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70 Articles

GREAT INVENTORS & THEIR CREATIONS

This book celebrates some of history’s greatest minds, whose intelligence and perseverance has helped shape the modern world. They are by no means the only great inventors in history, but within these pages you’ll meet some of the most iconic figures in the history of technology. Among many others, you will encounter brilliant mathematicians Archimedes of Syracuse and Charles Babbage, celebrated scientists Michael Faraday and Alfred Nobel, and photography pioneers Nicephore Niépce and George Eastman. How It Works Book of Great Inventors & Their Creations will offer an insight into the careers of these geniuses through amazing articles, informative diagrams and handwritten notes. So, turn the page and witness the innovative spirit and insatiable drive possessed by the men and women who conceived of some of the world’s most influential…

GREAT INVENTORS & THEIR CREATIONS

10 INVENTIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Every invention and inventor has a story; a means by which the creation was conceived when others had either failed or simply didn’t realise it could be done. Some have been the evolution of an earlier idea into something others had tried to attain – building the world’s first powered airplane, for example. Other inventions have more humble beginnings, such as plastic, which struggled to achieve commercial success for 50 years after its invention until it suddenly sprang into the limelight and became an integral part of the modern world. Many inventions have changed the world in entirely different ways. The Internet and telephone enabled people to communicate on a global scale instantaneously for the very first time. Touch screens and televisions have let people receive and navigate information in whole…

10 INVENTIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Printing Press (1450)

Widely considered by academics to be one of the most influential inventions of the past 1,000 years, the printing press set in motion the democratisation of knowledge and the establishment of our modern, knowledge-based economies. For the first time, valued texts could be produced in their thousands and allowed texts to be accessed widely by the majority, not just the wealthy aristocracy and intellectual elite. The man credited with the invention of the printing press is inventor Johannes Gutenberg. Around the year 1440, Gutenberg designed a device based on screw presses that, when partnered with inked movable type heads, allowed paper to be quickly and efficiently pressed with letters. Type heads were made by pouring a lead-tin alloy into a hand mould, and then affixed to the top of movable, rectangular…

Printing Press (1450)

Telescope (1609)

Invented at the start of the 17th century and named by Greek mathematician Giovanni Demisiani in 1611, the telescope elongated humanity’s vision on Earth and, due to work by Galileo Galilei, its view of space. The latter has resonated to the present day with particular importance, with the telescope’s usage extrapolated into a multitude of applications and disciplines, ranging from simple amateur stargazing through to intergalactic analysis by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Speaking on the telescope, Galileo stated: “Alas! Your dear friend and servant Galileo has been for the last month hopelessly blind; so that this heaven, this earth, this universe, which I by my marvellous discoveries and clear demonstrations had enlarged a hundred thousand times beyond the belief of the wise men of bygone ages, henceforward for me is…

Telescope (1609)

Steam Engine (1712)

The power of steam, even to this day, is harnessed worldwide. Indeed, 80 per cent of the world’s electricity is generated through large-scale steam turbines, a direct evolution from the first engine produced in Egypt by Hero of Alexandria in the first century AD and the multitude of engines that powered the mills, mines and automobiles of the Industrial Revolution. If it were not for this simple yet powerful device, the evolution of further engines and our ability to generate energy could have been severely compromised. Steam engines work by exploiting the expansion that steam demonstrates under high-pressure conditions, harnessing a portion of the expanding fluid’s heat energy to drive mechanical apparatus, such as a piston and drive wheel. In the majority of steam engines, steam is supplied via a boiler,…

Steam Engine (1712)

Alexander Parkes (1813-1890) of Birmingham, UK, unveiled the first man-made plastic, Parkesine, at the Great International Exhibition, London, in 1862. A mixture of chloroform and castor oil, it was mouldable but retained its sturdy shape when cooled, giving an advantage over more brittle storage materials. His invention led to the creation of more plastics that wouldn’t find widespread commercial success until the 20th century. Parkes’s attempts to reduce costs and mass-produce the plastic resulted in his company going under due to poor product quality. A few years later, American inventor John Wesley Hyatt set about making the first synthetic man-made plastic. By 1870 he and his brother acquired a patent for their plastic, which had more applications than Parkesine. Created by mixing pressurised alcohol, camphor and solid nitrocellulose, it could be…

Telephone (1876)

In the 1870s, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both developed devices that could transmit voice electronically, the telephone. Amazingly, both men finished their designs within hours of one another, and both rushed to the patent office to have their invention verified as the original. Ultimately, it was Bell who arrived first, and is now credited with the invention, although Gray challenged this assertion for quite some time. By 1876 Bell had devised a method to talk via electricity, which he marketed as the telephone. His invention was much more successful than attempts by other people to create something similar, and he ultimately wound up victorious as the true inventor of the telephone. This was partly due to his previous experience with the telegraph, which was a wire-based electrical system…

Telephone (1876)

Airplane (1903)

On 18 September 1901, 33-year-old businessman Wilbur Wright addressed a group of Chicago engineers, outlining the difficulties he and his brother Orville had encountered when trying to achieve heavier-than-airflight. While hot air balloons and gliders had taken to the air in the preceding century, no one had yet built a working plane that could power its own flight. Wilbur’s speech provided the basis of the Wright brothers’ work over the next decade to build what had previously seemed impossible: an airplane. The Wright brothers were heavily influenced by the work of predecessors like George Cayley and Otto Lilienthal, but initially focused their efforts where others had not, specifically avoiding further development of wings. “Men already know how to construct wings,” explained Wilbur in 1901. However, they soon changed their mind when…

Airplane (1903)

Television (1926)

Described in function as early as 1880 by French engineer Maurice LeBlanc in the journal La Lumière électrique, and later named by fellow Frenchman Constantin Perskyi in 1900, the television was seen by many during its early development as a total waste of time, money and resources. Indeed, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, England, famously said, “Television? The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of it.” Despite this scepticism from some, the vision of being able to transmit pictures live over large distances, continued to drive development into the Twenties. This was the decade when two major breakthroughs were achieved. In 1922 American inventor Charles Francis Jenkins successfully sent a still picture by radio waves and then later, in 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird…

Television (1926)

Touch screens (1965)

