From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Science Outline

The First Industrial Complex
(Circa 2,500,000 BCE – 500,000 BCE)

The Quaternary Period, Including the Ice Age, Begins
(Circa 2,500,000 BCE)

Acheulean or Mode 2 Industries
(Circa 1,650,000 BCE – 100,000 BCE)

The Earliest Preserved Footprints of Our Ancestors
(Circa 1,530,000 BCE – 1,510,000 BCE)

Early Humans Make Bone Tools
(Circa 1,500,000 BCE)

Humans May Have Lived in Britain as Early as 950,000 Years Ago
(Circa 950,000 BCE – 780,000 BCE)

The Earliest Records of Life on Earth
(Circa 385,000 BCE – 280,000 BCE)

Early Humans Use Heat-Treated Stone for Tools
(Circa 162,000 BCE – 70,000 BCE)

The Earliest Surviving Pottery
(Circa 16,000 BCE)

The Holocene Interglacial Period Begins
(Circa 10,000 BCE)

“Accurate Reckoning for Inquiring into Things, and the Knowledge of All Things, Mysteries . . .All Secrets”
(Circa 1,650 BCE)

"The Founding Document of Mathematics"
(323 BCE – 283 BCE)

The First Truly Automatic Self-Regulatory Device
(Circa 285 BCE – 222 BCE)

The Earliest Analog Computer
(Circa 150 BCE – 100 BCE)

Probably the First Trigonometric Table
(Circa 150 BCE)

The Last Known Datable Cuneiform Tablet
(75 CE)

At Alexandria Ptolemy Writes the Almagest, the Cosmographia, and the Tetrabiblos
(Circa 100 CE – 178 CE)

The Oldest Extant Book Illustrations of Plants
(Circa 400 CE)

One of Few Surviving "Scientific" Manuscripts from Late Antiquity
(Circa 450 CE – 550)

Probably the Most Beautiful of the Earliest Surviving Scientific Codices
(Circa 512)

The Herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius
(Circa 550 – 625)

The Naples Dioscorides
(Circa 625)

The Earliest Known Star Atlas
(649 – 684)

Foundation of Corbie Abbey
(659 – 661)

Finger Reckoning and Computus in the Eighth Century
(725)

The Foundation of English History
(Circa 731)

The Archetype of De Architectura
(Circa 800)

Medieval Natural History Bestseller
(825 – 850)

The Earliest Surviving Copy of Aristotle's Biological Works
(Circa 850)

The Earliest Surviving Cookbook
(Circa 850)

The Morgan Dioscorides
(Circa 930 – 970)

The Earliest Surviving Copy of Pappus's Mathematical Collection
(Circa 950)

The Earliest Evidence of European Acquisition of Islamic Science
(Circa 950)

First Discovery of the Law of Refraction
(984)

Gerbert Requests a Latin Transation of an Arabic Text
(May 984)

The Mathematician Pope Reintroduces the Abacus and Armillary Sphere
(Circa 1000)

The Oldest Surviving Illustrated Manuscript in Arabic
(1009 – 1010)

Foundation of Experimental Physics, Optics, and the Science of Vision
(1011 – 1021)

Construction of the First Camera Obscura
(1012 – 1021)

Production of Medieval Arabic Manuscripts
(Circa 1025)

The Earliest Surviving Book Written in the Americas
(Circa 1050 – 1150)

Earliest Description of the Compass
(1086)

Medieval Handbook of Applied Arts Including Book Production
(1100 – 1120)

Earliest Record of the Use of the Compass in Navigation
(1119)

The Leading Translator from the Arabic
(Circa 1150)

Fibonacci Introduces Arabic Numerals to the European Public and Describes the Fibonacci Sequence
(1202)

Perhaps the Earliest Programmable Analog Computer
(1206)

Discovery of the Compass--The Earliest Known European Work of Experimental Science
(1269)

The Most Accurate World Map for Three Centuries
(Circa 1300)

Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Horticulture
(Circa 1304 – 1309)

The Earliest Surviving Spectacles
(Circa 1350)

The First Known Medical or Scientific Work to be Printed, Surviving in Only One Copy
(1456)

The First Printed Encyclopedia
(1467)

