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Abbreviations
Glossary
Standards
 

1793  Semaphore is invented

1822  An English mathematician, Charles Babbage, invents 'the
             difference machine' to compute mathematical solutions. The
             mechanical device has some 25,000 parts and weighs around
             fifteen tons (UK)

1837  An electric telegraph machine is unveiled, by William Cooke and
             Charles Wheatstone, that uses moving needles to point to letters
             of the alphabet. They are awarded a patent on 12 June (UK)

1840  The telegraph is patented by Samuel Morse (USA)

1842  Charles Babbage's difference machine (see 1822) could only solve
             pre-set mathematical problems whereas his Analytical Engine
            (produced in this year) has an input/output system and can be
             programmed using punched cards (UK)

1843  A fax machine is patented (by Scot Alexander Bain)
           Cooke and Wheatstone operate the world's first public
             commercial telegraph service, between London Paddington and
             Slough railway stations (UK)

1844  A telegraph link is completed between Washington DC and
             Baltimore, Maryland USA. Samuel Morse sends the first public
             message (using an arrangement of dots and dashes that became
             known as The Morse Code)

1856  The Western Union Telegraph Company is formed (USA)

1861  Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line
             (USA)

1865  The first commercial fax service opens, between Paris and Lyon. It
             was abandoned after five years due to lack of interest!
           The International Telecommunications Union is established
             (17 May, Switzerland)

1870  UK Telegraph services operated by private companies are
             transferred to the British Post Office
           Western Union launches a time service (USA)

1874  Christopher Sholes invents the first QWERTY typewriter (USA)

1876  First transatlantic cable laid
           Scot Alexander Graham Bell files a patent for the telephone
             (New York City USA, 14 February)
           Elisha Gray files a caveat for a variable-resistance liquid
             microphone (USA, 14 February)
         "Mr Watson, come here, I want you" — spoken by Bell to his
             assistant in the first intelligible call over a telephone link
             (Boston Massachusetts USA, March)

1877  The carbon transmitter is invented by American Thomas Alva
             Edison
           The Bell Telephone Company is formed

1878  The first telephone exchange opens in the US (New Haven, CT)
             under licence from the Bell Telephone Company

1879  Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent electric lighting
             (New Jersey, USA)
           First public telephone exchange established in London, with eight
             subscribers (by the Telephone Company Ltd, UK)

1880  First known telephone directory in the UK
             (by the Telephone Company Ltd)
           Electric light bulb patented by Edison
           Oliver Heaviside, following research into the 'skin effect', patents
             co-axial cable (England, UK)

1882  The American Bell Telephone Company acquires a majority
             interest in the Western Electric Company (USA)

1885  The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is formed, as a
             subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company (USA)
           AT&T completes in first long-line (supporting just one call)
             between New York and Philadelphia

1887  Oliver Heaviside proposes that induction coils may be used to
             extend the reach of telegraph and telephone lines (England) His
             work was later developed and extended by AT&T

1889  Herman Hollerith (a mining engineer) is granted a patent for a
             system of data storage using punched cards (8 January). His
             company — The Tabulating Machine Company — later merges
             with two others and, in 1924, is re-named International Business
             Machines Corporation, IBM
           The telephone switch is invented (by Almon B Strowger, a Kansas
             City undertaker)
           The dial telephone is invented (by Strowger)

1891  A London–Paris telephone link established
           Strowger is granted a patent for his Automatic Telephone
             Exchange (USA)

1892  First commercial Strowger exchange opened (Indiana, USA)

1895  Wireless telegraph is invented (by Italian Guglielmo Marconi)

1896  British patent is issued to Marconi for a wireless telegraph (2 June)
           First public demonstration by Marconi of his wireless radio system
             (London, 12 December)

1897  Marconi communicates across the Bristol Channel and the Solent
             (both UK)
           Joseph John Thomson suggests the existence of the electron
             through his investigations cathode rays (UK, 30 April)