Touch screens, invented by English engineer EA Johnson in 1965, are a key feature of the majority of cuttingedge electrical appliances; an integral part of people’s day-to-day lives, streamlining their relationship with computer software and hardware and banishing clunky peripheral control devices. There are two types of touch screen: resistive and capacitive. Resistive touch screens work by registering pressure from the user’s finger or stylus by the conjoining of a conductive and resistive layer within the screen. When the screen is pushed, the electrically charged conductive layer touches the resistive layer at that point, causing an alteration in the current. This is detected by a controller unit, which logs the touch event’s vertical/horizontal co-ordinates and action. Capacitive touch screens work by coating an insulator with a transparent conductor. When the screen is…

Touch screens (1965)

In the Seventies, the US military asked Americans Ivan Getting and Professor Bradford Parkinson to devise the first GPS system so that they could fire missiles accurately and avoid risk of attack. Their proposal was a network of radio transmitters, with each having an in-built clock. These would be atomic clocks, allowing each satellite to have a precise measure of time. Each missile had a radio emitter and receiver, and by firing signals at the satellites they were able to measure how long it took the signal to return and pinpoint their location. This is the basis of GPS today. The first GPS satellites were launched by the US military in 1978, but public access was denied until the early-Nineties. GPS satellites orbit at a height of 20,200 kilometres (12,500 miles)…

The Internet and WWW (1960s & 1989)

While some firms had local networks in the early-Sixties, there was no host-to-host connection until 1969, when the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the US Department of Defense created ARPANET. The first data exchange over this network resulted in the computers crashing when researchers tried to simply send the letter ‘g’. However, it was soon up and running at four computers across the US. While the Internet was working by the Seventies and Eighties, and spreading, it was nothing like we know it today. It focused on the backbone of computer operations, data the user wouldn’t see. In the late-Eighties, a researcher at CERN called Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues developed a system through which users of the Internet would be able to access text-based ‘pages’, which would later become…

The Internet and WWW (1960s & 1989)

Archimedes (c.287 BCE–c.212 BCE)

The greatest and best-known inventor of the ancient world was also one of its greatest mathematicians, and this was Archimedes of Syracuse. Fortunately, a great deal is known about his mathematical achievements from his own writings, however, any knowledge of his remarkable inventions exists only because his contemporaries documented them. Archimedes was born in Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, then a colony of the Grecian Empire. Little is known about his life or what kind of person he was. The little that is known comes from commentaries written by historians who lived at the time or over the next hundred or so years. The most important source is Greekborn Greek and Roman biographer and historian Plutarch (c.46–120 CE). According to Plutarch, Archimedes’s father was an astronomer and the family was closely…

Archimedes (c.287 BCE–c.212 BCE)

Block and tackle

Ancient civilizations made use of what physicists call ‘simple machines’: the lever, ramp, wheel and axle; inclined plane, wedge and pulley. Archimedes was almost certainly the first to combine two pulleys, to make a device that could exert a huge force. That device, the block and tackle, is used today for lifting or pulling heavy loads. According to Plutarch, Archimedes invented the block and tackle in response to a challenge set by King Hiero after Archimedes had suggested that there is no weight too great to be moved by a lever. Hiero challenged Archimedes to move the huge and heavy ship Syracusia, a feat normally only achieved by teams of many strong men. Archimedes single-handedly moved the ship, complete with crew and cargo, not with a lever but with a block…

Block and tackle

al-Jazarī (1136–1206)

Most people are aware of the tremendous scientific and technological advances of the great ancient civilizations in Egypt, China, India, Greece and Rome. However, during the Middle Ages, the Islamic Empire kept the spirit of learning and innovation alive. One of its greatest technical geniuses was a mechanical engineer named al-Jazarī. Badi’ al-Zaman Abu al-’Izz Isma’il ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazarī was born in an area of Mesopotamia called al-Jazira, in what is now part of modernday southern Turkey. al-Jazarī lived at the height of the Islamic Golden Age, also sometimes called the Islamic Renaissance. The spread of Islam in the seventh century had encouraged a rich culture and a stable political system – the Caliphate. By 750 CE, the Caliphate covered a huge area, from northern Spain in the west, through the…

al-Jazarī (1136–1206)

The influence of islamic scholars

During the Islamic Golden Age, the centre of scholarly activity was the House of Wisdom in Baghdad (in modern Iraq). Both a library and a centre for translation, the House of Wisdom acted not only as a repository for the books and ideas of ancient thinkers from Greece and China, but also as a centre of excellence for contemporary scholars. Much of the knowledge collected, translated and expanded by medieval Islamic scholars passed into Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A dedicated band of European scholars sought out works in Spain and Sicily after these areas came under Christian rule. They translated what they found into Latin, and the resulting documents formed the basis of early scientific study in Europe. The works of the Islamic scientists, mathematicians, astronomers and doctors contained…

The influence of islamic scholars

Johannes Gutenberg (c.1400–3 February 1468)

It is rather difficult to overestimate the importance of the printing press in the history of the world. The mass-production of books made them cheaper and far more accessible, which promoted literacy and the spread of ideas. The creator of this influential new technology was a German goldsmith who was called Johannes Gutenberg. Very little is known of the early life of Johannes (or Johann) Gutenberg. It is known that he was born in Mainz in Germany around 1400, and that he came from the privileged, governing elite. He attended university, where he would certainly have come into contact with books, and he trained as a goldsmith. Around 1420, several families were exiled from Mainz after a rebellion by the tax-paying middle class. Gutenberg’s was among them, and he travelled to Strasbourg,…

Johannes Gutenberg (c.1400–3 February 1468)

Rotary printing press

Although Gutenberg’s invention dramatically changed the course of history in a very short time, printing was still a painstaking process. It required several people and produced only a hundred or so sheets per hour. The invention of cast-iron presses and the introduction of steam power in the 19th century improved that rate to about a thousand pages an hour. A further major step in the history of printing was the invention of the rotary press in 1843, by American inventor Richard March Hoe (1812–1886). Hoe’s steam-powered invention could print millions of pages per day, largely due to the fact that paper could be fed in through rollers as a continuous sheet. Hoe’s device relied upon lithography, a process invented by Bavarian author Aloys Senefelder (1771–1834). In lithography, ink is applied to…

