Industrial Revolution

1563	Rev. William Lee, born at Woodborough near Nottingham, invents the Stocking Frame, a mechanical device for knitting stockings.
1709	Abraham Darby uses coke to smelt iron ore, replacing wood and charcoal as fuel.
1712	Thomas Newcomen builds first commercially successful steam engine. Able to keep deep coal mines clear of water. First significant power source other than wind and water.
1769	Arkwright's "water" (powered) frame automates the weft.
1787	Cartwright builds a power loom.
1792	William Murdock (James Watt's assistant) lights his home with coal gas.
1807	Robert Fulton's Clermont first successful steamboat.
1811-15	Luddite riots: laborers attack factories and break up the machines they fear will replace them.
1821	Faraday demonstrates electro-magnetic rotation, the principle of the electric motor.
1830	The Liverpool and Manchester Railway begins first regular commercial rail service.
1838	Daguerre perfects the Daguerrotype.
1844	Commercial use of Morse's telegraph (Baltimore to Washington).
1850	Petrol (gasoline) refining first used. Natural Science Honours School established at Oxford.
1851	Singer invents first practical sewing machine. Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge.
1854	Bessemer invents steel converter.
1859	Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species. Edwin Drake strikes oil in Pennsylvania. Etienne Lenoir demonstrates the first successful gasoline engine.
1860	Science degrees at University of London.
1863	Siemens-Martin open hearth process (along with the Bessemer converter) makes steel available in bulk. Steel begins to replace iron in building: steel framing and reinforced concrete make possible "curtain-wall" architecture--i.e., the skyscraper.
1867	Alfred Nobel produces dynamite, the first high explosive which can be safely handled.
1876	Bell invents the telephone.
1877	Edison invents the phonograph.
1879	Edison invents the incandescent lamp.
1884	Maxim invents the machine gun, making possible mass slaughter and beginning the mechanization of warfare.
1888	Hertz produces radio waves.
1889	Eiffel Tower.
1895	Lumière brothers develop Cinematograph. Roentgen discovers X-rays.
1896	Marconi patents wireless telegraph.
1899	Aspirin invented.
1900	First Zeppelin built.
1901	Marconi transmits first trans-Atlantic radio message (from Cape Cod).
1903	Wright brothers make first powered flight.
1908	Henry Ford mass-produces the Model T.

Source: The Vicrtorian web Literature, History & Culture in the age of Victoria

                http://www.victorianweb.org/technology/ir/irchron.html