1898  French engineer Pierre Azaria sets up the Compagnie Générale
             d'Electricité — CGE (France)

1899  First International radio message, a Morse message from France
             to Dover (by Marconi, 27 March)
           The theory of loading coils is developed [independently by Michael
             Pupin of Columbia University and George Campbell of AT&T] and
             patents obtained by AT&T (USA)

1901  Marconi achieved the first wireless transmission across the
             Atlantic. The successful transmission of a simple 'S', in Morse
             Code, between the UK (Cornwall) and Canada disproved the idea
             that the earth's curvature would limit the distance of radio
             transmission (12 December)

1904  Patent awarded for the Thermionic Diode Valve, developed by
             John Ambrose Fleming at Ediswan's Ponders End laboratories
            (November, UK)

1906  S O S (three dots, three dashes, three dots, in Morse code) adopted
             as the international call for help at sea (by a conference in Berlin)

1912  First public automatic telephone exchange in the UK
            (at Epsom, Surrey)

1915  First transcontinental telephone service opens. The inaugural call
             took place on 25 January between New York City, San Francisco,
             Washington DC [the White House] and Jekyll Island, Ga (USA)

1919  AT&T installs the first dial telephones in the Bell system
             (Norfolk VA, USA)

1922  The British Broadcasting Company is formed by a group of radio
             manufacturers (a group that includes Marconi)
           The Strowger exchange is made the standard for the UK's General
             Post Office (GPO) network
           The first ship-to-shore voice communication (between a station at
             Deal Island, NJ USA and the SS America, 650km away)

1925  AT&T sells its overseas operations resulting in STC (UK), ITT
            (Europe), NEC (Japan) and Northern Telecom (Canada)
           AT&T establishes Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc as its R&D
             subsidiary

1927  Public demonstration of video-phone technology
             (between New York and Washington DC)
           A transatlantic radio-based telephone service begins between the
             US and London
           The BBC changes from a company to a Corporation
           Mayday (a corruption of the French m'aidez) adopted as the
             international distress call for maritime radio telephone
           A translation system is first introduced into 'Director' areas to
             allow a dialled three-digit exchange code to be changed into a
             complex set of routing digits (UK)

1929  The modern form of co-axial cable is invented (USA)

1932  First microwave telephone link, between Vatican City and Castel
             Gandolfo (Marconi)

1934  A trans-Pacific radio-based telephone service opens between the
             US and Japan

1936  The BBC begins the world's first public television broadcast service
             (November, Alexandra Palace, UK)
           TIM, a speaking clock service, introduced in London

1937  An emergency service using '999' introduced to 91 telephone
             exchanges in the London area (30 June)

1939  Voice synthesiser exhibited (at the World's Fair in New York)

1943  Digitised, enciphered voice system deployed, SIGSALY (USA/UK)
           First programmable electronic computer, Colossus (UK)

1945  Cellular technology invented (USA)

1946  Work starts on using a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) as a digital storage
             device. It became known as the Williams Tube and was patented
             on 11 December (Freddie Williams, Malvern UK)
           AT&T offers a mobile telephone service with a single aerial
             covering an entire metropolitan area
           TIM, the UK's speaking clock service, goes nationwide

1947  The transistor is invented by AT&T BTL scientists John Bardeen,
             Walter Brattain and William Shockley (USA, 16 December)

1948  The world's first stored-program computer ran its first program,
             written by Tom Kilburn to find the highest factor of a number, for
             42 minutes on 21 June (UK - Manchester University)

1951  LEO (an acronym for the Lyons Electronic Office) begins
             operations at Lyons'  headquarters, as the first-ever business
             computer (Sep, London, UK). Within two years, reliability had
             improved to the point where it could be trusted with the payroll
             run
           AT&T introduces the customer-dialling of long-distance calls
             (11 November, Englewood NJ)

1956  First repeater-ed transatlantic telephone cable laid, TAT1, between
             Scotland and Newfoundland)
           Generally regarded as the inventor of the hard disk drive, Reginald
             Johnson (at IBM) invents the RAMAC (Random Access Method of
             Accounting Control) drive, which used disks rather than cylinders
             to hold data

