Have you ever wondered how we got from the steam engine to the search engine?

In a two-part special we salute the creative geniuses, obsessive perfectionists and eccentric lunatics that have engineered the world around us.

In this issue we take a whistle stop tour through three centuries of innovation – and in next month's edition we'll look at some of the ideas, concepts and prototypes that are set to shape the years to come.

1698: Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.

1701: Jethro Tull invents the seed drill.

1709: Abraham Darby introduces coke smelting.

1714: Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the mercury thermometer.

1737: John Harrison determines longitude at sea with a naval chronometer.

1742: Anders Celsius devises the centigrade scale.

1764: James Hargreaves invents the Spinning Jenny.

1779: Abraham Derby III builds the first cast iron bridge, in Coalbrookdale.

1783: Benjamin Hanks patents the self-winding clock.

1793: Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier fly in a hot air balloon.

1800: Alessandro Volta creates a prototype battery, the voltaic cell.

1802: Johann Wilhelm Ritter develops a dry cell battery.

1805: Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents a mechanised loom.

1813: Francis Lowell builds the first textile mill.

1815: Humphrey Davy invents the safety lamp for miners, known as the Davy Lamp.

1816: Rene Lannec invents the stethoscope.

1821: Michael Faraday constructs a dynamo.

1824: Joseph Aspin files a patent for Portland cement.

1825: George Stephenson oversees the world's first passenger railway, Stockton and Darlington.

1827: Joseph Nicéphore Niepce produces the first photograph. John Walker lights the first phosphorus match.

1829: Louis Braille creates an embossed typing system for blind readers.

William Burt files a patent for the typewriter.

George Stephenson wins a £500 prize for his innovative steam engine, The Rocket.

1830: Edwin Budding designs the world's first lawnmower, changing Sunday afternoons forever.

1832: Charles Babbage creates the world's first computer, the Difference Machine.

1833: Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway is founded.

1835: Samuel Colt invents the revolver.

1839: Charles Goodyear vulcanises rubber.

William Robert Grove develops the first fuel cell.

1842: Julius Mayer develops the principle of energy conservation.

1843: Ada Lovelace writes the first article on computer programming.

1850: Robert Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner.

1851: Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine.

Joseph Paxton designs Crystal Palace, the first construction to utilise glass on a large scale.

1857: William Kelly invents the blast furnace for steel production.

1859: Edwin Laurentine Drake drills the world's first oil well in Philadelphia.

Gaston Plante invents a storage lead-acid battery.

1860: Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir designs the internal combustion engine.

1861: James Clerk Maxwell develops the first colour photograph.

1863: Joseph Wilbrand invents TNT.

1864: Samuel Van Syckel opens first oil pipeline, in Pennsylvania.

1865: Alfred Nobel invents the blasting cap for detonating nitroglycerin and later patents dynamite.

1867: Henri Becquerel invents the fluorescent lamp.

1871: Zénobe Théophile Gramme introduces the first landmark electric motor.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call.

1879: Thomas Edison invents the light bulb.

1881: Carl Gassner invents the first commercial dry cell battery.

1883: Charles Fritts invents solar cells.

Magnus Volks builds an electric railway in Brighton.

1884: Charles Parsons creates the first turbine.

1886: Karl Benz introduces the world's first car powered by an internal combustion engine.

1888: John Boyd Dunlop invents the first pneumatic tyre.

Nikola Tesla designs alternating current (AC) power generator

1891: Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

Herman Ganswindt puts forward the idea of space travel.

Poul la Cour designs a windmill to generate electricity.

1892: Sir James Dewar creates the vacuum flask.

Rudolf Diesel develops the diesel engine.

Nikola Tesla develops a prototype radio.

1895: Wilhelm Fein invents the electric hand drill.

1897: Karl Ferdinand Braun develops the cathode ray tube.

1899: Waldmar Jungner invents the rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery.

Johan Vaaler invents the paperclip.

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents, announces "Everything that can be invented has been invented."

1900: Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin builds an airship.

1901: Guglielmo Marconi transmits the first transatlantic radio message.

Thomas Edison invents the alkaline storage battery.

