VOL 31: TECHNOLOGICAL INVENTIONS OF THE 19TH CENTURY
Hey Friends,
Trust you all had a great week?
Quote of The Week
“Every Pawn is a potential Queen”
use that one hold body. 😅😅
Today at a Glance:
QuoteIntroductionBrief History of the 19th centuryImportant InventionsFace of the WeekBusiness & StartupsRandom FactsTweet of the Week
Introduction
Inventions are great, innovating on them makes it (invention) better. 😇😇
Okay, so let’s take the now ubiquitous selfie, for example, the format or the way we make self-portraits may have changed over time, but the idea of making self-portraits is hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The same is true of many inventions that we typically think of as modern, some of which have precedents dating back to over 4000 years ago, an example is the Wheel, we call it Tyre today.
Brief History of The 19th Century
From Wikipedia, the 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 and ended on 31 December 1900. The 19th century is also the ninth century of the 2nd millennium.
This century saw a lot of social change. Much of Europe and the Americas abolished slavery. The First and Second Industrial Revolutions resulted in massive urbanization as well as significantly increased productivity, profit, and prosperity.
During this time, many new inventions were introduced that would forever change the world. It saw the widespread adoption of industrial equipment, the transformation of cities, and significant technological advances in a wide range of fields. Many modern mechanisms have their origins in this period.
The first electronics appeared in the nineteenth century, with the invention of the camera in 1816, the telegraph, the typewriter, the first telephone call in 1876, the first functional light bulb in 1878, and Karl Benz's invention of the first true automobile in 1886.
The nineteenth century was also a time of rapid scientific discovery and invention, with significant advances in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electricity, and metallurgy laying the groundwork for the technological advances of the 20th century.
The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain and spread to the rest of Europe, North America, and Japan. The introduction of railroads provided the first major advancement in inland transportation for centuries, changing the way people lived and obtained goods and fueling major urbanization movements in countries all over the world.
During this century, numerous cities around the world surpassed populations of a million or more. London grew to become the world's largest city as well as the capital of the British Empire. Its population grew from one million people in 1800 to 6.7 million a century later.
During this century, the last undiscovered landmasses on Earth, including the vast majority of Africa and Asia, were explored. Liberalism rose to prominence as Europe's pre-eminent reform movement.
Here are some of the most important inventions of the 19th century.
PHOTOGRAPHY CAMERA (1816)
Imagine a life without the camera, almost unimaginable right?It has become such a necessity that it has to be infused with our phone so that we can carry it with us conveniently. What if someone never came up with the idea, so many memories would have been lost and it would have slowed a lot of progress in science, technology and education.
The history of the camera is a long one, its invention can be traced back as far as the 1500s. In 1816, Joseph Nicephore Niepce became the first person to invent the camera, he had been experimenting with photographic techniques since 1813.
It has become one of the most important inventions of all time because it has enabled people to capture images and share them with others around the world without having to be present at the scene, social media would have been boring if it were all text, no images and videos, I can’t just imagine how our present life would have been.
What was an experiment 200 years ago is now widely used today just with a selfie stick and a smartphone, it has also created billions of dollars industries, because the invention of cameras led to the creation of the first movie cameras. Netflix, Apple TV, YouTube, Marvel, Cinemas etc. won’t have existed today.
TYPEWRITER (1867)
A typewriter is a machine that was commonly used in the past (but still used in some places in Nigeria today. Ekiti-State 😂) and which has keys that are pressed in order to print letters, numbers, or other characters onto paper.
The typewriter was reinvented dozens of times, but credit for the first practical typewriter is given to Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when he completed it in September 1867, although the patent was not issued until June 1868. He is also credited with inventing the QWERTY keyboard.
It is worthy to note that 300 years earlier, Johann Gutenberg invented the idea of a printer, it is an unchangeable fact that “new ideas are built on old ones.”
The first commercial model was manufactured in 1873 and was mounted on a sewing machine stand. This machine was a blind writer and wrote in only one case; that is, it does not have both capitals and small letters but wrote only in capitals.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Sholes invited Thomas Edison to see his miracle machine, and Mr. Edison told Mr. Sholes at the time that the typewriter would someday be powered by electricity. In fact, a short time later Mr. Edison built a typewriter that was operated electrically.
It was never marketed because it was a large and expensive machine. The American humorist Mark Twain was among the first to buy a typewriter, and he was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher.
P.S: I can’t complete it in a single article, the last part will be released next week.
FACE OF THE WEEK
JOHN HAVARD (1607–1638)
Little is known about John Harvard's short lifetime. Nonetheless, his legacy lives on as the primary benefactor of Harvard University, undoubtedly one of the world's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
John Harvard's father and four of his siblings died in the Great Plague of London (1625) leaving John, his mother, and a younger brother. His mother re-married twice, one to a prosperous cooper. However, her second husband soon died, leaving the Harvard family with an even larger estate.
Harvard is frequently referred to as the "founder" or "principal founder" of what is now known as Harvard University. This portrayal is quite misleading. It is more accurate to refer to him as "Harvard's benefactor" or as a philanthropist who is responsible for aiding the school.
The governing body decided in October 1636, two years before Harvard's death, that funds would be allocated for the establishment of a college, specifically for the advanced training of ministers for the Congregational Church. In his will he directed that half his money, along with his collection of classical and theological literature, be given to a school recently created in neighbouring town, soon to be renamed Cambridge. The school had been founded in 1636, and Harvard’s gift assured its continued operation.
N.B: That image up there is not John Harvard, there is no known likeness of him, there is nothing to indicate what he had looked like.
Business & Startups
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Random Facts
The 19th century saw the birth of science as a profession; the term scientist was coined in 1833 by William Whewell which soon replaced the older term of (natural) philosopher.
The wordgirlfriendfirst appears in writing in 1855.The wordboyfriendfirst appears in writing in 1856.
Tweet of The Week
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