: First isolation of aluminium.
  1825: The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway in the world, is opened.
  1826: Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine.
  1829: First electric motor built.
  1837: Telegraphy patented.
  1841: The word "dinosaur" is coined by Richard Owen
  1844: First publicly funded telegraph line in the world—between Baltimore and Washington—sends demonstration message on 24 May, ushering in the age of the telegraph. This message read "What hath God wrought?" (Bible, Numbers 23:23)
  1849: The safety pin and the gas mask are invented.
  1855: Bessemer process enables steel to be mass-produced.
  1856: World's first oil refinery in Romania
  1858: Invention of the phonautograph, the first true device for recording sound.
  1860: Benjamin Tyler Henry invents the 16 - shot Henry Rifle
  1861: Richard Gatling invents the Gatling Gun,first modern machine gun used notably in the battles of Cold Harbor and Petersburg
  1862: First meeting in combat of ironclad warships, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, during the American Civil War.
  1863: First section of the London Underground opens.
  1866: Successful transatlantic telegraph cable follows an earlier attempt in 1858.
  1867: Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
  1869: First Transcontinental Railroad completed in United States on 10 May.
  1870: Rasmus Malling-Hansen's invention the Hansen Writing Ball becomes the first commercially sold typewriter.
  1873: Blue jeans and barbed wire are invented.
  1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph
  1878: First commercial telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut.
  c. 1875/1880: Introduction of the widespread use of electric lighting. These included early crude systems in France and the UK and the introduction of large scale outdoor arc lighting systems by 1880.
  1879: Thomas Edison patents a practical incandescent light bulb.
  1882: Introduction of large scale electric power utilities with the Edison Holborn Viaduct (London) and Pearl Street (New York) power stations supplying indoor electric lighting using Edison's incandescent bulb.
  1884: Sir Hiram Maxim invents the first self-powered Machine gun.
  1885: Singer begins production of the 'Vibrating Shuttle'. which would become the most popular model of sewing machine.
  1886: Karl Benz sells the first commercial automobile.
  1890: The cardboard box is invented.
  1892: John Froelich develops and constructs the first gasoline/petrol-powered tractor.
  1894: Karl Elsener invents the Swiss Army knife.
  1894: First gramophone record.
  1895: Wilhelm Röntgen identifies x-rays.
caption: Thomas Edison was an American inventor, scientist, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb.
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