List of IEEE milestones
Encyclopedia
This list of IEEE Milestones describes the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

 (IEEE) milestones, representing key historical achievements in electrical and electronic engineering.
  • Prior to 1800
    • 1751 - Book "Experiments and Observations on Electricity" by Benjamin Franklin
      Benjamin Franklin
      Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

    • 1757-1775 - Benjamin Franklin
      Benjamin Franklin
      Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

      's Work in London
    • 1799 - Volta
      Alessandro Volta
      Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Gerolamo Umberto Volta was a Lombard physicist known especially for the invention of the battery in 1800.-Early life and works:...

      's Electrical Battery Invention
      Voltaic pile
      A voltaic pile is a set of individual Galvanic cells placed in series. The voltaic pile, invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800, was the first electric battery...


  • 1800-1850
    • 1836 - Callan
      Nicholas Callan
      Father Nicholas Joseph Callan was an Irish priest and scientist from Darver, Co. Louth, Ireland. He was Professor of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth College near Dublin from 1834, and is best known for his work on the induction coil....

      's Pioneering Contributions to Electrical Science and Technology
    • 1828-1837 - Shilling
      Pavel Schilling
      Baron Pavel L'vovitch Schilling, also known as Paul Schilling , was a diplomat of Baltic German origin employed in the service of Russia in Germany, and who built a pioneering electrical telegraph...

      's Pioneering Contribution to Practical Telegraphy
    • 1838 - Demonstration of Practical Telegraphy

  • 1850-1870
    • 1852 - Electric Fire Alarm System
      Fire alarm system
      An automatic fire alarm system is designed to detect the unwanted presence of fire by monitoring environmental changes associated with combustion. In general, a fire alarm system is classified as either automatically actuated, manually actuated, or both...

    • 1861-1870 - Maxwell's Equations
      Maxwell's equations
      Maxwell's equations are a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits. These fields in turn underlie modern electrical and communications technologies.Maxwell's equations...

    • 1861 - Transcontinental Telegraph
      First Transcontinental Telegraph
      The First Transcontinental Telegraph was a milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the United States of America. It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the east and west coasts during the 1860s....

    • 1866 - Landing of the Transatlantic Cable
      Transatlantic telegraph cable
      The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...

    • 1866 - County Kerry Transatlantic Cable Stations
      Valentia Island
      Valentia Island is one of Ireland's westernmost points, lying off the Iveragh Peninsula in the southwest of County Kerry, Ireland. It is linked to the mainland by the Maurice O'Neill Memorial bridge at Portmagee, as well as by a ferry which sails from Reenard Point to Knightstown, the island's...


  • 1870-1890
    • 1876 - First Intelligible Voice Transmission over Electric Wire
    • 1876 - First Distant Speech Transmission in Canada
    • 1876 - Thomas Alva Edison Historic Site
      Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum
      The Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park, also known as the Menlo Park Museum / Edison Memorial Tower, is a memorial to inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison, located in the Menlo Park area of Edison, New Jersey...

       at Menlo Park
    • 1882 - Vulcan Street Plant
      Vulcan Street Plant
      The Vulcan Street Plant is the world's first Edison hydroelectric central station. Built on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, the Vulcan Street Plant was put into operation on September 30, 1882...

    • 1882 - First Central Station in South Carolina
      South Carolina
      South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

    • 1886 - Alternating Current
      Alternating current
      In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....

       Electrification (demonstrated by William Stanley, Jr.
      William Stanley, Jr.
      William Stanley, Jr. was an American physicist born in Brooklyn, New York. In his career, he obtained 129 patents covering a variety of electric devices.-Biography:...

      )
    • 1887 - Thomas A. Edison West Orange Laboratories and Factories
    • 1888 - Richmond Union Passenger Railway
      Richmond Union Passenger Railway
      The Richmond Union Passenger Railway, in Richmond, Virginia, was the first practical electric trolley system, and set the pattern for most subsequent electric trolley systems around the world. It is an IEEE milestone in engineering....