King Camp Gillette invents the safety razor.

1902: George Claude creates the neon light.

Louis Renault invents standard drum brakes.

Willis Carrier invents an air conditioning unit.            

1903: William Coolidge invents ductile tungsten.

Wilbur and Orville Wright fly the first powered aircraft.

Charles Curtis and William Emmet develop the steam turbine generator and the steam turbine.

Earl Richardson invents the lightweight electric iron.

Willem Einthoven develops the first electrocardiograph machine.

Mary Anderson invents the windscreen wiper.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes using liquid fuels and multi-stage rockets to blast into space.

1904: Sir John Ambrose Fleming invents the Diode.

Benjamin Holt develops the first tractor with tracks instead of wheels.

1905: Einstein introduces his special theory of relativity.

Svante August Arrhenius predicts global warming as a consequence of carbon dioxide emissions.

                 

1908: Henry Ford starts production of Model T Fords.

1909: Frank Shailor files a patent the first commercially successful electric toaster.

1911: Charles Kettering introduces the electric starter for motor vehicles.

1912: Edwin Howard Armstrong devises the radio signal amplifier.

1913: William Coolidge develops the X-ray tube.

William Burton and Robert Humphreys patent thermal cracking. Harry Brearley of Sheffield 'rediscovers' stainless steal.

The Walker Brothers invent the electric dishwasher.

Fred W. Wolf invents the home refrigerator.

In a good year for innovations, someone also finds time to invent the bra, the zip and the crossword.

1915: Alexander Graham Bell makes the first transcontinental telephone call.

Jesse Littleton invents Pyrex.

Paul Langevin invents the hydrophone.

Charles C. Abbot develops calrod.

1916: Clarence Birdseye develops a flash-freezing system for food.

1919: Charles Strite invents the pop-up toaster.

Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Albert Brown make the first nonstop transatlantic flight.

1920: William Potts, a Detroit police officer, invents the yellow traffic light.

1921: Karel Capek writes a play about a robot, the first known use of the term.

1924: Hermann Oberth demonstrates rockets can generate enough thrust to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth.

Chester W. Rice and Edward W. Kellogg invent the loudspeaker.

1925: John Logie Baird demonstrates a television showing an image of a ventriloquist’s dummy.

1926: UK National Grid introduced following Electricity Supply Act

1927: Warren Marrison invents the Quartz clock.

Charles Lindbergh completes the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic.

Philip Drinker invents the first modern practical respirator.

Erik Rotheim files a patent for the aerosol can.

1928: John Logie Baird demonstrates a television in crude colour. He uses two dummies this time.

Louis Giliasso develops the portable offshore drilling.

1930: Wallace Carothers develops synthetic rubber.

Richard Drew invents Scotch tape.

Albert S. Hyman invents the artificial pacemaker.

1931: Max Knott and Ernst Riska develop the electron microscope.

1932: John Bradfield's Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.

John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split the atom.

Edwin Land develops polaroid photography

1933: Edwin Howard Armstrong develops frequency modulation, or FM.

1934: William Beebe and Otis Barton take first deep sea dive. Percy Shaw invents cats eyes.

1935: Robert Watson-Watt demonstrates the radar.

1936: Claude Shannon publishes "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits", which forms the basis of future telecommunications and computing.

1937: Joseph Strauss's Golden Gate Bridge opens.

Wallace Carothers invents nylon.

Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain independently invent the jet engine.

Chester Carlson invents the photocopier.

1938: Roy Plunkett invents Teflon.

László Bíró patents the ballpoint biro.

1940: Peter Goldmark develops modern colour television.

1942: Enrico Fermi performs a controlled nuclear reaction on a squash court at the University of Chicago.

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry build the first digital computer.

1944: Willem J. Kolff invents the kidney dialysis machine.

1945: Arthur C Clarke conceives of the idea of communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit above the Earth, in a science fiction story.

1946: Percy Spencer invents the microwave. Earl Tupper invents Tupperware.

1947: John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories invent the transistor.

Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager breaks the sound barrier and becomes the fastest man alive.

1948: George de Mestral invents Velcro Kevin Touhy invents the plastic contact lens.