The First Printed Book on Technology with the First Woodcuts on a Scientific or Technological Subject
(1472)

The First Technical Dictionary
(1473 – 1474)

The First Printed Edition of the First Geography Contains No Maps
(September 13, 1475)

The First Illustrated Printed Book on Natural History
(October 30, 1475)

The First "Modern" Title Page
(1476)

The First Book with Engraved Maps
(1477)

The First Printed Herbal
(May 9, 1477)

The First Printed Herbal with Illustrations and Probably the First Series of Illustrations on a Scientific Subject
(Circa 1481 – 1482)

The Most Famous Textbook Ever Published
(May 25, 1482)

Among the Earliest Printed Mathematical Tables
(July 4, 1483)

Leonardo's Anatomical Drawings
(Circa 1485 – 1516)

The First Great General Work on Mathematics
(November 10 – November 20, 1494)

First Accurate, Detailed Woodcuts of Plants Taken Directly from Nature
(1530 – 1536)

First Printed Edition of the Greek Text of Euclid
(September 1533)

The First Description of Typecasting
(1540)

With Self-Portraits of the Artists
(1542)

The Copernican Revolution Begins
(1543)

The First Ornithological Treatise to Contain Descriptions of Individual Species Based upon the Author's own Observations
(1544)

The First Universal Bibliography Since the Invention of Printing
(1545 – 1555)

First Attempt to Formulate Methods of Identification of an Exotic Drug and Methods of Detecting its Adulteration
(October 1546)

The First Treatise on Mathematics Published in the Western Hemisphere and the First Textbook on Any Subject Besides Religion Printed Outside of Europe
(1556)

The Earliest Effort to Systematize Botanical Description; Discovery of Sulfuric Ether
(1561)

The Fallopian Tubes and Numerous Other Anatomical Discoveries
(1561)

The First Medical Book Printed in the Western Hemisphere with the Earliest Illustrations of Plants Printed in the Western Hemisphere
(1570)

One of the First Physicians to Draw the Illustrations for his Own Publications
(1572 – 1573)

Classic of Mathematics and Typography
(1579)

The First Book Devoted Exclusively to the Structure of an Animal Other than Man
(1598)

The First "Computer Manual"
(1606)

Among the First Records of Litigation over an Invention
(1607)

Invention of the Telescope
(1608)

Images of Revolutionary Discoveries Concerning the Universe
(March 1610)

The Invention of Logarithms
(1614)

Napier's Bones & the Lightning Calculator
(1617)

Plant Classification Based upon General Morphology
(1623)

Discovery and Experimental Proof of the Circulation of the Blood
(1628)

Precursor of the Royal Society
(August 23, 1633 – June 10, 1641)

"Je pense, donc je suis."
(1637)

The First Extensive Moon Atlas
(1647)

Encrypted Notice of the Discovery of Saturn's Ring
(1656)

Saturn's Ring
(1659)

Attack on Air Pollution
(1661)

Mechanistic View of the Human Body
(1662)

Argument for Forest Management
(1664)

Graphic Portrayal of the Hitherto Unknown Microcosm
(1665)

The First Scientific Journal
(January 5, 1665)

The Oldest Continuous Journal of an Academy of Science
(March 6, 1665)

The First Medical or Scientific Publication in North America, Known from a Single Surviving Copy
(1667)

A Universal Language Based on a Classification Scheme or Ontology
(1668)

The Mathematical Analysis of Pendulum Motion
(1673)

The First Book on the Classification of Birds Without Respect to Geographical Boundaries
(1676)

The First Scientific Book Written by a Native Latin American to be Published in the Western Hemisphere
(1681)

First Publication on the Differential Calculus
(1684)

Newton's Principia Mathematica
(1687)

The Wave or Pulse Theory of Light
(1690)

The First Book Catalogue Published in America
(1693)

The Structural Relationships between the Body of Man and the Anthropoid Ape
(1699)

Reflecting Surrealism Centuries Before Surrealism Became Fashionable
(1701 – 1725)

Newton's Opticks
(1704)

First Publication of Newton's Early Writings on the Calculus
(1711)

Newton - Leibniz Dispute over Invention of the Calculus
(1712)