    • 1889 - Power System of Boston's Rapid Transit
      Boston Elevated Railway
      The Boston Elevated Railway was a precursor first to the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Massachusetts, now the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, operating rapid transit, streetcars and buses in the Boston, Massachusetts area. It was formerly known as the West End Street Railway.The...


  • 1890-1900
    • 1891 - Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant
      Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant
      The Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, located near Ophir, Colorado, was the world's first commercial system to produce and transmit alternating current electricity. It is now on the List of IEEE Milestones....

    • 1893 - Mill Creek No. 1 Hydroelectric Plant
    • 1895 - Popov
      Alexander Stepanovich Popov
      Alexander Stepanovich Popov was a Russian physicist who was the first person to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic waves....

      's Contribution to the Development of Wireless Communication
    • 1895 - Adams Hydroelectric Generating Plant
    • 1895 - Marconi
      Guglielmo Marconi
      Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

      's Early Wireless Experiments
    • 1897 - Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant
      Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant
      Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant is a historic hydroelectric power station located 14 kilometers south of Lota, Chile. It came on line in 1897, and was the first hydroelectric plant in Chile and the second in South America...

    • 1898 - Decew Falls Hydro-Electric Plant

  • 1900-1920
    • 1900 - Georgetown Steam Hydro Generating Plant
    • 1901 - Transmission of Transatlantic Radio Signals
    • 1901 - Early Developments in Remote-Control
      Remote control
      A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...

    • 1901 - Reception of Transatlantic Radio Signals
    • 1899-1902 - First Operational Use Of Wireless Telegraphy
      Wireless telegraphy
      Wireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....

    • 1902 - Poulsen-Arc Radio Transmitter
    • 1903 - Vucje Hydroelectric Plant
    • 1904 - Alexanderson Radio Alternator
    • 1904 - Fleming Valve
      Fleming valve
      The Fleming valve, also called the Fleming oscillation valve, was a vacuum tube diode invented by John Ambrose Fleming and used in the earliest days of radio communication...

    • 1906 - Pinawa
      Pinawa, Manitoba
      Pinawa is a small Canadian community of about 1500 residents located in southeastern Manitoba, 110 kilometres north-east of Winnipeg. The town is situated on the Canadian Shield within the western boundary of Whiteshell Provincial Park, which lies near the Manitoba-Ontario provincial boundary...

       Hydroelectric Power Project
    • 1906 - First Wireless Radio Broadcast by Reginald A. Fessenden
    • 1907 - Alternating-Current Electrification of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
    • 1909 - Shoshone Transmission Line
      Shoshone Transmission Line
      The Shoshone Transmission Line was an early and notable electric power transmission line, now recorded on the List of IEEE Milestones.The line began service on July 17, 1909, conveying power from the Shoshone Hydroelectric Generating Station, located on the Colorado River near Glenwood Springs, to...

    • 1911 - Discovery of superconductivity
      Superconductivity
      Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance occurring in certain materials below a characteristic temperature. It was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911 in Leiden. Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum...

    • 1914 - Panama Canal
      Panama Canal
      The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

       Electrical and Control Installations

  • 1920-1930
    • 1920 - Westinghouse
      Westinghouse Electric Company
      Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...

       Radio Station
      Radio station
      Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

       KDKA (AM)
      KDKA (AM)
      KDKA is a radio station licensed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Created by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation on November 2, 1920, it is one of the world's first modern radio stations , a distinction that has also been challenged by other stations, although it has claimed to be the first in...

    • 1924 - Directive
      Directional antenna
      A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates greater power in one or more directions allowing for increased performance on transmit and receive and reduced interference from unwanted sources....

       Short Wave
      Shortwave
      Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...

       Antenna
      Antenna (radio)
      An antenna is an electrical device which converts electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver...

       (Yagi-Uda antenna)
    • 1924-1941 - Development of Electronic Television
    • 1928 - One-Way Police Radio
      Police radio
      Police radio is a communications radio system used by law enforcement agencies all over the world.Many such systems are encrypted to prevent eavesdroppers from listening in.-Portable radios:...

