Timeline of United States inventions encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancement of the United States within a historical context, dating from the colonial period to the 21st century, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
On March 6, 1646, the first patent in North America was issued to Joseph Jenckes by the General Court of Massachusetts for making scythes. On April 10, 1790, President George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 109) into law which proclaimed that patents were to be authorized for “any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein not before known or used.” On July 31, 1790, Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person in the United States to file and to be granted a patent for an improved method of “Making Pot and Pearl Ashes.” The Patent Act of 1836 (Ch. 357, 5 Stat. 117) further clarified United States patent law to the extent of establishing a patent office where patent applications are filed, processed, and granted, contingent upon the language and scope of the claimant’s invention, for a patent term of 14 years with an extension of up to an additional 7 years. However, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (URAA) changed the patent term in the United States to a total of 20 years, effective for patent applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, thus bringing United States patent law further into conformity with international patent law. The modern-day provisions of the law applied to inventions are laid out in Title 35 of the United States Code (Ch. 950, sec. 1, 66 Stat. 792).
From 1836 to 2009, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a total of 7,472,428 patents relating to several well-known inventions appearing throughout the timeline below. Some examples of patented inventions include Nikola Tesla’s transmission of radio, Ransom Eli Olds’ the assembly line, Willis Carrier’s air-conditioning, the Wright Brothers’ airplane, William Shockley’s transistor, John Blankenbaker’s personal computer, Vinton Cerf's and Robert Kahn’s Internet protocol/TCP, and Martin Cooper’s mobile phone.
A separate timeline focusing on United States discoveries as well as a list of NASA spinoffs developed by the United States’ space program, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), are also available.
Colonial Period (1500s–1775)
1717 Swim fins
- Swimfins, swim fins, fins or flippers are worn on the foot or leg and made from finlike rubber or plastic, to aid movement through the water in water sports activities such as swimming, bodyboarding, bodysurfing, kneeboarding, riverboarding, and various types of underwater diving. Swim fins now are made of rubber or plastic, to aid movement through the water in water sports activities. However, as a young boy and avid swimmer, Benjamin Franklin invented the wooden swim fins in 1717, consisting of 10-inch long and 6-inch wide palettes for either the hands or the feet.
1731 Sextant
A sextant is an instrument which measures the angle of an object above the horizon. The angle, and the time when it was measured, can be used to calculate a position line on a chart. The sextant was invented 1731 by Thomas Godfrey, a glazier in Philadelphia. In England, John Hadley had independently begun work on a similar version of the sextant.
1742 Franklin stove
The Franklin Stove, also known as the circulating stove, and invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742, is a metal-lined fireplace with baffles in the rear to improve the airflow, providing more heat and less smoke than an ordinary open fireplace. The stove became very popular throughout the American colonies and gradually replaced open fireplaces.
1744 Mail order
Mail order uses the postal system for soliciting and delivering goods. According to The National Mail Order Association, Benjamin Franklin invented and conceptualized retail and mail order cataloging in 1744.
1749 Lightning rod
A lightning rod is one component in a lightning protection system. In addition to rods placed at regular intervals on the highest portions of a structure, a lightning protection system typically includes a rooftop network of conductors, multiple conductive paths from the roof to the ground, bonding connections to metallic objects within the structure and a grounding network. Individual lightning rods are sometimes called finials, air terminals or strike termination devices. The pointed lightning rod conductor, also called a "lightning attractor" or "Franklin rod," was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1749 as part of his groundbreaking explorations of electricity.
1761 Armonica
- Also known as the glass harmonica, Benjamin Franklin invented an arrangement of glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval in Cambridge, England. Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world première in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies. In this version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally nested on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot-operated treadle. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note.
Independence, Federalist Era, and Manifest Destiny (1776–1860)
1782 Flatboat
- A flatboat is a rectangular boat with a flat bottom and square ends generally used for freight and passengers on inland waterways. After serving through the American War of Independence in the Pennsylvania line, Jacob Yoder built a large boat at Fort Red Stone, on the Monongahela River, which he freighted with flour and carried to New Orleans in May, 1782. This was the first attempt to navigate the Ohio and Mississippi rivers for commercial purposes.
1784 Bifocals
- Bifocals are eyeglasses whose corrective lenses contain regions with two distinct optical powers. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the creation of the first pair of bifocals in the early 1760s, though the first indication of his double spectacles comes from a political cartoon printed in 1764. Many publications from that period refer to Dr. Franklin's double spectacles, including his first reference to them in a letter dated August 21, 1784.
1784 Automatic flour mill
- Classical mill designs were generally powered by water or air. In water-powered mills, a sluice gate opens a channel, starts the water flowing, and a water wheel turning. American inventor Oliver Evans revolutionized this labor-intensive process by building the first fully automatic mill near Philadelphia.
1785 Artificial diffraction grating
- In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a regular pattern, which diffracts light into several beams. The first man-made diffraction grating was made around 1785 in Philadelphia by David Rittenhouse who strung 50 hairs between two finely threaded screws with an approximate spacing of about 100 lines per inch.
1786 Ocean current mapping
The Gulf Stream, and the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current originating in the Gulf of Mexico, exiting through the Strait of Florida, and following the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In 1786, Benjamin Franklin studied and measured ocean depths and wind speed in order to come up with the first, accurate concept drawings of the phenomenon of navigating ocean currents which is still used today in shipping lanes and routes.
1792 Cracker
A cracker is a type of biscuit that developed from military hardtack and nautical ship biscuits. Crackers are now usually eaten with soup, or topped with cheese, caviar, or other delicacies. The holes in crackers are called "docking" holes as a means to stop air pockets from forming in the cracker while baking. Crackers trace their origin to the year 1792 when John Pearson of Newburyport, Massachusetts invented a cracker-like bread product from just flour and water that he called "pilot bread." An immediate success with sailors because of its shelf life, it also became distinctly known as a hardtack or sea biscuit for long voyages away from home while at sea.
1794 Cotton gin
The cotton gin quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from seedpods and sometimes sticky seeds, a job previously done by hand. These seeds are either used again to grow more cotton or, if badly damaged, disposed. The cotton gin uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through t
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