Rotary printing press

Leonardo da Vinci (15 April 1452–2 May 1519)

The name Leonardo da Vinci is synonymous with genius, yet arguably the Italian polymath does not belong in this book. He was undoubtedly a genius, and he certainly changed the world, but his influence on history was restricted to developments in art. His scientific researches were not well known in his lifetime, and most of his inventions never built. Leonardo da Vinci was the archetypal Renaissance man. He had an enormous influence on the development of painting, drawing and sculpture. He was a pioneer of perspective and of using anatomical studies to improve life drawing; he was an innovator in how to paint light and shade, in using new materials and in composition. That Leonardo was also a great scientist, engineer and inventor only became common knowledge when his journals were…

Leonardo da Vinci (15 April 1452–2 May 1519)

Leonardo’s military inventions

Leonardo da Vinci lived during a turbulent time in Italy’s history. In fact, Italy as it is today did not then exist, but was largely a collection of frequently warring city states. In addition, there were constant threats from, and takeovers by, the French and Spanish. Rich patrons would do anything to protect their wealth, status and territories, so when Leonardo suggested he could build terrifying weapons and defence systems, he found willing supporters. It is ironic that Leonardo should have produced such terrifying, warlike designs, since he was a committed pacifist. Perhaps that is why, in some cases, he seems to have introduced flaws into the designs deliberately, or withheld crucial information, which would prevent them from working. One pertinent example is his design for a tank, sketched out in…

Leonardo’s military inventions

Hans Lipperhey (1570 – September 1619)

The telescope has enabled us to discover our place in the Universe, and to reveal the treasures and sheer scale of deep space. Nobody is completely sure who was the first to construct a practical telescope or whose genius was the first to realize the potential for this device. However, Dutch lens maker Hans Lipperhey was certainly the first to apply for a patent, in 1608. Hans Lipperhey (sometimes spelled Lippershey) was born in Wesel, Germany, and moved to Middelburg, in the Netherlands (then the Dutch Republic), in 1594. In the same year he married, became a Dutch citizen and opened a spectacle shop in the city. Little is known of his life, but what is clear is that he was the first person to apply for a patent for the…

Hans Lipperhey (1570 – September 1619)

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

Although Lipperhey was by all accounts a gifted craftsman, and was the first to submit a patent application for the telescope, Galileo is the real genius in this story. His careful and thorough observation of the moon and his discovery and observations of the moons of Jupiter were key in overturning the long-standing, dogmatic theory that the earth is at the centre of the Universe. Galileo improved the basic telescope design, and by August 1609, had managed to make his own instrument with a magnification of 8x (8-to-1), compared to Lipperhey’s instrument, which could only magnify 3x. In the 1610s, he also experimented with the compound microscope, and in the 1620s, he became one of the first to make biological observations with microscopes. Galileo was a great thinker, and is often called…

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

Cornelius Drebbel (1572–October 1633)

The person who designed and built the first submarine, Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel, is not really a household name. But his brilliant mind, his grasp of chemical processes and the forces of nature made him one of the most prolific and best-known inventors of the 17th century. Cornelius Drebbel was born in Alkmaar, in the Netherlands (then the Dutch Republic), the son of a wealthy farmer. He had little formal schooling, but aged 20 he was apprenticed to the Dutch painter, engraver and publisher Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) in Haarlem. During his apprenticeship, Drebbel had the chance to experiment with more than engraving. He learned the art of alchemy, and throughout the rest of his life, his work was dominated by the elements of that art: earth, air, fire and water. Drebbel moved…

Cornelius Drebbel (1572–October 1633)

The development of thermometers

One of Cornelius Drebbel’s most important inventions was a basic thermometer. His instrument relied on the expansion and contraction of air trapped in a glass tube. Drebbel’s instrument was a thermoscope – an instrument that gives an indication of temperature while having no scale with which to measure it. At least three other experimenters produced air thermoscopes around the same time, but what set Drebbel’s apart was that he used it to control his thermostatic devices. His was the one that had the most influence on scientists in the next generation. It was Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) who invented the prototype of the modern liquid-in-glass thermometer. He also created the first accurate temperature scale, defined by fixed points – one of them was salted ice water, one was his wife’s armpit. In…

The development of thermometers

Benjamin Franklin (17 January 1706–17 April 1790)

When the United States of America was born on 4 July 1776, one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence was Benjamin Franklin. A fine statesman, Franklin was also an important figure in 18th-century science and invention – just the sort of person a new nation needs. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was one of 17 children, and his parents could only afford to send him to school for two years. He was keen to learn, however, and was an avid reader – and at just 12 years old, he became an apprentice at his older brother’s printing firm. Following a dispute with his brother five years later, Franklin ran away from home to make a new life in Philadelphia. Penniless to begin with, he…

Benjamin Franklin (17 January 1706–17 April 1790)

Researches in electricity

Franklin conceived of the lightning rod after carrying out research into electricity, a hot topic at the time. In 1747, he set up a laboratory at his own home. In the mid-1740s, scientists in Germany and Holland had invented a way of storing large amounts of electric charge, in a device called a Leyden jar (right). Franklin connected several of these jars together, so that they could produce a much stronger effect. In five letters to Britain’s Royal Society, Franklin laid down the foundations for the proper study of electrical phenomena. He was the first person to use the terms ‘charge’ and ‘discharge’, the first to write about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ electricity, and the first to understand that electric charge is not ‘created’, but simply transferred from place to place.…

Researches in electricity

James Watt (19 January 1736–25 August 1819)

One afternoon in May 1765, Scottish engineer James Watt had an idea that changed the world. Watt had hit upon a clever device to make steam engines more efficient and more powerful. It was this device and his other inventions that made steam the driving force of the Industrial Revolution. English engineer Thomas Newcomen (1663– 1729) built the first practical steam engine in 1712 to pump water from coal mines. By the time of Watt’s birth, there were nearly a hundred Newcomen engines across Britain, and several more in other countries. Newcomen’s engine relied on atmospheric pressure to push down a piston inside a huge, open-topped vertical cylinder. That could only happen if there was a vacuum inside the cylinder, beneath the piston. Newcomen achieved the necessary vacuum by condensing the steam…

