Communications Technology Timeline

	20000 BC	Prehistoric people used smoke signals to point out danger or celebration

The Sumerians developed the first known system of writing	3500 BC

	1500 BC	The Semites invented the use of the alphabet for writing

The Romans began a hand written newssheet that was a forerunner of today's newspapers.	59 BC

	1 AD	The Chinese invented paper

Pi Sheng, a Chinese Printer, invented moveable type	1045 AD

	Mid-1400s AD	A German metalsmith Johannes Gutenberg reinvented moveable type

The English made the first pencils of graphite, the substance used today	mid-1500s AD

	1500S	Printed newssheets called coranots appeared

The French engineer Clude Chappe developed a visual telegraph	Late 1700s

	1811	Friedrich König, a German printer, invented a steam -powered printing press

Joseph Nicèphore Nièpce, a French physicist, made the first permanent photograph	1826

	1830s	The French painter Louis J. M. Daguerre developed an improved photograph

The American painter Sammual F. B. Morse patented his electric telegraph	1840

	1864	The British physicist James Clerk Maxwell reported his theory of electromagnetism, which led to radio

The first successful transatlantic telegraph cable linked Europe and North America.	1866

	1868	Three American inventors patented the first practical typewritter

Alexander Graham Bell patented a type of telephone.	1876

	1877	Thomas A.Edison developed the first practical phonograph

A German physicist Henirich Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves	1880s

	1895	The invention of the wireless telegraph

The invention of the triode	1907

	1936	The worlds first television broadcast

Invented the transistor	1947

	1949	The invention of the pager

The invention of the video tape	mid-1950s

	1960	The invention of the xerography copying process

The invention of the echo satellite	1960

	1970	the invention of the first optical fiber

The invention of the videocassette recorder	1970s

	1971	personal computer was invented

The invention of the cellular mobile telephones	1980s

	~1980s	The invention of desktop publishing

The invention of fax machines	1980s

	1984	The invention of the Linotype machine

Windows was developed by Bill Gates	1985

	1989	The invention of the world wide web

DSL/Broadband	1989

	1989	The laptop computer was invented

P.D.A	1993

	1996	The invention of the modem