       Communication
    • 1929 - Shannon Scheme for the Electrification of the Irish Free State
      Irish Free State
      The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

    • 1929 - Yosami Radio Transmitting Station
      Yosami Transmitting Station
      Yosami Transmitting Station was a very large transmitting station for intercontinental communication and for submarine communication in the VLF-range at Kariya, Aichi, Japan. Yosami Transmitting Station used as antenna a wire antenna system, which was spun between 8 guyed masts, each 250 metres...

    • 1929 - Largest Private (dc) Generating Plant in the U.S.A.

  • 1930-1950
    • 1930-1945 - Development of Ferrite Materials and Their Applications
    • 1933 - Two-Way Police Radio Communication
      Two-way radio
      A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive , unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. The term refers to a personal radio transceiver that allows the operator to have a two-way conversation with other similar radios operating on the same radio frequency...

    • 1934 - Long-Range Shortwave
      Shortwave
      Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...

       Voice Transmissions from Byrd's Antarctic Expedition
    • 1937 - Westinghouse
      Westinghouse Electric (1886)
      Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...

       "Atom Smasher
      Particle accelerator
      A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.In...

      "
    • 1939 - Atanasoff–Berry Computer
    • 1940 - FM Police Radio
      Police radio
      Police radio is a communications radio system used by law enforcement agencies all over the world.Many such systems are encrypted to prevent eavesdroppers from listening in.-Portable radios:...

       Communication
    • 1941 - Opana Radar Site
      Opana Radar Site
      The Opana Radar Site is a National Historic Landmark and IEEE Milestone that commemorates the first operational use of radar by the United States in wartime, during the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is located off the Kamehameha Highway just inland from the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii, south of...

    • 1939-1945 - Code-breaking at Bletchley Park
      Bletchley Park
      Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...

       during World War II
      World War II
      World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

    • 1940-1945 - MIT Radiation Laboratory
    • 1942-1945 - US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory
    • 1945 - Merrill Wheel-Balancing System
      Merrill Wheel-Balancing System
      The Merrill Wheel-Balancing System was the world's first electronic dynamic wheel-balancing system. It was invented in 1945 by Marcellus Merrill at the Merrill Engineering Laboratories, 2390 South Tejon Street, Englewood, Colorado, and is now recorded on the list of IEEE Milestones in electronic...

    • 1946 - Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
    • 1947 - Invention of the First Transistor
      Transistor
      A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...

       at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.

  • 1950-1960
    • 1950 - First External Cardiac Pacemaker
    • 1951 - Manufacture of Transistors
    • 1951 - Experimental Breeder Reactor I
      Experimental Breeder Reactor I
      Experimental Breeder Reactor I is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about southeast of Arco, Idaho. At 1:50 pm on December 20, 1951 it became the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plant when it produced sufficient...

    • 1946-1953 - Monochrome-Compatible Electronic Color Television
      Color television
      Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....

    • 1955 - WEIZAC
      WEIZAC
      The WEIZAC was the first computer in Israel, and one of the first large-scale, stored-program, electronic computers in the world....

       Computer
    • 1956 - RAMAC
    • 1956 - The First Submarine Transatlantic Telephone Cable
      Transatlantic telephone cable
      A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable running under the Atlantic Ocean. All modern cables use fibre optic technology....

       System (TAT-1
      TAT-1
      TAT-1 was the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system. It was laid between Gallanach Bay, near Oban, Scotland and Clarenville, Newfoundland between 1955 and 1956. It was inaugurated on September 25, 1956, initially carrying 36 telephone channels.-History:The first transatlantic...

      )
    • 1957-1958 - First Wearable Cardiac Pacemaker
      Artificial pacemaker
      A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...

    • 1958 - First Semiconductor Integrated Circuit
      Integrated circuit
      An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

       (IC)
    • 1959 - Semiconductor Planar Process
      Planar process
      The planar process is a manufacturing process used in the semiconductor industry to build individual components of a transistor, and in turn, connect those transistors together. It is the primary process by which modern integrated circuits are built...

       and Integrated Circuit

  • 1960-1970
    • 1960–1984 - IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
    • 1962 - Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
      Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
      The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S...

