The first hundred piece jigsaw ...

….             the beginning of our universal time & place

5000BC  50+ stars forming a gas cloud - one light year long - in our universe
3100BC  Pictographic writing invented in Sumer
2000BC  Abacus originated in Babylonia
1100BC  Phoenicians develop alphabetic script (basis of all modern European Scripts)

600BC    Greek philosopher Thales identified the phenomenon of electricity

500BC    First Hieroglyphic writing in Mexico

212BC    Archimedes killed in Syracuse
105      First use of paper (China)

190      Modern abacus with beads mentioned by Xu Yue in book on Eastern Han Dynasty

500      As size of writing became smaller,  the quill replaced the reed pen

730      First Printing (China)

751      Paper making spreads from China to Muslim World and Europe

760      Arabs adopt Indian numerals and develop algebra and trigonometry

853      First printed book in China

863      Creating of Cyrillic alphabet in Eastern Europe 

868      First Chinese printing press

900      Mayan calendar functions as metaphysical map of the evolution of consciousness

1045    Moveable type printing invented in China

1190    Italian mariners using early version of compass - needles magnetized by loadstone

1263    Baliol College, Oxford founded

1290    Spectacles invented (Italy)

1321    ‘The Divine Comedy' - Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

1339     Building of Kremlin (Moscow)

1445     Johannes Guttenberg prints first book in Europe

1477     Caxton issued his first dated printed book

1479     Oxford University Press founded -

1490     ‘Proportions of the Human Body' - Leonardo da Vinci

1492     Columbus discovered the Bahamas

1509      Watch invented by Peter Henlein (Nuremburg)

1513      First dated etching -Urs Graf, Swiss artist

1532      “There is nothing more difficult …. ” (Machivelli)

1548      Brass pens - for very large writing - referred to in Juan de Yciar's ‘Writing Manual'

1590      Compound microscope invented (Zacharias Janssen)

1600      Thales phenomenon named as “electricity” by William Gilbert  physician QE1st

1605      Gunpowder plot

1609      Telescope invented (Holland)

1620       First weekly newspapers in Europe

1632       Slide rule invented

1642       Pascal adding machine

1666       Great fire of London

                Newton had uncovered the nature of colour & explained the colour of nature

1694       Calculating machine - Leibnitz                                                               
1697       The Ultimate Origin of Things - Leibnitz
1739       Plan de Paris - Tugot and Bretez                                                                              
1752       Lightning proved to be electrical in nature (Benjamin Franklin)

1779       First Luddite riots against the introduction of machinery

1783       First manned hot-air balloon flight (Montgolfier brothers)

1784       First Mail coach ran between London and Bristol

1793       Decimal system introduced (France)

1795       “Lead” pencils - Nicolas Conte, French Chemist

                 Metric system made official in France

1798        Mechanised paper making machine invented - Nicholas Louis Robert

1800        Voltaic pile - first electric battery invented (Volta)

1801        Loom uses punch card “memory” (Jaquard)

1803        First steel-nibbed pen patented (Bryan Donkin - English engineer)

1812        Steam-driven “computer” conceived (Babbage)

                 Napolean's fateful march into Russia and retreat

                 Cylinder printing press invented and adopted by The Times (London)

1814        The “Times” first printed on steam presses

1822         First photographic image produced by J.N.Niepce

1831         Electromagnetic induction (Michael Faraday)

1835         Stockton-Darlington, world's first steam railroad

1837         Daguerre system of photography (Daguerre)

1838         First electric telegraph (Cooke and Wheatstone)

1839         Negative/positive method of printing allowing multiple prints from one exposure

                  and development split-second exposure times (Fox Talbot)

                   First Fuel Cell idea (Sir William Robert Grove - Welsh Judge, inventor & physicist)

1840          First postage stamp

1841          Wet plate camera (Fox Talbot)

                   Tackley C of E School built - for the education of the village children

1847         Gold discovered in California

1851         Great Exhibition held in London

1855         First edition of the Daily Telegraph 

1858         First Atlantic cable between America and England laid

1859         Origin of species published (Darwin)

1860         Great Age of European Novel begins

1861         First colour photograph of a tartan ribbon (Clark Maxwell)
                  First SLR camera (Thomas Sutton)

1863         First underground railway in London opened

1864         Foundation of the Red Cross in Switzerland

1867         Typewriter (Sholes)

1869         First trans-continental railroad completed across USA

1871         Dry plate camera introduced

1874         First electric tram in New York

                   First telephone receiver patented in UK (Arexander Bell)

