Timeline of Cryptography - 1 - 1799 CE

1799 CE

• 801–873 CE - Cryptanalysis and frequency analysis leading to techniques for breaking monoalphabetic substitution ciphers are developed in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages by the Muslim mathematician, Al-Kindi (Alkindus), who may have been inspired by textual analysis of the Qur'an. He also covers methods of encipherments, cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and statistical analysis of letters and letter combinations in Arabic.
• 1355-1418 - Ahmad al-Qalqashandi writes Subh al-a 'sha, a 14-volume encyclopedia including a section on cryptology, attributed to Ibn al-Durayhim (1312–1361). The list of ciphers in this work include both substitution and transposition, and for the first time, a cipher with multiple substitutions for each plaintext letter. It also included an exposition on and worked example of cryptanalysis, including the use of tables of letter frequencies and sets of letters which cannot occur together in one word.
• 1450 - The Chinese develop wooden block movable type printing.
• 1450-1520 - The Voynich manuscript, an example of a possibly encoded illustrated book, is written.
• 1466 - Leon Battista Alberti invents polyalphabetic cipher, also first known mechanical cipher machine
• 1518 - Johannes Trithemius' book on cryptology
• 1553 - Bellaso invents Vigenère cipher
• 1585 - Vigenère's book on ciphers
• 1586 - Cryptanalysis used by spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham to implicate Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Babington Plot to murder Elizabeth I of England. Queen Mary was eventually executed.
• 1641 - Wilkins' Mercury (English book on cryptology)
• 1793 - Claude Chappe establishes the first long-distance semaphore telegraph line
• 1795 - Thomas Jefferson invents the Jefferson disk cipher, reinvented over 100 years later by Etienne Bazeries