Introduction | Highpoints | Medicine
Machines | Communications | Travel
Consumer goods | Did you know? | Find out more

Did you know?

• Between 1879 and 1914, Britain's telephone service grew from 10 to 750,000 lines.

• In 1912, the water supply was chlorinated in Toronto, Canada, and typhoid and infant enteritis fell dramatically.

• In 1921, Croydon aerodrome – London's airport – opened. By the end of the decade, about 20 planes a day were taking off.

• By 1931, the first air hostesses and reclining seats appeared in passenger airliners.

• In 1956, Calder Hall, the first nuclear plant to supply substantial amounts of electricity to a national grid, opened in Britain.

• In 1971, the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor silicon chip, was created in the US.

• In 1986, there were 26 million televisions in Brazil, 10.5 million in India and 6.6 million in Indonesia. In the US, there were 195 million.

• By the 1990s, a single optical fibre could carry 10 billion digital bits of data per second.

• By 1999, there were about 500 million mobile phones in the world.

• By 2000, there were about 486 cars per 1,000 people in the US and 394 per 1,000 in Japan.

• By 2000, there were 750,000 robots being used in factories, mostly in Japanese car manufacturing.

Top