James Watt (19 January 1736–25 August 1819)

The lunar society

James Watt was a member of a very important society: an informal group of scientists, engineers, industrialists, philosophers, doctors, artists and poets called the Lunar Society. This group of intellectuals typified the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment – that period of history when people began believing that science, technology and reason could, and should, shape society. Their activities centred on regular meetings, which were often held at the house of Matthew Boulton, also a member. In addition to the meetings, the members of the group were in frequent communication by letter. The Lunar Society was very important in the transformation of Britain from a rural, agricultural society to an urban, industrial one – it has been described as the revolutionary committee of the Industrial Revolution. The society’s name was derived from…

The lunar society

Nicéphore Niépce (7 March 1765–5 July 1833)

Less than 200 years ago, there was practically no way of producing a lasting image of a scene other than by drawing or painting it. Photography, invented by French scientist Nicéphore Niépce, has had a profound effect on art, education, history and science. Nicéphore Niépce was born in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. His father was a steward to a duke, but little else is known of his childhood. When he was 21, he left home to study at a Catholic oratory school in Angers, where he became interested in physics and chemistry. His first name was originally Joseph; he began using the name Nicéphore, which means ‘victory-bearer’, when he joined the fight against the monarchy in the French Revolution in 1788. It was in 1793 that Niépce first had the idea of producing permanent…

Nicéphore Niépce (7 March 1765–5 July 1833)

Louis Daguerre (1787–1851)

After his initial successes with bitumen on pewter plates, Niépce found a way to give better definition to his photographs, or ‘heliographs’ as he called them. He used iodine vapour to make the pewter darken. In 1829, Niépce began collaborating with a French artist, Louis Daguerre. Niépce died in 1833, but by 1837, Daguerre was producing images that only needed a few minutes’ exposure. He used copper plates coated with silver iodide, which were ‘developed’ after exposure to mercury vapour and then ‘fixed’ using a strong salt solution. Daguerre had improved the process so much that he felt justified in calling his photographs daguerreotypes. In 1839, the French Government gave Daguerre’s process away, patent-free, as a ‘gift to the world’, and paid Daguerre and Niépce’s son a handsome pension. Daguerreotypes became…

Louis Daguerre (1787–1851)

Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771–22 April 1833)

During the 19th century, the railways revolutionized travel and communication for millions of people. The coming of the railways was made possible by the invention of high-pressure steam engines by English engineer Richard Trevithick, who also designed and built the first steam locomotives. Richard Trevithick was born in the parish of Illogan in Cornwall, England. His father was the manager of several local mines, and Richard spent much of his early life gaining practical knowledge of steam engines. He did not do well at school, but he earned an excellent reputation after he became a mine engineer, aged 19. At that time, working engines used steam only at atmospheric pressure or slightly above. Trevithick realized early on that steam under high pressure could lead to more compact, more powerful engines. Most people…

Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771–22 April 1833)

The rainhill trials

Although Richard Trevithick laid the foundations of the railways, it was not until the 1820s that people began to see steam trains as a serious alternative to horse-drawn transport. The first public railway designed from the start to use steam power was opened between Stockton and Darlington, in northern England, in 1825. Two of the shareholders and engineers on that first railway were father and son George (1781–1848) and Robert Stephenson (1803–1859). In 1829, the Stephensons entered into the Rainhill Trials, a competition to find a locomotive for the forthcoming Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Their entry was called Rocket, and its many innovations made it the blueprint for all future steam locomotives. Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the ten 5-kilometre (3-mile) round trips required in the competition. When empty…

The rainhill trials

Michael Faraday (22 September 1791–25 August 1867)

Electric motors, generators and transformers have helped to define the modern world. English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday made the first examples of each of these devices. More pure scientist than inventor, Faraday nevertheless had a practical bent, which led him to find innovative ways of using some of the incredible things he created in his laboratory. Michael Faraday was born in Newington Butts, in London. Unlike most scientists of his day, he was not born into a wealthy family and did not benefit from much formal education. At the age of 13, his family secured an apprenticeship for him as a bookbinder. Faraday took the opportunity to read many of the books he bound, and from these he developed an interest in science. In 1812, he was given tickets to a…

Michael Faraday (22 September 1791–25 August 1867)

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)

During his researches with magnetism and electromagnetism, Michael Faraday became the first to describe ‘fields’ of force. Several of his contemporaries expressed his discoveries in the precise language of mathematics, which Faraday’s lack of formal education prevented him from doing. Most notable among these mathematical physicists was Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell. In the 1850s, Maxwell derived four equations that comprehensively describe the behaviour and interaction of electricity and magnetism. In 1864, Maxwell combined the equations, and the result was a single equation that describes wave motion. The speed of the wave described by the equation worked out to be exactly what experimenters had found the speed of light to be. Maxwell had shown that light is an electromagnetic wave. He went on to predict that light is a small part…

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)

Charles Babbage (26 December 1791–18 October 1871)

Long before the invention of the modern computer, a determined genius named Charles Babbage designed machines that would carry out complicated mathematical operations, and invented the world’s first programmable computing device. Babbage was a brilliant mathematician, but he also contributed to the development of business efficiency and railway travel. As a child, Babbage was extremely inquisitive. In his autobiography, he wrote that whenever he had a new toy, he would ask his mother “What’s inside it?” and broke things open to find out how they worked. This curiosity gave him an early understanding of machines and mechanisms. In 1810, he went to study mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge University. At the time, mathematicians and engineers completely relied on books filled with tables of numbers in order to carry out calculations. There were…

Charles Babbage (26 December 1791–18 October 1871)

Analytical engine

Babbage’s Analytical Engine was the first known design for a mechanical, general all-purpose computer. Although never built, the concepts it utilized in its design were at least 100 years before their time. Programs and data would be input using punched cards. Output consisted of a printer, a curved plotter and a bell. The machine’s memory would be capable of holding 1,000 numbers of 50 decimal digits each. The programming language it was to use was similar to that used in early computers 100 years later. It used loops and conditional branching and was thus Turing-complete long before Alan Turing’s concept (see page 146). Although Babbage’s direct influence on the later development of computing is argued greatly, Howard H. Aiken – the primary engineer behind IBM’s 1944 Harvard Mark I (the…

