3500 BC
to 2900 BC
The Phoenicians develop an alphabet.
The Sumerians develop cuneiform writing - pictographs of accounts written on clay tablets.
The Egyptians develop hieroglyphic writing.
1775 BC
Greeks use a phonetic alphabet written from left to right.
1400 BC
Oldest record of writing in China on bones.
1270 BC
The first encyclopedia is written in Syria.
900 BC
The very first postal service - for government use in China.
776 BC
First recorded use of homing pigeons used to send message - the winner of the Olympic Games to the Athenians.
530 BC
The Greeks start the very first library.
500 BC
to 170 BC
Papyrus rolls and early parchments made of dried reeds - first portable and light writing surfaces.
200 BC
to 100 BC
Human messengers on foot or horseback common in Egypt and China with messenger relay stations built.
Sometimes fire messages used from relay station to station instead of humans.
14
Romans establish postal services.
37
Heliographs - first recorded use of mirrors to send messages by Roman Emperor Tiberius.
100
First bound books
105 BC
Tsai Lun of China invents paper as we know it.
305
First wooden printing presses invented in China - symbols carved on a wooden block.
1049
First movable type invented - clay - invented in China by Pi Sheng.
1450
Newspapers appear in Europe.
1455
Johannes Gutenberg invents a printing press with metal movable type.
1560
Camera Obscura invented - primitive image making.
1650
First daily newspaper - Leipzig.
1714
Englishmen, Henry Mill receives the first patent for a typewriter.
1793
Claude Chappe invents the first long-distance semaphore (visual or optical) telegraph line.
1814
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce achieves the first photographic image.
1821
Charles Wheatstone reproduces sound in a primitive sound box - the first microphone.
1831
Joseph Henry invents the first electric telegraph.
1835
Samuel Morse invents Morse code.
1843
Samuel Morse invents the first long distance electric telegraph line.
Alexander Bain patents the first fax machine.
1861
United States starts the Pony Express for mail delivery.
Coleman Sellers invents the Kinematoscope - a machine that flashed a series of still photographs onto a screen.
1867
American, Sholes the first successful and modern typewriter.
1876
Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph - an office copying machine.
Alexander Graham Bell patents the electric telephone.
Melvyl Dewey writes the Dewey Decimal System for ordering library books.
1877
Thomas Edison patents the phonograph - with a wax cylinder as recording medium.
Eadweard Muybridge invents high speed photography - creating first moving pictures that captured motion.
1887
Emile Berliner invents the gramophone - a system of recording which could be used over and over again.
1888
George Eastman patents Kodak roll film camera.
1889
Almon Strowger patents the direct dial telephone or automatic telephone exchange.
1894
Guglielmo Marconi improves wireless telegraphy.
1898
First telephone answering machines.
1899
Valdemar Poulsen invents the first magnetic recordings - using magnetized steel tape as recording medium - the foundation for both mass data storage on disk and tape and the music recording industry.
Loudspeakers invented.
1902
Guglielmo Marconi transmits radio signals from Cornwall to Newfoundland - the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean.
1904
First regular comic books.
1906
Lee Deforest invents the electronic amplifying tube or triode - this allowed all electronic signals to be amplified improving all electronic communications i.e. telephones and radios.
1910
Thomas Edison demonstrated the first talking motion picture.
1914
First cross continental telephone call made.
1916
First radios with tuners - different stations.
1923
The television or iconoscope (cathode-ray tube) invented by Vladimir Kosma Zworykin - first television camera.
1925
John Logie Baird transmits the first experimental television signal.
1926
Warner Brothers Studios invented a way to record sound separately from the film on large disks and synchronized the sound and motion picture tracks upon playback - an improvement on Thomas Edison's work.
1927
NBC starts two radio networks.
CBS founded.
First television broadcasts in England.
Warner Brothers releases "The Jazz Singer" the first successful talkingmotion picture.
1930
Radio popularity spreads with the "Golden Age" of radio.
First television broadcasts in the United States.
Movietone system of recording film sound on an audio track right on the film invented.
1934
Joseph Begun invents the first tape recorder for broadcasting - first magnetic recording.
1938
Television broadcasts able to be taped and edited - rather than only live.
1939
Scheduled television broadcasts begin.
1944
Computers like Harvard's Mark I put into public service - government owned - the age of Information Science begins.
1948
Long playing record invented - vinyl and played at 33 rpm.
Transistor invented - enabling the miniaturization of electronic devices.
1949
Network television starts in U.S.
45 rpm record invented.
1951
Computers are first sold commercially.
1958
Chester Carlson invents the photocopier or Xerox machine.
Integrated Circuit invented - enabling the further miniaturization of electronic devices and computers.
1963
Zip codes invented in the United States.
1966
Xerox invents the Telecopier - the first successful fax machine.
1969
ARPANET - the first Internet started.
1971
The computer floppy disc invented.
The microprocessor invented - considered a computer on a chip.
1972
HBO invents pay-TV service for cable.
1976
Apple I home computer invented.
First nationwide programming - via satellite and implemented by Ted Turner.
1979
First cellular phone communication network started in Japan..
1980
Sony Walkman invented.
1981
IBM PC first sold.
First laptop computers sold to public.
Computer mouse becomes regular part of computer.
1983
Time magazines names the computer as "Man of the Year."
First cellular phone network started in the United States.
1984
Apple Macintosh released.
IBM PC AT released.
1985
Cellular telephones in cars become wide-spread.
CD-ROMs in computers.
1994
American government releases control of internet and WWW is born - making communication at lightspeed.
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_communication.htm