                   Emergence of Impressionist School of Painting Monet/Renoir/Degas

1876          First telephone call made and receiver patented in USA (Alexander Bell)

                   Concept of “line of type” - Linotype typesetter first established

1877          Phonograph 'talking machine' (Thomas Alva Edison)

1878          First electric streetlighting in London

1879          F. W. Woolworth opened first 5 / 10 cent store
                   Patent on first electric lamp (Edison)

1884          First volume of Oxford English Dictionary (OED) appeared

                   First fountain pen with own ink reservoir patented (Lewis Waterman NY)

1885         Electric “logic” machine (Marquand)

                  Daimler and Benz pioneer automobile

                  Stanford University, Palo Alto founded

1886         First “Hot Metal” machine supplied to New York Herald Tribune (Linotype)

                  Gramaphone (Bell and Tainter)

1887         Dual composing & automatic type-caster - casts and sets letter by letter

                  (Talbert Lanston - Monotype)

                  First book composed on Linotype machine - 'The Tribune Book of Open Air Sports

1888         KODAK roll film camera (George Eastman)

                  Dunlop invents pneumatic tyre  

1889         Kinetoscope (Edison) - Eiffel Tower construction for World Trade Fair completed.

                  First film of reality projected on screen (William Friese-Greene)

1890         Tabulating machine (Hollerith)

                  4 colour separation process engraving

1891         Submarine telephone cable from London to Paris completed

1895         First message by radio (Marconi)

                  First practical movie camera and projector (Auguste and Louis Lumiere)

                  First public showing of motion picture (France)

1896         First demonstartion of X-rays (Rontgen)

                  “Interpretation of Dreams” (Freud)

1901         Radio communication between UK and USA

1903         The first black and white movie “The Great Train Robbery”(Edwin Porter)

                  Wright brothers make first aeroplane flight

1905         Special theory of relativity et al - Annus Mirabalis - (Einstein)

                  Color Notation system devised - Albert Munsell, American artist

1907         Exhibition of Cubist paintings in Paris - Picasso and Braque

                  Creative Evolution published by Henri Bergson
1910         ‘Pathe News' newsreel began                                                    
                  Development of abstract painting - Kadinsky and Mondrian

                  Development of plastics

1911         First regular air mail service started (Hendon-Windsor)

1912         GPO formed

1913         Henry Ford develops conveyor belt assembly for Model T automobile

1918         Three colour traffic lights introduced in New York

1919         Rutherford splits atom (UK)

                  Collective Unconscious espoused by Carl Jung

                  Bauhaus School of Design started by Gropius at Weimar in Germany

                  First crossing of Atlantic by air (Alcock and Brown)

1920         Emergence of Jazz in USA - Louis Armstrong/Duke Ellington/Count Basie  

                  Fountain pen established by now as chief writing in the West

                  World's first regular broadcast station opened in USA

1922         BBC formed and first radio programmes begin to be broadcast

1923        German inflation at its height 77 million DM to the £

1926        Baird demonstrates television system to Royal Institution

1927        Emergence of talking pictures

                 First London automatic telephone exchange opened

                 Videophone invented - Bell Laboratories

1928        First sound film 'Lights of New York'

                 First electron microscope built in Germany

                 First Walt Disney animation film with sound

                 Plastic/shellac Videodisc on sale at Selfridges in small numbers until 1938.

1930        Shannon shows how switching circuits can model Boolean logic
                  “Differential analyzer” (Bush)

                 Brooke Bond launch “Pre-Gest-Tee” - P.G. Tips at one shilling & nine pence/pkt
1932        Remote TELETYPE input to drive Linotype typesetter in TIMES building from

                  the House of Commons

1935        First Penguin paperback published

1936        BBC set up first regular TV service with Baird, Marconi and EMI equipment

                 Kine Exacta first 35mm SLR camera
1937        Jet engine first tested (UK)

1938        First Xerographic dry process copy (Chester Carlson) he later
                 sold rights to a small family firm which later grew into the Xerox Corporation

                 Laszlo Jose Biro invents and patents the ball point pen

1939        Audio tape-recording invented in Germany and used for propaganda during war

                 The Life Divine published in revised & enlarged book form - Sri Aurobindo
1940        Electronic tubes used as switching units (Atanasoff and Berry)

                 RCA develops audio-tape recording for non-propaganda purposes

1942       ”Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.

                But it is , perhaps,  the end of the beginning” - Winston Churchill 
                speaking of Battle of Egypt 

1945       “As we may think” The Atlantic Monthly (Bush)

                L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason) - Jean Paul Satre
1946       Enlac, the first electronic digital computer (Mauch ley and Eckert)

                Radar contact with moon. 