Analytical engine

Joseph Lister (5 April 1827–10 February 1912)

Until the late 19th century, patients undergoing even minor surgery had about as much chance of dying afterwards as they did of surviving. English surgeon Joseph Lister dramatically improved patients’ chances in the 1870s, by introducing antiseptics into surgery. Joseph Lister was born in Upton, in Essex, England, to a wealthy Quaker family. His father was a man of science, who made significant improvements to microscope design. Joseph studied the arts and then medicine at University College, London. Although born and educated in England, he spent most of his career in Scotland. In 1856, Lister became an assistant surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Four years later, he was appointed Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University Medical School. In 1861, Lister was put in charge of a new building with surgical wards…

Joseph Lister (5 April 1827–10 February 1912)

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865)

Nearly 30 years before Joseph Lister’s pioneering work on antiseptic surgery, a Hungarian obstetrician, Ignaz Semmelweis, demonstrated the importance of washing hands. He worked in maternity wards at the Vienna General Hospital, in Austria. In wards attended by doctors and medical students, a disease called puerperal fever typically claimed the lives of about 20 per cent of women after childbirth, while in midwife-only wards, the incidence of puerperal fever was much lower. Semmelweis realized that the doctors and students – who did not wash their hands between operations or even after dissecting corpses – were unwittingly transferring infections from one patient to another. In 1847, Semmelweis began a regime of washing hands with a solution of chlorinated water, and managed to reduce the mortality to below one per cent. Unfortunately, the…

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865)

Alfred Nobel (21 October 1833–10 December 1896)

Few scientists have left a legacy more noble than Alfred Nobel. This Swedish chemist not only invented dynamite, but also urged other scientists to explore new avenues of study by establishing the world’s most prestigious accolade for intellectual achievement: the Nobel prize. Since the award was founded in 1901, the greatest minds have been rewarded for their services to the advancement of science and other arts. This peer-assessed award, Nobel hoped, would inspire people to push the boundaries for the benefit of humanity. Past winners include such geniuses as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Alexander Fleming. Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 21 October 1833 to Immanuel and Andriette. His mechanical engineer father enjoyed varying degrees of success with a number of inventing and manufacturing business ventures. In 1837,…

Alfred Nobel (21 October 1833–10 December 1896)

Nobel’s work with nitroglycerin led him to experiment with different additives to stabilise the oily liquid. One of Nobel’s early ‘big ideas’ was the invention of a functioning detonator, which he designed first as a simple wooden plug and developed into the patented blasting cap, which was fitted with a small primary charge that could be detonated by a strong shock. While the detonators were groundbreaking, it was Alfred’s chemistry that really put him on the map. To make nitroglycerin safer, Nobel spent years developing the formula; several labs and factories were blown up in the process! Before long he discovered that by adding a very fine inert silica powder called diatomaceous earth, or kieselguhr, the oily nitroglycerin liquid could be transformed into a safer, malleable paste. When shaped into rods,…

Karl Benz (25 November 1844–4 April 1929)

The person responsible for designing the first true motor car, German engineer Karl Benz, had no idea what effect his invention would have on the world. By increasing mobility, less than 100 years after the rise of the railways, the motor car once again revolutionized patterns of work, play and the distribution of goods, and its rapid uptake in the 20th century changed the landscape very quickly and dramatically. Karl Benz was born in Karlsruhe, Baden (now in Germany). His father died when Karl was just two years old, but his mother encouraged him greatly, working hard to put him through grammar school and the Karlsruhe Polytechnische Schule (Institute of Technology). It was his dream from very early on to invent a form of transport that would run without horses and…

Karl Benz (25 November 1844–4 April 1929)

Henry Ford (1863–1947)

For 20 years after Karl Benz’s Patent Motorwagen, motor cars were not available to most people. The fact that each one had to be made individually kept the cost high, which in turn kept demand low. In 1908, American entrepreneur Henry Ford set out to change that, when he introduced what he called ‘a car for the great multitude’. The affordable Ford Model T was a real breakthrough, being made from interchangeable parts in a factory with tools laid out in an efficient arrangement. From 1913, the cars were manufactured on assembly lines. One of Ford’s employees had seen how effective production lines could be when he visited a meat-packing factory in Chicago. The application of the idea to the motor-car industry brought costs down dramatically, made Henry Ford incredibly rich…

Henry Ford (1863–1947)

Thomas Edison (11 February 1847–18 October 1931)

For the sheer number of important inventions he pioneered, Thomas Edison is one of the best-known and most prolific inventors of all time. He was granted a total of 1,093 US patents, but perhaps his greatest invention of all was something he could not patent: organized, systematic research. Home-schooled from the age of 12, Edison set up his first laboratory in his bedroom at his family’s home in Port Huron, Michigan. Much of his early effort was dedicated to improving the telegraph, a system that had revolutionized long-distance communication in the 1840s. At 14, Edison built a working telegraph at home; by the age of 16, he was working as a telegraph operator at his local telegraph office; and for the next five years he travelled, working at a number of…

Thomas Edison (11 February 1847–18 October 1931)

Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847–2 August 1922)

Probably the most lucrative patent of all time was awarded to a Scottish-Canadian-American inventor in 1876, for a device that had the magical ability to transmit the sound of the human voice across long distances. The inventor’s name was Alexander Graham Bell, and the device was the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father and grandfather were pioneers in the field of speech and elocution, and his mother had a condition that resulted in progressive hearing loss. These influences inspired Bell to study language and the human voice. The young Bell attended a prestigious school in Edinburgh, and when he left aged 16, he taught music and elocution before studying in Edinburgh and London. After his studies, Bell taught deaf people to speak, using a method his…

Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847–2 August 1922)

Elisha Gray (1831-1901)

Alexander Graham Bell’s company fought a total of 587 lawsuits over priority in the invention of the telephone during the 1880s and ‘90s. The company won them all, ultimately due to the fact that no one had claimed priority until many months after Bell was awarded his patent. However, some controversy remains over Bell and one of his competitors at the time: prolific American inventor Elisha Gray. On the same day as Bell filed his patent, 14 February 1876, Gray filed a patent ‘caveat’ at the same office, for a very similar device. There is evidence that Bell had sight of Gray’s application. In Bell’s first successful experiment, he used a water-based microphone Gray had designed. But he never used it in public demonstrations, probably because he knew he should not…

