1820s - Science and Technology

Science and Technology

• January 28, 1820 – A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev approaches the Antarctic coast (see History of Antarctica).
• January 30, 1820 – Edward Bransfield lands on the Antarctic mainland (see History of Antarctica).
• April 1820 – Hans Christian Ørsted discovers the relationship between electricity and magnetism.
• May 11, 1820 – The HMS Beagle (the ship that later takes young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage) is launched.
• 1820: The 6th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica appears.
• June 14, 1822 – Charles Babbage proposes a Difference engine.
• 1822 – Hieroglyphs are deciphered by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, using the Rosetta Stone.
• 1822 – Galileo Galilei's Dialogue is taken off the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic Church's list of banned books.
• 1822 – The Graham Cracker is developed in Bound Brook, New Jersey by the Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham.

• 1823 – Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers.
• January 8, 1824 – After much controversy, Michael Faraday is finally elected as a member of the Royal Society with only one vote against him.
• October 21, 1824 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland Cement.
• 1824 – The Panoramagram is developed, creating the first volumetric display.
• Invention of the photograph and the first still existing photograph taken in 1826.
• 1825 – Hans Christian Ørsted reduces aluminium chloride to make aluminium.
• June 1826 – Photography: Nicéphore Niépce makes a true photograph.
• 1826 – Aniline is first isolated from the destructive distillation of indigo by Otto Unverdorben.
• May 25, 1827 – Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru receives a French patent for the invention of the first fountain pen with a replaceable ink cartridge.
• 1827 – Englishman John Walker invents the first friction match which he names Lucifer.
• 1828 – Friedrich Wöhler synthesizes Urea, possibly discrediting a cornerstone of vitalism.
• 1828 – Ányos Jedlik creates the world's first electric motor.
• 1828 – Casparus van Houten Sr. (father of Coenraad Johannes van Houten) patents an inexpensive method for pressing cocoa butter from roasted cocoa beans, leaving cocoa solids. This is an important step in modern solid chocolate production.
• May 6, 1829 – The patent for an instrument called the accordion is applied for by Cyrill Demian (Officially approved on May 23.)
• July 23, 1829 – In the United States, William Burt obtains the first patent for a form of typewriter.