TRUE or FALSE:

6000 BCE: Irrigation: The first irrigation systems arose roughly simultaneously in the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley in Mesopotamia and the Nile River valley in Egypt.

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

1200 BCE: Iron - About this time, the production of iron became widespread as that metal supplanted bronze. Iron was much more abundant than copper and tin, the two metals that make up bronze, and thus put metal tools into more hands than ever before.

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

The first windmills were in Persia. They were horizontal windmills in which the blades were set on a vertical shaft. Later, European windmills were of the vertical type. It has been speculated that the windmill may have been invented independently in Persia and in Europe.

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

1455: Printing

Johannes Gutenberg completed the printing of the Bible, which was the first book printed in the West using movable type. Gutenberg’s printing press led to an information explosion in Europe.

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

• 1804: Railways

English engineer Richard Trevithick improved James Watt’s steam engine and used it for transport. He built the first railway locomotive at an ironworks in Wales.

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

• 1826/27: Photography

In the early 1820s, Nicéphore Niépce became interested in using a light-sensitive solution to make copies of lithographs onto glass, zinc, and finally a pewter plate.

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

• 1844: Radio

Samuel Morse was a successful painter who became interested in the possibility of an electric telegraph in the 1830s. He patented a prototype in 1837. In 1844 he sent the first message over the first long-distance telegraph line, which stretched between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. The message: “What hath God wrought.”

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

• 1876: Cellphone

Once it was possible to send information through a wire in the form of dots and dashes, the next step was actual voice communication. Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call, on March 10, 1876, when he asked his assistant Tom Watson to come to him: “Mr Watson—come here—I want to see you.”

(a)  

TRUE or FALSE:

• 1987: Computer

Iowa State mathematician and physicist John Atanasoff designed the first electronic digital computer.

(a)