Elisha Gray (1831-1901)

George Eastman (12 July 1854–14 March 1932)

In its first fifty years, photography was the preserve of a relatively small number of professionals and enthusiastic amateurs. It was expensive, time-consuming, awkward and very specialized. All that changed in 1888, when American inventor George Eastman began selling a cheaper camera, which was also easier to use. George Eastman was born on a small farm in New York State, USA. When he was five years old, the family moved to the city of Rochester, also in New York. His father died when George was just eight years old, and the family fell on hard times. As a result, George had to leave school aged 13, to find a job. He was keen to learn, though, and was largely self-taught. Eastman’s interest in photography was sparked at age 24 when, while working…

George Eastman (12 July 1854–14 March 1932)

The first camera with mass-market appeal, the Kodak, retailed at $25 (5 shillings in the UK). This was only half what Eastman paid for the first camera he bought, but it was still prohibitively expensive for everyday photography. In 1900, the Eastman Kodak Company introduced the first of its most successful range of cameras: the Brownie. Eastman Kodak made and sold 99 different models of Brownies between 1900 and 1980. The first Brownie was a cardboard box that contained a roll holder, a roll of film and a lens. On the outside, there was a shutter button and a spool winder. The epitome of simplicity, it sold for just $1 (equivalent to about $20 in 2010), and brought in the era of the ‘snapshot’ – a photograph taken without preparation that…

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856–7 January 1943)

Serbian-American genius Nikola Tesla would be very MUCH at home in today’s developed world, with its almost ubiquitous electricity supply and its widespread reliance on wireless technologies. His vision and determination went a long way towards creating it. Nikola Tesla was born into a Serbian family in Smiljan, now in the Republic of Croatia but at the time of his birth part of the Austrian Empire. He studied engineering, first in Austria then in Prague, where he dropped out after a few months as his father died. Nevertheless, in 1880, he landed a job as a telephone engineer in Budapest. In 1882, Telsa had a flash of inspiration that resulted in one of his most important inventions: the AC (alternating current) motor. AC is electric current that repeatedly changes the direction it…

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856–7 January 1943)

War of currents

Nikola Tesla’s most important achievement is his design of the power distribution system that has become the standard way of delivering electrical power from generator to consumer. Based on alternating currents, it superseded Thomas Edison’s direct current system. In 1893, the superiority of Tesla’s AC system became apparent when the Westinghouse Electrical Company provided impressive electrification of the Chicago World’s Fair. That year, Tesla had the chance to fulfil a childhood dream: to harness the power of the Niagara Falls. He and Westinghouse won the contract to build a power plant there, and their success when the first electricity flowed in 1896 bolstered the cause of AC power systems. In the following years, Edison mounted a bitter publicity campaign denouncing AC as dangerous, even going so far as orchestrating public electrocutions…

Auguste and Louis Lumière (19 October 1862–10 April 1954 and 5 October 1864–6 June 1948)

While no single person can be credited with inventing moving pictures, two French brothers – Auguste and Louis Lumière – stand out for their foresight and their important contributions. Using a film cameraprojector that they designed, they put on some of the earliest public film screenings and helped to define cinema. Auguste and Louis Lumière were born in Besançon, France, where their father had a photographic studio. In 1870, they moved to Lyon, and their father opened a small factory that made photographic plates. In 1882, Auguste and Louis helped to bring the factory back from the brink of financial collapse by mechanizing the production of the plates, and selling a new type of plate that Louis had invented the previous year. The firm moved to a larger factory in Montplaisir,…

Auguste and Louis Lumière (19 October 1862–10 April 1954 and 5 October 1864–6 June 1948)

Pioneers of motion pictures

The Lumière brothers pioneered cinema, but weren’t the first to make moving-picture films. Many were experimenting with moving pictures several years before them. One of the first people to capture realistic movement on film was French inventor Louis Le Prince (1841–1890). Le Prince made his first successful film in October 1888. This was a sequence shot in his father-in-law’s garden in Leeds, England, showing his son, his in-laws and a family friend. The Lumières were not the first to project films to a paying audience, either. Projection and a paying audience form the definition of cinema. That honour of the first cinema performance goes to American brothers Grey and Otway Latham, who projected their films in New York in May 1895. But the ‘projector’ they were using was simply a modified…

Pioneers of motion pictures

Wilbur and Orville Wright (16 April 1867–30 May 1912 & 19 August 1871–30 January 1948)

At the dawn of the 20th century, two brothers from a small town in the USA – Wilbur and Orville Wright – became the first to achieve sustained, powered flight. The key to their success was the combination of their inventive, mechanical skill with the application of scientific principles to flight. Moreover, they learned to become pilots in a gradual, thoughtful way, rather than risking everything on one short trial, like so many other pioneers. Wilbur (seen right) and Orville (left) Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio, in a family with seven children (although two died in childhood). They were mechanically-minded from an early age: in 1886, they built their own lathe; in 1888, they built a printing press, which they used to produce their own local paper; and in 1892, they…

Wilbur and Orville Wright (16 April 1867–30 May 1912 & 19 August 1871–30 January 1948)

Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896)

It was Wilbur who was first struck by the desire to build a powered flying machine, after reading a magazine article about Otto Lilienthal, a German gliding pioneer. Lilienthal realized that to develop successful flying machines, any inventor needed to understand the scientific principles behind flight but also needed first-hand experience of flying. The Wright brothers took the same approach, and paid tribute to Lilienthal as their inspiration. Lilienthal began his quest to fly by studying birds, and then carried out a huge amount of research into aerodynamics. In the 1890s, he made nearly 2,000 flights, mostly from an artificial hill he built near Berlin, in gliders he had designed and constructed. During what was to be his last flight, a gust of wind made him stall at an altitude of…

Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896)

Guglielmo Marconi (25 April 1874–20 July 1937)

