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1900: Freud's “Interpretation of dreams”; Radon discovered; Planck's Quantum Theory; human speech via radio waves; Minoan excavations; 1st trial Zeppelin flight; Browning revolvers;
1901: Planck's laws of radiation; adrenalin 1st isolated; 1st motorbikes; 1st Mercedes car; Nernst 3rd law of thermodynamics;
1902: secretin; anaphylaxis; arc generator; panchromatic plate; radio-magnetic detector;
1903: 1st recording of an opera; Wright Bros flight in powered airplane; ultramicroscope; Einthoven's ECG;
1904: general theory radioactivity; photoelectric cell; UV lamp; telegraphic transmission of photographs; thermionic tube to generate radiowaves; silicones; the ice cream cone; the hot dog; iced tea; Melbourne's William Sutherland publishes his work explaining Brownian motion a year before Albert Einstein but unfortunately it was in an English journal and thus Einstein was accredited with the theory as he published in German - the lingua franca of the physics world until the 1930's.
1905: 1st regular cinema; Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity; rayon yarn; radio tube diode; 1st motor buses in London; 1st neon light signs appear; Mt Wilson observatory CA completed; Rotary Club founded; Kodak Brownie camera brings photography to consumers.
1906: Patents Act & Merchant Shipping Act adopted by Britain; enzymic catalysis; “allergy”; Amundsen reaches North Magnetic Pole; US Pure Food & Drugs Act; 1st radio broadcast of voice & music in US; night shift for women forbidden internationally; Einstein's paper on Brownian motion - the principles of diffusion theory;
1907: Pavlov's conditioned reflexes; tissue culture; Lumiere's color photography; radio amplifier; radio tube triode; electric vacuum cleaner; electric washer; Boys Scout movement; Mother's Day;
1908: 1st steel & glass building; Minkowkski's 4D geometry; ammonia synthesised; helium liquefied; Bakelite; fountain pens popular; Wright flies 30miles in 40minutes; 1st model “T” Ford car produced;
1909: 1st newsreels on film; Ehrlich prepares salvarsan to Rx syphilis; genetics research; Bleriot crosses English channel by plane in 37min; Farman completes 1st 100 mile flight; US explorer Peary reaches North Pole; 1st permanent waves by hair dressers;
1910: tango becomes popular in Europe & US; Curie's radiography; excavation of Cnossus, Crete; 1st deep-sea research; Halley's comet observed again; 122,000 telephones in use in UK; Farman flies 300miles in 8.25hrs; the “week-end” becomes popular in US; Father's Day;
1911: Amundsen reaches South Pole; Rutherford's theory of atomic structure; Kettering's 1st practical electric self-starter for automobiles; air-conditioning; gyrocompass;
1912: Jung's theory of psychoanalysis; London has 400 cinemas; 5m people visit cinemas in US daily; “vitamine”; cellophane; Scott reaches South Pole; cloud-chamber photographs detect protons & electrons; specific heat of solids; cosmic radiation; acriflavine as an antiseptic; parachute invented;
1913: Geiger counter; Bohr's theory of atomic structure; “isotope”; Schick diphtheria immunity test; composition of chlorophyll; vitamin A; Russell's theory of stellar evolution; coal dust converted to oil; basic ideas of jet propulsion; protactinium; zippers (in use since 1891) become popular; foxtrot becomes fashionable; 1st crossword puzzle published, in New York.
1914: Jeans' Radiation & quantum theory; Goddard's rocketry expts; pure thyroxin; 1st successful heart surgery on dogs; Shackleton's Antarctic expedition; 1st traffic light installed (Ohio);
1915: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity; dysentery bacillus; 1st fighter airplane; farm tractor; 1st transcontinental telephone call; wireless service estab. b/n US & Japan; Ford's 1 millionth car; Sanger jailed for writing 1st book on birth control; motorized taxis;
1916: sympathectomy to Rx angina; blood for transfusion is refrigerated; new valence theory; stainless steel; x-ray tube;
1917: “bobbed hair” as ladies fashion in US & Britain; Mt Wilson 100in telescope;
1918: automatic toaster; 1st airmail postage; influenza pandemic kills 22m (1918-20);
1919: mass spectroscope / isotopy; cyclones originate as waves in sloping frontal surfaces which separate different air masses; Rutherford demonstrates atom is not the final building block; 1st expts with shortwave radio; expts on new sound-film system; Alcock/Brown makes 1st non-stop trans-Atlantic flight; Austria abolishes death penalty; Radio Corp. Amer. founded; mechanical rabbit for greyhound racing;
1920: Adler's theory of individual psychology; Cushing's new brain surgery techniques; the importance of the stratosphere; rotor ship; Rorschach's ink blot test; polymerisation to make plastics; submachine gun (Tommy gun); water-skiing pioneered;
1921: coal to oil; separates isotopes; BCG TB vaccine; chromosome theory of heredity postulated; bacteriophages; Oberth's “The Rocket into Interplanetary Space”; as a preliminary to splitting of atom, Rutherford/Chadwick disintegrate most elements; stellar spectra & thermal ionisation theory; British Broadcasting Company (BBC) founded; table tennis revived; 1st regular radio programs in US; rise of the motor car & use of gasoline (petrol) revitalises oil drilling industry, starting the new oil-based economy.
1922: expts with transmutation of elements; vitamin E; self-winding wristwatch; insulin 1st used on pts; WBC's; radar;
1923: Bronsted's acid-base theory; earth's magnetic field; 1st birth-control clinic opens in NY; hafnium; USSR's 1st polar station; ultracentrifuge; continuous hot-strip rolling of steel; “Time” magazine founded; Schick's electric razor; Vegemite introduced in Aust;
1924: skeletons of Mesozoic dinosaurs found in Gobi Desert; Broglie's wave theory of matter; iconoscope (TV) patent filed; insecticides used for 1st time; Mah-Jong world craze; 2.5million radios in use in US;