1957  The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik, is launched (4 Oct,
             USSR); Sputnik II is launched on 3 November (USSR)

1958  Western Union introduces Telex, a direct-dial teleprinter service
             (USA)
           AT&T introduces the first commercial modem (modulator-
             demodulator)
           LASER invented at Bell Labs (USA)
           Long-distance direct-dialling introduced in the UK (5 Dec, Bristol)

1959  The integrated circuit is invented
           The UK's first public mobile telephone service (called System 1) is
             introduced, covering the South Lancashire area
           Long-distance dialling from payphones introduced in the UK
             (5 Sep, Bristol)

1960  The first working LASER is demonstrated at Hughes Research Labs
             (16 May, USA)

1962  The first communications satellite is launched, Echo 1, a 30m
             balloon with an aluminium coating that passively reflected
             broadcast signals back to Earth. It continued in use until 24 May
             1968 (Cape Canaveral, USA)
           AT&T launches Telstar 1, the first active communications satellite
             (USA)
           'Arthur' (Goonhilly One) begins operation at the Goonhilly Satellite
             Earth Station (11 July, Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK)
           Telstar transmits the first live television across the Atlantic

1963  AT&T introduces tone-dialling, with a keypad replacing the dial
             (PA, USA)

1964  IBM unveils its System 360 mainframe (7 April, USA)
           The computer mouse is invented by Douglas Engelbart (USA)

1965  Operator-controlled car telephone service starts in London
           The first commercial communications satellite, Early Bird, enters
             service, operated by Intelsat
           The world's first electronic switch installed in a telephone
             exchange by AT&T (NJ, USA)

1966  CGE absorbs Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de
              Télécommunications et d'Electronique — Alcatel (France)
           The world's first operational small–medium electronic telephone
              exchange, a TXE2, opens (15 December, Ambergate UK)

1967  Colour television is launched in the UK (on BBC2 only)
           Thorn EMI Ferguson launches the world's first solid-state colour
             TV receiver (UK)

1968  '911' introduced as the USA's nationwide emergency number

1969  The Unix operating system is created by Bell Labs (USA)
           The first message is sent on ARPAnet (the forerunner of the
             Internet) between two computers, one at UCLA the other at the
             Stanford Research Institute. The message was short, LOGIN,
             but the system crashed after sending just LO (29 October, USA)

1970  Customer-dialling of international telephone calls is introduced
             between London and Manhattan

1971  The first e-mail is sent by Ray Tomlinson, with body text of
             QWERTYUIOP. It was Ray who decided that the @ symbol should
             separate the recipient's name and their location
           The first microprocessor, the 4004, is introduced by Intel with 2300
             transistors and a clock speed of 108kHz (November, USA)

1972  Alan Shugart and others (at IBM) invent the floppy disk, with a
             diameter of 8 inches. Shugart went on the found Seagate in 1979

1973  Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first private call from a
             handheld cellular telephone (to Joe Engel, head of research at
             Bell Labs). It wasn't until 1983 that Motorola launched a
             commercial handheld — the DynaTAC 8000X (3 April, USA)

1975  Northern Electric (later Northern Telecom, then Nortel) ships its
             first SL-1 digital switching system

1976  Western Union launches Westar I, the first domestic
             communications satellite for America

1977  The UK's last manual telephone exchange closes (Portree, Isle of
             Skye). As a result, the '999' service achieves nationwide coverage

1978  A marketing message is sent via Arpanet, inviting 400 recipients to
             go to a presentation of DEC's System-20 minicomputer —
             possibly the first SPAM message [USA, 3 May]
           Norman Ken Ouchi, an IBM engineer, invents the Redundant Array
             of Inexpensive Disks, or RAID, to provide a resilient arrangement
             for data storage
         The UK's first public digital telephone exchange began service at
             Glenkindle,  Scotland (17 Sept)

1979  INMARSAT (the International Maritime Satellite Organization
             comes into being (16 July)
           Larry Boucher (at Shugart Associates) invents the Small Computer
             System Interface, or SCSI
           Northern Telecom launches the DMS-100, a local / toll digital
             switch

