The following Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) milestones represent key historical achievements in electrical and electronic engineering.
Prior to 1800 1751 – Book Experiments and Observations on Electricity by Benjamin Franklin 1757–1775 – Benjamin Franklin's Work in London 1776 – Elekiteru: First electrostatic generator in Japan by Gennai Hiraga 1799 – Alessandro Volta's Electrical Battery Invention
1800–1850 1804 – Francisco Salvá Campillo's Electric Telegraph 1820–1827 – The Birth of Electrodynamics 1828–1837 – Pavel Schilling's Pioneering Contribution to Practical Telegraphy 1836 – Nicholas Callan's Pioneering Contributions to Electrical Science and Technology 1838 – Demonstration of Practical Telegraphy
1850–1870 1852 – Electric Fire alarm system 1860–1871 – Maxwell's equations 1860–1863 – First Studies on Ring Armature for Direct-Current Dynamos 1861 – Transcontinental Telegraph 1861–1867 – Standardisation of the Ohm 1866 – Landing of the Transatlantic Cable 1866 – County Kerry Transatlantic Cable Stations
1870–1890 1876 – First Intelligible Voice Transmission over Electric Wire 1876 – Thomas Alva Edison Historic Site at Menlo Park 1876 – First Distant Speech Transmission in Canada 1882 – Vulcan Street Plant 1882 – First Central Station in South Carolina 1882 – Pearl Street Station 1884 – First AIEE Technical Meeting 1885 – Galileo Ferraris's Rotating Fields and Early Induction Motors 1886 – Alternating Current Electrification, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by William Stanley, Jr. 1886 – First Generation and Experimental Proof of Electromagnetic Waves 1886–1888 – Electric Lighting of the Kingdom of Hawaii 1887 – Thomas A. Edison West Orange Laboratories and Factories 1887 – Weston Meters, first portable current and voltage meters 1888 – Richmond Union Passenger Railway 1889 – Power System of Boston's Rapid Transit 1889 – First Exploration and Proof of Liquid Crystals
1890–1900
1890 – Discovery of Radioconduction by Édouard Branly, making use of a coherer 1890 – Keage Power Station, Japan's First Commercial Hydroelectric Plant 1891 – Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant 1893 – Mill Creek No. 1 Hydroelectric Plant 1893 – Birth and Growth of Primary and Secondary Battery Industries in Japan 1894 – First Millimeter-wave Communication Experiments by Jagadish Chandra Bose 1895 – Adams Hydroelectric Generating Plant 1895 – Popov's Contribution to the Development of Wireless Communication 1895 – Guglielmo Marconi's Experiments in Wireless telegraphy 1895 – Electrification by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 1895 – Krka-Šibenik Electric Power System 1895 – Folsom Powerhouse three-phase system 1896 – Budapest Metroline No. 1 1897 – Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant 1898 – Decew Falls Hydro-Electric Plant 1898 – Rheinfelden Hydroelectric Power Plant 1898 – French Transatlantic Telegraph Cable 1899–1902 – First Operational Use Of Wireless Telegraphy in the Anglo-Boer War 1899 – Calcutta Electric Supply Corp
1900–1920 1900 – Georgetown Steam Hydro Generating Plant 1901 – Transmission of Transatlantic Radio Signals 1901 – Reception of Transatlantic Radio Signals 1901 – Early Developments in Remote-Control by Leonardo Torres Quevedo 1901–1902 – Rationalization of Units 1901–1905 String Galvanometer 1902 – Poulsen-Arc Radio Transmitter 1903 – Vučje Hydroelectric Plant 1904 – Alexanderson Radio Alternator 1904 – Fleming valve 1904 – Radar Predecessor 1906 – Pinawa Hydroelectric Power Project 1906 – First Wireless Radio Broadcast by Reginald Fessenden 1906 – Grand Central Terminal Electrification 1907 – Alternating-Current Electrification of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 1909 – Shoshone Transmission Line 1909 – World's First Reliable Hight Voltage Power Fuse 1911 – Discovery of superconductivity 1914 – Panama Canal Electrical and Control Installations 1915–1918 – Invention of Sonar 1916 – Czochralski Process
1920–1930 1920 – Westinghouse Radio Station KDKA (AM) 1920 – Funkerberg Königs Wusterhausen first radio broadcast in Germany 1921–1923 – Piezoelectric Oscillator 1921 – RCA Central, 220 kW transoceanic radio facility 1922 – Neutrodyne Circuit 1924 – Directive Shortwave Antenna (Yagi–Uda antenna) 1924–1941 – Development of electronic television 1924 – Enrico Fermi's major contribution to semiconductor statistics 1925 – Bell Telephone Laboratories 1926 – First Public Demonstration of Television 1928 – One-way police radio communication 1928 – Raman Effect 1929 – Shannon Scheme for the electrification of the Irish Free State 1929 – Largest private (DC) generating plant in the U.S.A. 1929 – Yosami Radio Transmitting Station 1929 – First blind takeoff, flight, and landing; using designated radio and aeronautical instrumentation