First Book Entirely Devoted to Marine Science and First Oceanographic Study of a Single Region
(1725)

The First Natural History of North American Flora and Fauna
(1729 – 1747)

Systema Naturae
(1735)

Mechanical and Industrial Arts of 18th Century France
(1749 – 1814)

The Central Enterprise of the French Enlightenment
(1751 – 1780)

Binomial Nomenclature for Plants
(1753)

The British Museum is Founded
(January 11, 1753)

Binomial Nomenclature for Animals
(1758)

The British Museum Opens
(1759)

Bayes's Theorem
(1763)

Discovery that Growing Plants Restore Air Vitiated by Combustion or Respiration
(1772)

The First Book on Western Medicine and Science Published in Japanese
(1774)

The First Textbook on Zoogeography
(1777)

Lichtenberg Figures
(1777)

The First Chemistry Journal
(1778)

Discovery of Photosynthesis
(1779)

The First to Study the Effect of Gravity on Light
(1784)

Early Archaeological Exploration of Fertility Rites
(1786)

Watt Invents the Centrifugal Governor
(1788)

The First Successful Speech Synthesizer
(1791)

Discovery of Echolocation or Biosonar
(1794)

Discovery of the Method of Least Squares
(1795)

Malthus on Population
(1798)

Phasing Out Latin as the International Language
(1800)

The Prince of Mathematicians
(1801)

Written From A Viewpoint in Harmony With the Modern Ecology Movement
(1802 – 1818)

The Carbon Content of Soil is Produced by Vegetation
(1804)

Geographical-Ecological Plant Associations
(1805)

The Metric System
(1806 – 1821)

First Periodic Table of the Elements
(1808 – 1827)

Foundation of Aerodynamics and Invention of the Airplane
(1809 – 1810)

First Recognizable Statement of the Theory of Natural Selection
(1818)

The Natural History of Man
(1819)

The Fourier Series
(1822)

The First Genuine Human Fossil Discovered by a Scientist
(1823)

Animal Ecology
(1824)

First Description of the Greenhouse Effect
(1824)

Brownian Motion
(1828)

Non-Euclidean Geometry
(1829 – 1830)

The Basis for Electricity Generation
(1831)

Non-Euclidean Geometry Independently Discovered
(1832 – 1833)

William Whewell Coins the Term "Scientist"
(1833)

Theory of the Ice Age; Global Cooling and Warming
(1834 – 1841)

The "Average Man"
(1835)

Foundation of the Cell Theory
(1838)

Daguerreotypes: The First Commonly Used Photographic Process
(January 7, 1839)

Negatives Might be Used to Produce Multiple Images
(January 31, 1839)

The Doppler Principle
(1842)

Michael Faraday on Decay in Leather Bookbindings
(April 7, 1843)

Computing within the Context of Biology
(1844)

Pioneering Treatise on the Antiquity of Man
(1846 – 1849)

Sending Weather Information by Telegraph
(1847)

The First Scientific Instrument to Record Scientific Information in Real Time
(1847)

The First Separately PublishedBibliography on the History of Science
(1847)

First Widely Read Textbook of Oceanography and Atmospherics
(1855)

The First Book to Include a Photograph of its Author
(1857)

First Printed Exposition of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection
(August 20, 1858)

On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection
(November 24, 1859)

The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man
(January 1863)

Man's Place in Nature
(February 1863)

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
(1864)

Fountainhead of the Conservation Movement
(1864)

Field Equations
(1865)

"On Governors"
(1868)

The Wallace Line
(1869)

Mathematical Study of Anthropological Data
(1871)

Human Origins Will be Found in Africa
(1871)

The Earliest Exhibition Exclusively of Scientific Instruments
(1875)

The First Comprehensive World-Wide Study of Zoogeography
(1876)

Pioneering Study of Community Ecology
(1877)

The First Extensively Used Scientific Method of Criminal Identification
(1879)

Index Medicus Begins
(1879)

Could Life From Other Planets Have Been Carried to Earth by Meteorites?
(1880)

Fingerprints as a System of Identification
(October 8, 1880)

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
(1884)

The First Scientific Study of the Effects of Cocaine
(1884)

