Progress in technology and production

From the late 19th century industry and railways grew, which demanded new technology. Alongside steam engines, electric motors and internal combustion engines appeared: Karl Benz patented a petrol car in 1886, Gottlieb Daimler improved light petrol engines, and Rudolf Diesel built his engine in 1897. Electric lighting spread: P. N. Yablochkov made the “electric candle” in 1876, T. Edison developed a practical incandescent lamp in 1879, and a central power station opened in New York in 1882. Construction used steel, glass and reinforced concrete; in 1889 the tower built by the engineer Gustave Eiffel (about 300 m at the time) opened in Paris. The Panama Canal opened in August 1914. In metallurgy steel output rose, aluminium was produced by electrolysis in 1886, and in the early 20th century Baekeland made synthetic plastic (Bakelite, 1907). In communications A. Bell patented the telephone in 1876 and Edison made the phonograph in 1877; after H. Hertz proved electromagnetic waves experimentally, A. Popov (1895) and G. Marconi built wireless apparatus, and in 1901 Marconi sent a radio signal across the Atlantic. On 17 December 1903 the Wright brothers made the first controlled powered flight. These advances were also used in the military field: smokeless powder (1884), dynamite (A. Nobel, 1867), the machine gun and, in 1916, the tank.