Chapter II B: History of Communication Technology

Welcome to History of Communication Technology

The following is table of timeline of History of Communication Technology from the earliest time human kind know alphabet until present time. For more details, click here and here.

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 talking motion 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.

We provide an interactive timeline for you to easily understand the history.