Hertz Proves the Existence of Electromagnetic Waves
(1887)

Aquatic Ecosystem Science
(1887)

Electromagnetic Waves
(1892)

Finger Prints as a Means of Identification
(1892)

The First Organized and Published Collection of Aviation Research
(1894)

Invention of Radio
(1895)

The Origin of Psychoanalysis
(1895)

Rontgen Discovers X-Rays
(November 8, 1895)

The First to Quantify the Impact of Carbon Dioxide on the Greenhouse Effect
(1896)

The First Cathode Ray Tube
(1897)

The Last Great Original Work in Science to be Published First as a Monograph Rather than in a Scientific Journal
(November 4, 1899)

Mathematische Probleme
(1900)

Invention of the Motorized Airplane
(September 18, 1901 – May 2, 1906)

The Beginnings of Modern Spaceflight Theory
(May 1903 – 1914)

Fleming Invents the Vacuum Tube
(1904)

Einstein's Annus Mirabilis
(1905)

A New Standard for Descriptive Bibliography in the History of Science
(1906)

Curtis's The North American Indian
(1907 – 1930)

The First Prediction of the Possibility of Man-Made Global Warming
(1908)

The First Library of Rare Science Books Formed by an American
(1908)

The Wheeler Gift Catalogue
(1909)

The First Large-Scale Investigation of Species Differences at the Molecular Level
(1909)

Principia Mathematica
(1910 – 1913)

Management of Water Pollution
(1911)

"Ridgway Colors"
(1912)

How the Quipu System of Mathematical Record-Keeping Worked
(1912)

First European Work on Theoretical Astronautics
(1913)

General Relativity
(1916)

Plant Succession
(1916)

The Basis for Computed Tomography
(1917)

Coordinating National Standards Development
(October 19, 1918)

The Earliest Practical Treatise on the Development of Rocketry for Space Flight
(1919)

The First Experimental Proof of General Relativity
(November 6, 1919)

The Rocket in Interplanetary Space
(June 1923 – 1929)

The Creation of Bell Labs
(1925)

Animal Ecology
(1927)

First Use of Punched Cards in a Purely Scientific Application
(1928)

The Relationship between Information and Thermodynamics
(1929)

The Expanding Universe
(1929)

The First Machine to Perform Complex Scientific Calculations Automatically
(1933 – 1934)

Origins of the X-Planes and the Space Shuttle
(1933)

The First Independent Scientific Computing Service
(1937)

"The Most Significant Master's Thesis of the 20th Century"
(August 10, 1937)

DDT
(1939)

First Application of Electric Punched Card Tabulating Equipment in Crystal Structure Analysis
(1941 – 1946)

The Birth of Ecosystem Ecology
(1942)

"The Program has to Build the Machinery to Execute Itself"
(1944)

Communication by Geosynchronous Satellites Predicted
(October 1945)

The Macy Conferences
(1946 – 1953)

Invention of the Transistor
(December 1947)

Comparing the Functions of Genes to Self-Reproducing Automata
(September 20 – September 20, 1949)

The First Application of an Electronic Computer to Molecular or Structural Biology
(July 9 – July 12, 1951)

Invention of the MASER
(1953)

The Beginning of Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
(1953)

The Double Helix
(April 25, 1953)

Discovery of DNA's Method of Replication
(May 30, 1953)

The Beginning of Medical Ultrasonography
(October 29, 1953)

The Idea of a Genetic Code
(1954)

The First Amino Acid Sequence of a Protein
(1955)

Beginning of Doppler Ultrasound
(1957)

On Protein Synthesis
(September 1957)

Kilby Conceives of the Integrated Circuit
(1958)

The First Obstetrical or Gynecological Sonograms
(1958)

The First Solution of the Three-Dimensional Molecular Structure of a Protein
(1958 – 1960)

The U.S. Launches Explorer-1
(January 31, 1958)

Bionics
(September 13 – September 15, 1960)

The Genetic Code
(1961)

"Silent Spring"
(1962)

The Largest Archive of Digital Social Science Data
(1962)

The Information Processing Techniques Office
(October 1, 1962)

Changes in Tissue Density Can be Computed
(1963)