                Sony develops it's first audio-tape recorder - used for War Crimes Trial

1947       Polariod the World's first instant picture camera (Edwin Land)   
                Le Corbusier patented & publicized Le Modulor - The Modulor
                First supersonic flight

                Hologram invented but …..
                needed invention of Laser for coherent light source (Dennis Gabor)

1948       Transistor invented (Shockley, Brattain and Bardeen)

                Kodak develop colour scanner in their R&D laboratories, team went
                off to Korean War -  project completed at TIME Life Magazine

1949      Information Theory (Shannon)  
               Dick Tracy cartoons   
               “1984” (George Orwell)

1950       NPL confirms speed of light 186,282 miles per second

1951        Univac 1 (Rand)

                 Boeing Stratocruiser full flight simulator (Redifon Simulation)

                 Philips introduce professional reel to reel audio tape recorder for £200

1952        Tea rationing in Britain comes to an end
1953        Mount Everest first climbed (Hillary and Tensing)

                 Rotring Rapidograph - standard by which all others were judged
                 First left-handed italic fountain pen produced by Osmiroid
1954        World's first colour television broadcast in USA - NTSC format

1955        First Linofilm photocomposing system (Linotype)

                 Le Phénomène Humain - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - published year of his death
1956        First use of broadcast quality VTR CBS Hollywood (AMPEX) - all television

                  prior to this date broadcast live or shot on film for archival purposes etc.

                  Beginning of Rock and Roll music - Elvis Prestley

1957         Analogue computer generated film “Lapis” (James Whitney)

                  First space satellite launched (USSR)

1958         Ball point established as preferred writing instrument, rather than fountain pen.

1959         Integrated circuit invented (Kilby of TI and Noyce of Intel)

                  First Linofilm production mode1 installed at National Geographic (Linotype)

                  USA 36 million TV sets, UK has 10 million

1960         UNC, the first “minicomputer” the first tape drive, the first CRT (Lincoln Labs)

                  First Laser built by Theo Maiman of the Hughes Laboratory USA

1961         PDP-1 (Digital Equipment Corporation) sets new low price at $120,000

                  Structure of DNA (genetic code) determined in UK

                  First man in space (Gagarin USSR)

                  First Air Traffic Control Cadet Course at Hurn Airport in Bournemouth
1962         First British book set on a Linofilm phototypesetter

                   Astronauts Glenn and Scott and the Telstar satellite go into orbit

1963         Colour Polariod Instant picture camera (Edwin Land)
                   Audio cassette introduced (Philips)

1964         BASIC programming language (Kemeny and Kurtz) Sound Techniques started
1965         EARLY BIRD satellite launched into geostationary orbit

1967         Computer only Linofilm typesetter introduced (Linotype)

1968         Magnascan colour scanner for four colour separation production (Crosfield)

                  Mouse, Windows based human computer interface demonstrated (Englebart)
1969        ARPANET 50 Kbps backbone established - 4 Honeywell mini-computer hosts

                  Alan Kay's doctoral thesis describes theoretical personal computer

                 Armstrong and Aldrin land on the Moon

1970        The Architectural Machine Group formed at MIT (Negreponte)

1971         Intel 8008 microprocessor (Hoff)

1972         World's first Compact Sound-Desk (Sound Techniques)

                  Smalltalk programming language conceived (Kay)

                  First public demonstration of LaserVideodisc (Philips) - data capacity 1.5 GB

                  Philips introduce first video cassette recorder

                  Sony introduce first editable VCR in industrial quality U-Matic format.

                  Sinclair calculator

                  Polariod automatic instant picture camera (Edwin Land)

                  E-mail invented and first used on ARPANET (Ray Tomlinson)

1973         First bit-mapped graphics-oriented monitor                                           
                  “The Art of  Color”  - Johannes Itten

                   Appearance of Alto, precursor to Xerox PARC's Star operating system
                   First hand-held mouse (with Alto from Xerox PARC)

                   Kodak VP-1
1974          IBM launch Winchester hard disc digital storage unit

                   NOVA magazine published
1975          Altair 8800 (first “personal” computer)

                   Sony introduces Betamax

                   Chis Curry formed Acorn computers

1976          First Magistrates' Courts System implemented by STL  
                   Wozniack designs Apple II

                   TCP/IP adopted by ARPANET
                   JVC launches VHS -Video Home Standard

                   Editdroid and Soundroid used by Lucas Films in production of the 'StarWars' 
                   series of movies (Droid Works) Editdroid allowed film editing techniques to be 
                   utilised in the video editing environment

                   First transatlantic supersonic passenger service begins with Concorde

1977          Microsoft is founded

                   Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) first company to create own internet site  