1930–1940 1930–1945 – Development of Ferrite Materials and their applications 1931 – Invention of Stereo Sound Reproduction 1932 – First Breaking of Enigma Code by the Team of Polish Cipher Bureau 1933 – Two-Way Police Radio Communication 1933 – Invention of a Temperature-Insensitive Quarz Oscillaiton Plate 1934 – Long-Range Shortwave Voice Transmissions from Byrd's Antarctic Expedition 1937 – Westinghouse Atom Smasher 1938 – Zenit Parabolic Reflector L-Band Pulsed Radar 1939 – Atanasoff–Berry Computer 1939–1945 – Code-breaking at Bletchley Park during World War II 1939 – Single-element Unidirectional Microphone – Shure Unidyne 1939 – Claude Shannon, development of Information Theory 1939–1949 – Development of the Cavity Magnetron
1940–1950 1940 – FM Police Radio Communication 1940–1945 – MIT Radiation Laboratory 1940–1946 – Loran, long range navigation 1941 – Opana Radar Site 1942–1945 – US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory 1944–1959 – Whirlwind Computer, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1944–1959 – Harvard Mark 1 Computer 1945 – Merrill Wheel-Balancing System 1945 – Rincón del Bonete Plant and Transmission System 1946 – Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) 1946–1953 – Monochrome-Compatible Electronic Color Television 1946 – Detection of Radar Signals Reflected from the Moon 1947 – Invention of the First Transistor at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. 1947 – Invention of Holography 1948 – Birth of the Barcode 1948 – The Discovery of the Principle of Self-Complementarity in Antennas and the Mushiake Relationship 1948 – First Atomic Clock 1948–1951 – Manchester University "Baby" Computer and its Derivatives
1950–1960 1950–1969 – Electronic Technology for Space Rocket Launches 1950 – First External Cardiac Pacemaker 1951 – Manufacture of Transistors 1951 – Experimental Breeder Reactor I 1951–1958 – SAGE-Semi-Automatic Ground Environment 1951–1952 – A-0 Compiler and Initial Development of Automatic Programming 1953 – First Television Broadcast in Western Canada 1954 – Gotland High Voltage Direct Current Link 1954 – Parametron 1955 – WEIZAC Computer 1956 – RAMAC 1956 – The First Submarine Transatlantic Telephone Cable System (TAT-1) 1956–1963 – Kurobe River No. 4 Hydropower Plant 1956 – Ampex Videotape Recorder 1956 – Birth of Silicon Valley 1957–1958 – First Wearable Cardiac Pacemaker 1957 – SCR/Thyristor 1957–1962 – Atlas Computer and the Invention of Virtual Memory 1958 – First Semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC) by Jack Kilby 1958 – Star of Laufenburg Interconnection 1958 – The Trans-Canada Microwave System 1959 – Semiconductor planar process by Jean Hoerni and silicon integrated circuit by Robert Noyce 1959 – Commercialization and industrialization of photovoltaic cells by Sharp Corporation
1960–1970 1961–1984 – IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center 1960 – TIROS I Television Infrared Observation Satellite 1960 – First Working Laser 1961–1964 – First Optical Fiber Laser and Amplifier 1962–1967 – Object-oriented programming 1962 – Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 1962 – Alouette-ISIS Satellite Program 1962 – First Transatlantic Television Signal via Satellite 1962 – First Transatlantic Transmission of a Television Signal via Satellite 1962 – First Transatlantic Reception of a Television Signal via Satellite 1962–1967 – Pioneering Work on the Quartz Electronic Wristwatch at Centre Electronique Horloger, Switzerland 1962 – Mercury spacecraft MA-6, Col. John Glenn piloted the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft in the first FAI-legal completed human-orbital flight on 20 February 1962. 1962–1972 – Grumman Lunar Module 1962–1972 – Apollo Guidance Computer 1962–1968 – First Geographic Information System 1962 – Semiconductor Laser 1963 – NAIC/Arecibo Radiotelescope 1963 – Taum Sauk Pumped-Storage Electric Power Plant 1963 – First Transpacific Reception of a Television (TV) Signal via Satellite 1963 – ASCII 1964 – Mount Fuji Radar System 1964 – Tokaido Shinkansen (Bullet Train) 1964–1973 – Pioneering Work on Electronic Calculators by Sharp Corporation 1964 – TPC-1 Transpacific Cable System 1964 – High-definition television System 1964 – Birth of the BASIC computer language 1965–1984 – Alvin Deep-Sea Research Submersible 1965 – First 735 kV AC Transmission System 1965–1971 – Railroad Ticketing Examining System (developed by OMRON of Japan) 1965 – Dadda multiplier 1965 – Moore's Law 1965–1978 – Development of Computer Graphics and Visualization Techniques 1966 – Interactive Video Games 1966 – Shakey, the first mobile robot to be able to reason about its actions 1966 – DIALOG Online Search System 1967 – First Astronomical Observations Using Very Long Baseline Interferometry 1968 – CERN Experimental Instrumentation 1968 – Liquid-crystal display by George H. Heilmeier 1968 – Public Demonstration of Online Systems and Personal Computing 1969 – Electronic Quartz Wristwatch, Seiko Quartz-Astron 35SQ 1969 – Birth of the Internet 1969 – Inception of the ARPANET 1969–1975 – Invention of Public-key Cryptography 1969 – Apollo 11 Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment (LURE) 1969 – Parkes Radiotelescope 1969–1995 – Mode S Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System