Optical Fibers Proposed as a Medium for Communication
(1965)

Invention of Digital Image Processing
(1966)

The Theory of "Island" Biogeography
(1967)

The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age
(1968)

Invention of Three-Dimensional Image Processing
(January 1968)

The First Manned Apollo Flights Occur
(December 24, 1968)

A Sensor for Recording Images
(1969)

The First Book on Digital Physics
(1969)

Problem with the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer Nearly Prevents the First Moon Walk
(July 21, 1969)

Medline is Operational
(October 1971)

First Patent for MRI
(March 17, 1972)

The First Practical Method for Cloning a Gene
(1973)

The Beginnings of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(1973)

Code of Fair Information Practice
(July 1973)

The Endangered Species Act of 1973
(December 28, 1973)

Foundation of the Biotechnology Industry
(1974)

The Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA
(February 1975)

Genetech is Founded
(April 7, 1976)

A Technique for Sequencing DNA
(1977)

The Sanger Method of Rapid DNA Sequencing
(1977)

Making MRI Feasible
(1977)

The First Whole Genome Shotgun Sequence
(1982)

Origins of the Human Genome Project
(December 1984 – April 1987)

The First Semi-Automatic DNA Sequencer
(1986)

The First DNA Sequencing Machine
(1987)

Proposals to Sequence the Human Genome
(1987)

Expressed Sequence Tags
(1991)

Venter Founds TIGR
(1992)

The Last Printed Edition of Beilstein is Published
(1998)

Venter Founds Celera Genomics
(May 1998)

On the Value of the History of Science in Scientific Research
(2000)

The Most Extensive Computation Ever Undertaken in Biology
(June 26, 2000)

Publication of the Human Genome Sequence
(February 15 – February 16, 2001)

Image Manipulation in Scientific Publications
(July 6, 2004)

Cortical Rewiring and Information Storage
(October 14, 2004)

Attempting to Use an Ink-Jet Printer to Print Living Tissue. . . .
(2005)

The Century of Science Initiative
(January 2005)

The First Intelligible Word from an Extinct South American Civilization?
(August 12, 2005)

The Genetic Code of Avian Flu Virus H5N1 is Deciphered
(October 5, 2005)

Using Currency Movements to Predict the Spread of Infectious Disease
(January 26, 2006)

The Royal Society Digital Journal Archive
(October 29, 2006)

Previously Unknown Speeches by Hyperides
(November 2006)

The EPA Begins to Close its Scientific Libraries
(November 20, 2006)

Demanding that the U.S. EPA Desist from Destroying its Libraries
(November 30, 2006)

Is the Universe Made of Information?
(February 2007)

Data-Storing Bacteria Could Last Thousands of Years
(February 27, 2007)

Watson's Genome
(May 31, 2007)

Supercomputer Built from Video Gaming Components
(June 2008)

The Effect of Decay Fungi on Wood Used in the Production of Violins
(June 28, 2008)

Tenth Century Text Published on Google Books
(October 29, 2008)

First Images of Extra-Solar Planets Taken from the Visible Spectrum: Planets Located 130 Light-Years from Earth
(November 13, 2008)

Scientists Sequence Woolly Mammoth Genome--the First of an Extinct Animal
(November 19, 2008)

First Reported Case of ZZZ-Mailing
(December 15, 2008)

Higher Resolution Map of Knowledge Than Can be Produced from Citation Analysis
(March 11, 2009)

Using YouTube Videos to Study the Origins of Music in Societies
(April 30, 2009)

Using Air Traffic and Currency Tracking Data in Epidemiology
(May 3, 2009)

The Cost of DeCoding a Human Genome Drops to $50,000
(August 10, 2009)

Imaging a Molecule One Million Times Smaller Than a Grain of Sand
(August 28, 2009)

Confirmation that Fungally-Treated Wood Enables Great Violin Sound
(September 2009)

A "Significant Amount" of Water is Discovered on the Moon
(November 13, 2009)

Biological Journals to Require Data-Archiving
(January 2010)

Probably the First Fully Visually Satisfying Interactive eBook
(April 5, 2010)

A New Hominid Species is Discovered with the Help of Satellite Imagery
(April 7, 2010)