1978          Bricklin writes VisiCalc (electronic spreadsheet)

                   Speak & Spell learning aid ( Texas Instruments ) .. used by ET to 'phone home'
                   Hayes announces Micromodem 100  

                   Permaculture One published (Bill Morrison)

1979          Oracle introduces Standard Query Language (SQL)

                   Oxford University Press celebrates Quin-centenial

                   SILICON FACTOR screened as pre-cursor to BBC Computer Literacy Project
                   Gaia theory published by James Lovelock

1980          Xerox, DEC and Intel announce Ethernet

1981          IBM PC announced -   ‘640K ought to be enough for anybody' - Bill Gates

                   First re-useable shuttle space flight

                   DESIGNERS SATURDAY held in London
1982          32K BBC Microcomputer (Acorn Computers)

                   First lowcost RGB monitor (Microvitec)

                   Sony MAVICA digital still camera 

1983         First demonstration of  PAL interactive videodisc system (Michael Grove - Acorn)

                   ‘The Visual Display of Quantitive Information' - Edward R Tufte

                   First sub-£1000.oo  Twin Double density 800K floppy disc drive

                   Sony and Philips introduce CD compact disc format

                   First Sony 1”C format single frame edit broadcast VTR

1984          The Macintosh 128K is introduced bundled with MacWrite and MacPaint

                   PICT file format introduced   
                   3.5” Floppy disk standard established

                   Linotronic 300 laserphotosetter introduced

                   ACORN VIDEO established
1985          Graphic interface widely available
                   Apple Macintosh encompasses “postscript” to drive Laserwriter

                   printer and Linotronic at different resolutions

                   VideoWorks launched by Marc Cantor's MacroMind
                   Genlock/Overlay card, MIC software and virtual device interface (Teletape Video)

1986          First Facsimile or “FAX” device launched in Japan                                       

                   Luxor Jr. Anglepoise lamp animation ex-disney animator (John Lasseter - Pixar)  

                   Mercedes Benz Car and Truck simulator  
                   MacTimes UK - first published

                   Small Computer System Interface [SCSI] standard [X3.131:1986]

                   TIFF standard announced by Aldus, Microsoft and others

                   Joint Photographic Experts Group - JPEG - established

                   Macintosh II - open architecture, full colour GUI microcomputer

1987          Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks [RAID] - Patterson, Gibson and Katz

                   Hypercard & Multifinder introduced by Apple Inc.

                   Oxford University Press and BBC launch the “Volcano” videodisc

                   First colour photocopier [Canon]

                   First “desktop minimum design solution” for interactive multimedia development

1988          T1 [1.544Mbps] NSFNET back-bone completed - 56,000 hosts

                    ‘Made in Japan' - Akio Morita        
                    NEXT machine announced

                    Omnipage OCR software launched for Apple Macintosh

                    Industrial videodisc recorder announced (Sony)   
                    ISDN first demonstrated

                    Rex Beddis funeral
                    PICS file - multiple PICT - format first mooted for  Director/Swivel/MediaMaker

                    “Interactive Multimedia” Sueann Ambron & Kristina Hooper

                    NEC Ultralite first sub-notebook (4.4lb) with pen + handwriting recognition

                    Moving Picture Experts Group - MPEG - established

                    MPEG1 developed (150KB/s 352x240 @ 20fps)

1989          Hayes Smartmodem 9600     
                   First computer controllable fax launched (Canon)

                   “Virtual realities” demonstrated at  Hypermedia Show San Francisco

                    Canon low resolution digital still video camera launched

                    PIXAR Renderman and Levco Transputer launched for Macintosh
                   Guernica first demonstrated by Bob Abel @ Microsoft CD-ROM conference
                   MIDAS 1& 2 - first digital offline editing system launched

1990          Designed for Manufacture Macintosh FX launched
                   Macromind Director II - with Lingo based interactive capability
                   CERN implements first Hypertext system, Internet conceived

                  ‘Envisioning Information' - Edward R Tufte

                   AVID/1 digital off line video editing system available

                   Adobe releases PhotoShop  
                   Microsoft Windows 3.0 released

                   Postscript RIP launched for Canon CLC500 colour scanner/copier

                    “Graphic art has entered a new age of accessibility …..”

                   Hubble telescope put into orbit

                   Sony CD Reference-disc/Premaster recorder launched
                   Art of the Possible event held in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK
                   Mrs Thatcher resigns
                   OSHO contemporary mystic teacher dies aged 60 years - The Sunday Times
                   of  London  votes him  “ONE of 1000 makers of the 20th Century”