1970–1980 1970 – World's First Low-Loss Optical Fiber for Telecommunications 1971–1978 – The first word processor for the Japanese Language, JW-10 1969–1970 – SPICE Circuit Simulation Program 1971 – Demonstration of the ALOHA Packet Radio Data Network 1971 – First Computerized Tomography (CT) X-ray Scanner 1971–1977 – Development of the Commercial Laser Printer 1972 – Nelson River HVDC Transmission System 1972 – Development of the HP-35, the First Handheld Scientific Calculator 1972 – Eel River High Voltage Direct Current Converter Station 1972 – First Practical Field Emission Electron Microscope 1972 – SHAKEY: The World’s First Mobile Intelligent Robot 1972 – Polymer Self-Regulating Heat-Tracing Cable 1972–1989 – Gravitational-Wave Antenna 1972–1987 – Deep Space Station 43 1972–1983 – The Xerox Alto Establishes Personal Networked Computing 1973–1985 – Superconducting Magnet System for the Fermilab Tevatron Accelerator/Collider 1973 – The First Two-Dimensional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) 1973–1985 – Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN) 1974 – First 500 MeV Proton Beam from the TRIUMF Cyclotron 1974–1982 – First Real-Time Speech Communication on Packet Networks 1974 – The CP/M Microcomputer Operating System 1974 – Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Enables the Internet 1975 – Line Spectrum Pair (LSP) for high-compression speech coding 1975 – Gapless Metal Oxide Surge Arrester (MOSA) for electric power systems 1975 – Handheld Digital Camera 1976 – Development of VHS, a World Standard for Home Video Recording 1976–1978 – The Floating Gate EEPROM 1977 – Lempel–Ziv Data Compression Algorithm 1977 – Vapor-phase Axial Deposition Method for Mass Production of High-quality Optical Fiber 1977 – Perpendicular Magnetic Recording 1978 – Speak & Spell, the First Use of a Digital Signal Processing IC for Speech Generation 1978 – First Digitally Processed Image from a Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar 1978 – First Demonstration of a Fibre Bragg Grating 1979 – Compact disc Audio Player 1979 – 20-inch Diameter Photomultiplier Tubes 1979 – Amorphous Silicon Thin Film Field-Effect Transistor Switches for Liquid Crystal Displays 1979 – HEMT (high-electron-mobility transistor)
1980 to 1990 1980 – International Standardization of Group 3 Facsimile 1980–1982 – First RISC (Reduced Instruction-Set Computing) Microprocessor 1980 – Outdoor large-scale color display system 1980 – MPD7720DSP, programmable digital signal processor chip μPD7720 1980–1981 – Inverter-Driven Air Conditioner 1980–1999 – Origin of the IEEE 802 Family of Networking Standards 1981 – 16-Bit Monolithic Digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for Digital Audio 1981 – Map-Based Automotive navigation system 1981–1988 – The Development of RenderMan for Photorealistic Graphics 1982 – Nobeyama 45-m Telescope 1982 – Human Rescue Enabled by Space Technology 1982 – First Large-Scale Fingerprint ID 1982 – Commercialization of Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors with Nickel Electrodes 1984 – First Direct-broadcast satellite Service 1984 – The MU (Middle and Upper atmosphere) radar 1984–1989 – Active Shielding of Superconducting Magnets 1984–1993 – MPEG Multimedia Integrated Circuits 1984 – TRON Real-time Operating System Family 1984–1996 – Development of 193-nm Projection Photolithography 1985 – Toshiba T1100, a Pioneering Contribution to the Development of Laptop PC 1985 – Emergency Warning Code Signal Broadcasting System 1985 – Multiple Technologies on a Chip 1985 – IEEE Standard 754 for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic 1986 – Fiber Optic Connectors 1987 – High-Temperature Superconductivity 1987 – SPARC RISC Architecture 1987 – Superconductivity at 93 Kelvin 1987 – WaveLAN, Precursor of Wi-Fi 1987–1995 – MTI Portable Satellite Communication Terminals 1988 – Sharp 14-Inch Thin Film Transistor Liquid-Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) for TV 1988 – Virginia Smith High-Voltage Direct-Current Converter Station 1988 – Trans-Atlantic Telephone Fiber-optic Submarine Cable, TAT-8 1988 – First Robotic Control from Human Brain Signals 1989 – Development of CDMA for Cellular Communications
After 1990 1992 – Super-Resolved Fluorescence Microscopy 1993–1997 – Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) enabling broadband internet 1994 – Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope 1994 – QR (Quick Response) Code 1996–1998 – PageRank and the Birth of Google 1996 – Large-Scale Commercialization of a CDMA Cellular Communication System 1996–1997 – Integrated Circuits for satellite digital radio 1996 – Universal Serial Bus (USB) 1997 – Toyota Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle
Notes
References
External links Map of IEEE Milestone plaques