The early history of radio is rather complex, and credit is due to dozens of important pioneers. One of the most important and successful was Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, who helped bring radio into everyday use. Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy to an Italian father and an Irish mother. From an early age, he took an interest in science and was particularly interested in electricity. In late 1894, Marconi became aware of the experiments of the German physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), who had succeeded in proving the existence of radio waves during the late 1880s. Hertz produced radio waves by sending a rapidly alternating current up and down a vertical antenna, and detected the waves up to 20 metres (65 feet) away. Marconi also read about a demonstration that English…

Guglielmo Marconi (25 April 1874–20 July 1937)

Lee De Forest (1873–1961)

In the early 1900s, radio communication could only be made using wireless telegraphy – sending Morse-code messages as on-and-off pulses of radio waves. That changed with the introduction of audio broadcasting; regular broadcasts began in 1920. One of the most important technologies involved in the development of audio broadcasting was the Audion, invented in 1906 by American electronics engineer Lee de Forest . The Audion was an early example of a ‘valve’ that found myriad uses in the developing field of electronics. In radio and television broadcasting, it enabled the construction of all-electronic ‘oscillators’, which produced radio waves of any frequency to order. From the 1920s until the 1960s, radio and TV sets used valves for amplification. Eventually, they were replaced by the smaller, less power-hungry transistor, invented in 1947.…

Lee De Forest (1873–1961)

Carl Bosch (27 August 1874–26 April 1940)

There is one 20th-century invention that arguably changed the world more profoundly than any other. It is not a machine or a device, but an industrial process. The manufacture of ammonia, perfected by German chemist Carl Bosch, enabled the production of fertilizers and explosives on a completely unprecedented scale, resulting in a meteoric rise in population and unlimited explosive capacity in two world wars. Carl Bosch was born in Cologne, Germany. He studied mechanical engineering and metallurgy at Charlottenburg Technical University. In 1896, he began studying chemistry, at the University of Leipzig. Three years later, Bosch joined Germany’s most successful chemical company, in Ludwigshafen. At the time, the company’s name was Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik; nowadays, the name is simply BASF. At first, Bosch worked on synthetic dyes, but in 1905 he…

Carl Bosch (27 August 1874–26 April 1940)

Carl Bosch made it possible to produce huge quantities of ammonia, much of which is made into nitrogen-rich ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) fertilizer. Careful estimates suggest that synthetic fertilizers feed about half of the world’s population. Plants rely upon nitrogen compounds for building proteins and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). In nature, nitrates come from decaying plant and animal matter and from certain bacteria, which fix nitrogen from the air. Bosch’s lasting legacy is doubleedged, however. Artificial fertilizers saved millions from starvation, but the huge increases in population they allowed, from nearly 1.8 billion in 1910 to nearly 7 billion a century later, have put a strain on the world’s resources. Their manufacture accounts for about one per cent of the world’s total energy consumption and their use causes pollution; agricultural run-off creates ‘harmful…

Vladimir Zworykin (30 July 1889–29 July 1982)

Television changed the way of life of hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century. But the history of this farreaching invention is far from simple: dozens of inventive people contributed to its development. One of the most significant pioneers was Russianborn inventor Vladimir Zworykin, who also made important contributions to the development of the electron microscope. Vladimir Zworykin was born in the town of Murom, in what was then the Russian Empire. As a child he spent time installing and repairing electric doorbells in the family-owned passenger steamships. In 1912, he obtained a degree in engineering from the Saint Petersburg Institute of Technology. At the Institute, one of Zworykin’s professors, Boris Rosing (1869–1933) showed him a project he had been working on in secret. Rosing called it ‘electric telescopy’…

Vladimir Zworykin (30 July 1889–29 July 1982)

Television pioneers

For much of the 1930s, Vladimir Zworykin was embroiled in a lengthy patent battle between the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and another television pioneer, American inventor Philo T Farnsworth (1906–1971). Farnsworth won the battle – at great cost to RCA. Another important figure in developing electronic television was Hungarian inventor Kálmán Tihanyi (1897–1947), whose work was crucial in making Zworykin’s Iconoscope camera work. There was another approach to television besides the all-electronic system: the ‘electromechanical system’. In 1924, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (1888–1946; shown far left, standing by the railings) transmitted the first-ever television pictures. The earliest photograph of a television picture (above) shows Baird’s business partner. Instead of electron beams scanning the inside of a cathode ray tube, Baird’s device used spinning discs with spiral holes to…

Television pioneers

Juan de la Cierva (21 September 1895–9 December 1935)

A strange aircraft took to the air in 1923. It was the autogyro, an aeroplane with both a propeller and a rotor, invented by Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva. Today, the autogyro is only flown by enthusiasts, having been superseded by the more manoeuvrable helicopter. The most important feature of helicopter design, however, the complicated mechanics at the hub of the rotor, was established in Cierva’s autogyros. Juan de la Cierva was born to a wealthy family in Mercia, Spain. As a boy, he was inspired by the early pioneers of flight, and he became determined to be an aviator himself. In 1911, he went to study civil engineering in Madrid. That year, he and two friends experimented with gliders, and formed an aviation company. In 1912, Cierva built the…

Juan de la Cierva (21 September 1895–9 December 1935)

The autogyro, invented by Juan de la Cierva and later developed by Russian engineer Igor Bensen (1917–2000), was effective, safe, and moved through the air almost as fast as some aeroplanes did. Autogyros found several uses during the Second World War, including reconnaissance and even the bombing of submarines. But autogyros could not hover, or perform truly vertical landings and take-offs so eventually helicopters gained the edge once they became practical. It was Russian-American aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky (1889– 1972) who established the blueprint for the modern helicopter. Sikorsky built his first helicopter in 1909 but, as with other inventors’ attempts at the time, it did not work. After working on fixed-wing aircraft during the 1910s and ’20s, Sikorsky produced one of the world’s first successful helicopters, the VS-300, in 1939.…

Wernher von Braun (23 March 1912–16 June 1977)

German-American rocket engineer Wernher von Braun designed the first rocket-powered long-range ballistic missiles – but his real achievement was in spaceflight. His determination in following his boyhood dream of sending people to the Moon, together with his excellent technical and leadership skills, made him the ultimate spaceflight pioneer of the 20th century. Wernher von Braun was born a baron, to an aristocratic family in the town of Wirsitz, in the then German Empire (now Wyrzysk in Poland). After the First World War, his family moved to Berlin, Germany. Young Wernher became interested in space when his mother, a serious amateur astronomer, gave him a telescope – and he was mesmerized by stories of journeys into outer space. von Braun studied mechanical engineering at the Charlottenburg Institute of Technology, in Berlin. While…