1951: James S. Robbins builds the first hard rock tunnel-boring machine (TBM).

Charles Hufnagel develops the artificial heart valve. Albert the monkey is blasted into space. He doesn't return.

1954: TV dinners go on sale.

1956: Calder Hall, Cumbria, is the site of the world's first large-scale nuclear power station.

TV remote control is invented.

1957: Sputnik I launched into space. Sony develops the first shirt pocket radio.

1958: Gordon Gould invents the laser.

Jack S. Kilby and Robert Noyce independently invent the integrated circuit. First ultrasonic image of unborn child

1959: Christopher Cockerill designs the first hovercraft.

1960: Wilson Greatbatch invents the internal pacemaker. The first terminally ill patient to be fitted with the device lives for 18 months. The next for 30 years.

1961: Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space.

France and England connect electrical grids.

Stereo FM radio broadcast for the first time.

1962: Satellite Telstar I enables the first transatlantic television transmission.

Steve "Slug" Russell, Martin "Shag" Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen invent the first computer game.

1964: Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks produce the first hologram.

Leslie Phillips develops carbon fibres.

1966: Electronic fuel injection system developed.

England win the World Cup (it's not relevant, but nice to be able to say).

1967: Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments develops the first hand held calculator.

1968: George Heilmeier of RCA develops a liquid crystal display.

Humans see the Earth from afar for the first time via a portable camera on the Apollo 8 flight to the Moon.

1969: Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. and leaves a plaque inscribed with: "Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in Peace For All Mankind."

Concorde and the Boeing 747 both take their maiden flights.

ARPANET, the first computer network, is set up.

1971: Frederico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor of Intel introduce the "computer on a chip."

1972: Ray Tomlinson writes the first e-mail programme, and uses the @ sign in an address.

Godfrey Hounsfield and Allan Cormack of Tufts University develop the CAT scan.

1973: Martin Cooper of Motorola calls his research rival at Bell Labs, Joel Engel, on the first portable mobile phone.

First cars go on sale with airbags fitted as standard.

1974: Arthur Fry invents the Post-it note.

Barcodes appear on supermarket products.

1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen form a partnership called Microsoft.

1977: Hideki Shirakawa, Alan MacDiarmid, and Alan Heeger discover organic polymers, which conduct electricity, leading to the production of LEDs and solar cells.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak release the Apple II, the first mass market personal computer.

1979: Nobutoshi Kihara of Sony unveils the first Walkman.

1980: Teams at Sony and Phillips collaborate and invent the compact disc.

1981: NASA launches the first space shuttle.

IBM release their first personal computer, with a Microsoft operating system. The blue screen has arrived.

1982: ARPANET hosts convert to new TCP/IP protocols. The newly interconnected networks become known as the internet.

1984: Alec Jeffreys invents DNA fingerprinting.

1989: Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web hypertext system for use on the internet.

1990: The Hubble telescope is launched.

1991: First controlled production of nuclear fusion energy achieved at the Joint European Torus, JET, UK 1992 NASA launches the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program.

Alan Emtage invents Archie, the first tool used for searching the internet.

Text messaging arrives.

1993: James Dyson launches the DC01 vacuum cleaner.

Apple develops the first computer with a graphical interface.

1994: UK's first pressurised water reactor opens as Sizewell B, Suffolk.

The Channel Tunnel opens, linking Britain to mainland Europe.

1995: Toy Story is released, the first entirely computer generated feature film.

1996: Larry Page and Sergey Brin create a new search engine called Back Rub. They later rename it Google.

'Deep field' photographs of our universe show how it looked 10 billion years ago.

1998: First two modules of the International Space Station joined together.

A team at Bell Labs develop the first plastic transistor for smart cards and flexible screens.

2000: World's first commercial wave power station opens at Islay, Scotland. A team of scientists fit three blind patients with bionic eyes.

Blyth offshore wind farm opens in the UK.

2001: Apple unveils the first iPod.

2002: Iris scanners are installed at airports for security.

2005: NASA successfully crashes a probe into the Temple-1 comet in the Deep Impact mission.

2007: To be continued.....