1980  The CCITT (now ITU-T) publishes the Group 3 standard for
             facsimile
           Xerox, Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation publish version 1
             of the Ethernet specifications — with 10Mb/s speeds and
             48-bit source and destination addresses (30 Sept)

1981  British Telecom takes on responsibility for the UK's public
             telephone system
           IBM announces, in New York City, the IBM 5150 PC (12 August)
           Fujio Masuoka (at Toshiba) invents Flash Memory, a non-volatile
             storage method that doesn't require continuous power

1982  The INMARSAT system becomes operational, leasing commercial
             capacity on three Marisat satellites covering the Atlantic, Pacific
             and Indian Ocean regions (1 February)
           Groupe Speciale Mobile (GSM) is formed by CEPT to design a pan-
             European mobile technology
           3Com ships the first personal computer Ethernet LAN adaptor
             (29 September)

1983  The first computer virus to replicate surreptitiously is
             demonstrated by PhD student Fred Cohen (11 November, USA)

1984  1 January: AT&T broken up — the Bell System ceases to exist and
             is replaced by seven Regional Bell Operating Companies [RBOCs]
             and an AT&T responsible only for its long-distance telephone,
             manufacturing, and R&D operations (USA)
           The first urban satellite earth station opens, the London Teleport
             (London Docklands, UK)

1985  The first mobile phone call made in the UK (by Ernie Wise from
             St Katherine's Dock, London to Vodafone's office in Newbury) on
             1 January. Cellnet (now O₂) launched its network on 10 January

1986  The UK's '999' emergency service is extended to mobile
             telephones

1987  GSM Memorandum of Understanding formed (February)

1990  Tim Berners-Lee starts work on a global hypertext browser, having
             proposed the idea in 1989 (UK)

1991  1 July: First GSM call made, by the Finnish Prime Minister (Finland)
           6 August: First web site, published by Tim Berners-Lee, goes live
             (Switzerland)

1992  The Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system launched
           First international roaming agreement signed, between Telecom
             Finland and Vodafone UK
           SanDisk ship the first SSD drive, with a capacity of just 20MB
           10 November: Nokia launches the world's first mass-produced
             commercially-available GSM mobile phone — the 1011. It
             weighed in at 475g, offered 90 minutes talk time, 12 hours
             standby time and a two-line display. But no ringtones, Bluetooth
             or camera (Finland)
           3 December: First commercial SMS sent by Neil Papworth, from a
             PC and via Vodafone's UK network, to Richard Jarvis' Orbitel 901
             handset

1993  Red Hat founded (USA)
           In line with a European Directive to provide a Europe-wide
             emergency services telephone number, the '112' service is
             introduced in the UK

1994  Amazon.com launched (USA)

1996  Hotmail launched

1997  The domain 'google.com' is registered (15 September)

1998  Alcatel Alsthom becomes plain Alcatel
           Google Inc is formally incorporated (4 September)

2000  BT Cellnet launches the first GPRS service in the UK. Initially, it is
             restricted to corporate customers only, providing constant
             mobile access to e-mail and the corporate Intranet (26 June)
           For the first time, the volume of data traffic on the AT&T network
             exceeds that of voice traffic (USA)

2001  The first 3GSM network launches

2002  The first Multimedia Messaging Services go live

2003  Cingular launches the first commercial EDGE service (July)
           LinkedIn launches

2005  AT&T taken over by SBC Communications
           Cingular launches the first extensive commercial HSDPA service
             (December)

2006  Western Union closes its telegram service (January, USA)
           Twitter launches

2009 TeliaSonera launches the first 4G LTE mobile service in Stockholm
             and Oslo (14 December)
           Nortel Networks Corporation completes the sale of most of
             Nortel Networks Ltd's Enterprise Solutions to Avaya
             (18 December, USA)

2010  Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom announce the successful
             completion of the UK merger of T-Mobile and Orange, and the
             formation of a Joint Venture (1 April, UK)

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Page updated 26/02/2020