Timeline of Technology

• 1945 First atomic bomb exploded by the United States
• 1946 First electronic computer (ENIAC)
• 1949 Soviet Union tests atomic bomb
• 1950 First kidney transplant
• 1951 First hydrogen bomb exploded by the United States
• 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discover DNA
• 1954 Launch of first nuclear submarine
• 1955 First commercial electricity from nuclear power; invention of birth control pill
• 1957 USSR launches Sputnik I
• 1959 Integrated circuit invented
• 1960 Laser invented
• 1961 Yuri Gagarin becomes first man in space
• 1962 Mariner 2 becomes first spacecraft to explore another planet
• 1963 Limited nuclear test ban treaty
• 1964 IBM makes a $10 million grant to fund the Harvard University Program on Technology and Society
• 1965 Largest power failure in history blacks out NY city
• 1966 B52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashes near Palomares, Spain
• 1967 The tanker Torry Canyon breaks apart, spills 30 million gallons of crude oil
• 1968 Pope Paul VI rejects use of artificial conception
• 1969 Neil Armstrong becomes first human to walk on moon, EPA begins
• 1970 U. S. Congress kills funding for SST, first Earth Day
• 1971 Founding of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University
• 1972 U. S. Congress passes Clean Water Act and establishes the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)
• 1973 First spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the solar system, Congress passes Endangered Species Act, Arab oil embargo
• 1974 Scientists establish a voluntary moratorium on recombinant DNA genetic engineering
• 1976 First successful landing on Mars
• 1978 Soviet Cosmos 954 with nuclear reactor aboard disintegrates over northern Canada, first test-tube baby, Love Canal, NY is evacuated
• 1979 Partial meltdown at Three-Mile Island
• 1981 Formation of Earth First
• 1982 First artificial heart implanted
• 1983 Wave of computer break-ins by teenage computer hackers
• 1984 Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India explodes killing more than 2,500 people in the worst industrial accident in history
• 1985 Thinning of ozone layer is reported
• 1986 Space shuttle Challenger explodes, Chernobyl reactor burns
• 1987 Montreal Protocol signed by 24 countries to curtail chlorofluorcarbon production
• 1989 Former president Ronald Reagan, knighted in London and inducted into the French Academy in Paris, praises the democratic impact of the electronic revolution in communications and information technology
• 1990 Switching failure blocks half of all calls for a day on long distance At&T lines
• 1991 Iraq sets fire to oil wells in Kuwait in an act of ecoterrorism
• 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro yields international treaty to protect biodiversity
• 1993 U. S. House of Representatives votes 282 to 143 to stop funding the multibillion dollar superconducting supercollider