Chronology of Events - 1900-1930s

The following is a chronological listing of significant events in the development of the field of Information Technology between 1900 and 1939:

1900
1900 &mdash; Nikola Tesla develops frequency hopping.

1901
1901 &mdash; The first radio message is sent across the Atlantic Ocean in Morse code.

1902
1902 &mdash; In Japan, Yazu Ryoichi builds the first mechanical calculator called the automatic abacus.

1903
1903 &mdash; Nikola Tesla patents electrical logic circuits called "gates" or "switches."

1906
1906 &mdash; Lee deForest invents the vacuum tube.

1906 &mdash; The first Radiotelegraph Convention is signed in Berlin.

1906 &mdash; Kawaguchi Ichitaro from the Japanese Ministry of Communications and Transportation builds the first a mechanical calculator powered by electricity.

1906 &mdash; Russian Boris Rosing invents the first working television.

1907
January 29, 1907 &mdash; Lee De Frost files patent #879,532 for the vacuum tube triode &mdash; later used as an electronic switch in the first electronic computer.

1909
1909 &mdash; Congress passes a major revision to existing copyright law. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, the initial term of copyright protection is 28 years, with a 28 year renewal term. Copyright registration is required.

1910
June 18, 1910 &mdash; The Mann-Elkins Act places telecommunications under Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) jurisdiction.

1911
June 15, 1911 &mdash; IBM is formed.

1912
1912 &mdash; The Radio Act of 1912 authorizes the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to issue radio licenses and control broadcasting.

1913
December 19, 1913 &mdash; In settlement of the first antitrust suit filed against AT&T by the U.S. government, the parties enter into what is known as the "Kingsbury Commitment." AT&T agrees to divest its holdings in Western Union, stop acquiring other telephone companies, permit other telephone companies to interconnect, and become a regulated monopoly.

1914
1914 &mdash; The Federal Trade Commission is created.

1914 &mdash; Edward Kleinschmidt invents the teletype.

1914 &mdash; ASCAP is founded.

1914 &mdash; The Calculating-Tabulating-Recording Company (later renamed IBM) is founded by Herman Hollerith.

July 13, 1914 &mdash; President Woodrow Wilson proclaims U.S. adherence to the Buenos Aires Copyright Convention of 1910, which establishes copyright protection between the U.S. and certain Latin American countries.

1915
January 25, 1915 &mdash; Alexander Graham Bell makes the first North American transcontinental telephone call.

1918

 * The short-wave radio is invented.

1919

 * The earliest version of the Enigma cipher machine is built in Europe.
 * W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan discover the flip-flop vacuum tube.

1920

 * Czech novelist Karel Capek publishes the play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots") in Prague. It premiered in 1921. It is the first publication in which the term "robot" appears. It explores the issue of whether worker-machines will replace humans.
 * The first radio broadcasts begin in the United States.

1921

 * The Willis-Graham Act on communications confirmed the Kingsbury Commitment.

1922

 * Photo telegraphy (fax service) is offered as a telecommunications service in Germany.


 * The Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) is established to coordinate U.S. telecommunications activities.


 * ASCAP demands royalties from radio stations.

1923

 * The Enigma, the first mechanical cipher rotor machine, is introduced.


 * Philo Farnsworth devises the first fully electronic television.


 * The FTC initiates antitrust investigation of RCA, GE, Westinghouse, AT&T and United Fruit.

1924
February 24, 1924 &mdash; IBM is formed by the merger of several other companies, including the company owned by Herman Hollerith.


 * The International Radiotelegraph Conference implements the Table of Frequency Allocations.
 * John Logie Baird invents the Electro Mechanical television system.
 * Walther Bothe develops the logic gate.

1925

 * Bell Telephone Laboratories is formed as the basic research facility for the Bell System.

1926

 * Nikola Tesla envisions a wireless interconnected world:

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket."

1927
1927 &mdash; The Radio Act of 1927 creates the Federal Radio Commission and declares the radio spectrum to be a public good industry

January 1927 &mdash; The first transatlantic radio-telephone service from the U.K. to the United States is established.

September 7, 1927 &mdash; Philo Farnsworth successfully transmits a television signal.

1928
1928 &mdash; IBM introduces the eighty-column punched card, which becomes the standard for the next fifty years.

1928 &mdash; Vladimir Zworykin invented the cathode ray tube.

June 4, 1928 &mdash; The U.S. Supreme Court court decides Olmstead v. U.S., holding that telephone calls are not protected by 4th Amendment.

1929
June 27, 1929 &mdash; The first demonstration of color television takes place at Bell Labs in New York.

1930

 * Vannevar Bush develops a partly electronic Difference Engine (the precursor to the digital computer). It can solve a variety of mathematical problems.


 * Kurt Godel publishes a paper on the use of a universal formal language.


 * AT&T creates a two-way, experimental videophone.

1932

 * The "International Telegraph Union" becomes the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

1934
June 19, 1934 &mdash; The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is established. The telecommunications industry now is regulated by the FCC.

July 1, 1934 &mdash; The Communications Act of 1934 takes effect.

1936
Nov. 12, 1936 &mdash; Alan Turing publishes "On Computatable Numbers," which describes a Universal Turing machine.

April 11, 1936 &mdash; Konrad Zuse applies for a patent on his electromagnetic, program-controlled calculator, called the Z1. It was the first freely programmable, binary-based calculating machine built, although it did not function reliably. The Z1 was destroyed in World War II.

November 30, 1936 &mdash; The first coaxial cable is completed between New York and Philadelphia.

1937
1937 &mdash; Claude Shannon, a graduate student at MIT prepares a thesis proving that electrical relays could implement Boolean logic.

1937 &mdash; Alan Turing develops the concept of a theoretical computing machine.

1938
1938 &mdash; A code-breaking service is established at Bletchley Park (U.K.).

1938 &mdash; "War of the Worlds" is broadcast.

October 22, 1938 &mdash; Chester Carlson produces first electrophotographic image &mdash; a precursor to the xerography process.

1939
1939 &mdash; John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry develop the ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer) prototype.

1939 &mdash; Hewlett-Packard is Founded by David Packard and Bill Hewlett in a Palo Alto, California garage.

1939 &mdash; AT&T demonstrates the Picturephone.

October 1939 &mdash; George Stibitz develops the Complex Number Calculator (called "Model 1") &mdash; a foundation for future digital computers.

Source

 * Networking and Information Technology Research and Development: Advanced Foundations for American Innovation.