    • 1962 - First Transatlantic Transmission of a Television Signal via Satellite
      Andover Earth Station
      Andover Earth Station is one of the first satellite earth stations, located at Andover in the US state of Maine. It was built by AT&T to communicate with the Telstar 1 satellite, the first direct relay communications satellite. It provided the first experimental satellite telephone and...

    • 1962 - First Transatlantic Television Signal via Satellite
    • 1962 - First Transatlantic Reception of a Television Signal via Satellite
    • 1962 - Alouette-ISIS
      Alouette 1
      Alouette 1 was Canada's first satellite, and the first satellite constructed by a country other than the USSR or the United States. Occasionally, Alouette 1 is misrepresented as the third satellite successfully put in orbit, rather than being from the third country to have one of its own in space,...

       Satellite Program
    • 1963 - NAIC/Arecibo Radiotelescope
    • 1963 - First Transpacific Reception of a Television (TV) Signal via Satellite
    • 1963 - Taum Sauk Pumped-Storage Electric Power Plant
    • 1964 - Mount Fuji Radar System
      Mount Fuji Radar System
      The Mount Fuji Radar System is a historic weather radar system located on the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan. It was completed in 1964, and is now recorded on the list of IEEE Milestones in electrical engineering....

    • 1964 - Tokaido Shinkansen (Bullet Train)
    • 1965 - First 735 kV AC Transmission System
      Hydro-Québec's electricity transmission system
      Hydro-Québec's electricity transmission system is an expansive, international power transmission system located in Quebec, Canada with extensions into the Northeastern United States...

    • 1962-1967 - Pioneering Work on the Quartz Electronic Wristwatch
    • 1968 - Liquid Crystal Display
      Liquid crystal display
      A liquid crystal display is a flat panel display, electronic visual display, or video display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals . LCs do not emit light directly....

    • 1968 - CERN Experimental Instrumentation
    • 1969 - Birthplace of the Internet
      Internet
      The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

    • 1969 - Inception of the ARPANET
      ARPANET
      The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...

    • 1950-1969 - Electronic Technology for Space Rocket Launches
    • 1969 - Electronic Quartz Wristwatch
      Astron (wristwatch)
      The Astron wristwatch, formally known as the Seiko Quartz-Astron 35SQ, was the world's first "quartz clock" wristwatch, i.e., one based on a quartz crystal oscillator...


  • 1970-Present
    • 1965-1971 - Railroad Ticketing Examining System (developed by OMRON
      OMRON
      is a Japanese electronics company based in Kyoto.Omron was established by Kazuma Tateishi in 1933 and incorporated in 1948. Omron's primary business is the manufacture and sale of automation components, equipment and systems, but it is generally known for medical equipment such as digital...

       of Japan)
    • 1972 - Nelson River HVDC Transmission System
    • 1964-1973 - Pioneering Work on Electronic Calculators
    • 1971-1978 - The First Word Processor for the Japanese Language
    • 1972 - Development of the HP-35
      HP-35
      The HP-35 was Hewlett-Packard's first pocket calculator and the world's first scientific pocket calculator . Like some of HP's desktop calculators it used reverse Polish notation. Introduced at US$395, the HP-35 was available from 1972 to 1975.Market studies at the time had shown no market for...

      , the First Handheld Scientific Calculator
    • 1976 - Development of VHS
      VHS
      The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

      , a World Standard for Home Video Recording
    • 1977 - Lempel–Ziv Data Compression Algorithm
      LZ77 and LZ78
      LZ77 and LZ78 are the names for the two lossless data compression algorithms published in papers by Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv in 1977 and 1978. They are also known as LZ1 and LZ2 respectively. These two algorithms form the basis for most of the LZ variations including LZW, LZSS, LZMA and...

    • 1978 - Speak & Spell
      Speak & Spell (toy)
      The Speak & Spell line is a series of electronic handheld educational toys created by Texas Instruments that consist of a speech synthesizer, a keyboard, and a receptor slot to receive one of a collection of ROM game library modules...

      , the First Use of a Digital Signal Processing IC for Speech Generation
    • 1979 - Compact Disc
      Compact Disc
      The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

       Audio Player

  • Special Citations
    • Nikola Tesla
      Nikola Tesla
      Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...

      (1856-1943) - Electrical Pioneer
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