Wernher von Braun (23 March 1912–16 June 1977)

Early spaceflight pioneers

It was when he read Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) that Wernher von Braun set about learning the mathematics, physics and engineering necessary to make space travel a reality. The book was written by German rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth (1894–1989), in 1923. Oberth was one of three visionaries who independently worked out how multi-staged rockets could be used to lift into space. The other two were Russian mathematics teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) and American physicist Robert Goddard (1882–1945). In 1926, Goddard became the first person to build and fly a liquid-fuel rocket, in his aunt’s farm in Massachusetts. In his day, Goddard was ridiculed in the press. Nevertheless, Wernher von Braun, although himself an innovator, based much of his early work on Goddard’s research.…

Early spaceflight pioneers

Alan Turing (23 June 1912–7 June 1954)

The first electronic digital computers appeared in the 1940s. They were not simply the result of advances in electronics. Their development relied on a theory of computation formulated by English mathematician Alan Turing, who was also an important wartime code-breaker and a pioneer of machine intelligence. Alan Turing was born in London to an uppermiddle-class family, and his genius was evident from an early age. He taught himself to read in a matter of weeks and while in his teens at the auspicious Sherborne public school in Dorset he developed a fascination for science and mathematics. In 1931, he went to King’s College, Cambridge, to study mathematics. While he was at university, Turing became interested in logic. This was a hot topic in mathematics at the time: mathematicians were attempting to define…

Alan Turing (23 June 1912–7 June 1954)

The central processing unit

A general-purpose computer is defined by the presence of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) to carry out instructions, memory to hold the instructions and some form of input and output. This basic architecture is called the von Neumann architecture, after Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903–1957). In 1945, he presented a paper to the US Army proposing a general-purpose computing machine, with the ability to store programs. His proposal was based on the idea of the Universal Turing Machine developed by Turing. The computer was the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer), one of the earliest general-purpose computers, which ran its first programs in 1951. In modern computers, the CPU is contained on a chip of semiconductor called a microprocessor.…

The central processing unit

Gertrude Elion (23 January 1918–21 February 1999)

The inventions of American biochemist Gertrude Elion are far too small to see. They are works of engineering, but at the molecular level: Elion was a pioneer of chemotherapy. The medicines she developed have brought hope to millions of people with bacterial and viral infections and cancer. Gertrude Elion was born in New York, USA. Her mother was from Russia, her father from Lithuania. As a child, ‘Trudy’ had an insatiable desire to read and learn, and she took an interest in all subjects. It was the fact that her grandfather had died of leukaemia that fostered her interest in science. At the age of 15, she began studying chemistry at Hunter College, New York, in the hope that she might one day develop medicines to cure or prevent the disease…

Gertrude Elion (23 January 1918–21 February 1999)

Transplant surgery

In 1958, American doctor William Dameshek (1900–1969) suggested that Gertrude Elion’s anti-leukaemia drug 6-MP might be effective at suppressing the immune system. If true, the drug might prevent the body’s rejection of organs after transplant surgery. Damashek’s rationale was that the white blood cells responsible for the immune response were similar to the white blood cells involved in leukaemia. In 1960, English transplant pioneer Roy Calne (b.1930) tested 6-MP in dog kidney transplants, and found that it was fairly effective. Gertrude Elion suggested that a related compound, azathioprine, might be more effective, and Calne conducted promising trials with the new drug in 1961. The first successful kidney transplant between unrelated humans was performed soon after, using azathioprine. In combination with corticosteroids, this drug became the mainstay of transplant surgery, until it…

Transplant surgery

Tim Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955)

In modern life, it seems increasingly hard for an individual to invent something that truly changes the world. However, one person who did just that is English physicist and computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. In 1990, he launched the World Wide Web. Timothy Berners-Lee was born in London. His parents were both computer scientists. As a boy, Tim became interested in electronics after building circuits to control his model train set. He studied physics at Oxford University; while he was there, he built his first computer. After graduating in 1976, he worked as a computer systems engineer at various companies. In 1980, Berners-Lee spent six months at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, a particle physics facility in the outskirts of Geneva, on the border between France and Switzerland. It is better known…

Tim Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955)

Doug Engelbart (1925–2013)

Two very important technologies underpinned Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web: hyperlinks and the computer mouse. American computer scientist Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse in 1967, and he was also heavily involved in the development of hyperlinks. In the 1960s, Engelbart headed a team at the Augmentation Research Center, at the Stanford Research Institute, California. Engelbart’s team devised an online ‘collaboration system’ called NLS (oN-Line System). This included the first use of hyperlinks and the mouse, which Engelbart invented in 1967. In 1968, Engelbart demonstrated NLS to a large audience of computer scientists. In addition to hyperlinks and the mouse, the 90-minute session, normally referred to as ‘The Mother of All Demos’, introduced such ideas as e-mail, videoconferencing and real-time collaboration between computer users far apart.…

Doug Engelbart (1925–2013)

PHOTOGRAPHS The publishers would like to thank the following sources for their kind permission to reproduce the photographs in this book. Key: t = top, b = bottom, l = left, r = right and c = centre AKG-Images: 20 (c) Alamy: 34 (bl), 44 (t), 150 (bl); / The Art Gallery Collection: 27 (tl); /Gavin Hellier: 26 (tr); /The Print Collector: 22 (tr) The Art Archive: 35 (tr) British Library Images: 24 (tl) Corbis: 137 (tr), 158 (tl); /Austrian Archives: 133 (cr); /Nathan Benn: 154 (br); /Bettmann: 24 (tl), 33, 59 (cl), 81 (br), 94 (t), 104 (bl), 105 (tl), 108 (tl), 109 (t), 126 (t), 127, 137 (tr), 140 (t); / Andrew Bursso 156 (tc); /Ken Cedeno: 23 (br); /DK Limited:108 (tr); /Rik Ergenbright: 75 (tl); /Christel Gerstenberg: 23 (tl); /Hulton-Deutsch Collection: 57, 59 (t),…

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