Technology & Infrastructure in the 18th century

156 sourced entries, 1702 CE to 1799 CE, oldest first. Also see Technology & Infrastructure across every century or everything else in the 18th century.

• 1702January 12 – In North America, ships from Fort Maurepas arrive at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff to build Fort Louis de la Mobile (future Mobile, Alabama), to become the capital of French Louisiana.source
• 1704Nerchinsky Zavod is founded in the Nerchinsko-Zavodsky District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia by Greek mining engineers.source
• 1705Construction begins on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire designed by John Vanbrugh for the Duke of Marlborough and partly funded by the Crown. It is completed in 1724.source
• 1705Taichung City, Taiwan is founded as the village of Dadun.source
• 1706October – Twinings founder, Thomas Twining, opens the first known tea room at 216 Strand, London, still open .source
• 1707A fortress is founded on the future site of Ust-Abakanskoye (modern Abakan).source
• 1707Hacienda Juriquilla is built in Querétaro, Mexico.source
• 1708February 26 – HMS Falmouth, a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built at Woolwich Dockyard for the British Royal Navy, is launched.source
• 1708Calcareous hard-paste porcelain is produced for the first time in Europe, at Dresden, Saxony, by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, and developed after his death (October) by Johann Friedrich Böttger.source
• 1709January 10 – Abraham Darby I successfully produces cast iron using coke fuel at his Coalbrookdale blast furnace in Shropshire, England.source
• 1709March 28 – Johann Friedrich Böttger reports the first production of hard-paste porcelain in Europe, at Dresden.source
• 1709July 13 – Production of Eau de Cologne is begun by perfumier Johann Maria Farina in Germany, founding Johann Maria Farina gegenüber dem Jülichs-Platz.source
• 1709The first piano is exhibited in Florence by its inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori, who names it "gravicembalo col piano e forte", a name which is subsequently shortened to "pianoforte" and then "piano".source
• 1709The second Eddystone Lighthouse, erected off the south west coast of England by John Rudyerd, is completed.source
• 1710March 6 – The ancient Roman Pillar of the Boatmen is found during the construction of a crypt under the nave of Notre-Dame de Paris.source
• 1710April 10 – The world's first copyright legislation, Britain's Statute of Anne, becomes effective.source
• 1710Jacob Christoph Le Blon, working in Amsterdam, invents a three-color printing process with red, blue, and yellow plates, a precursor of the modern CMYK printing process.source
• 1712July 8 – The British Royal Navy 50-gun ship HMS Advice is launched at Deptford Dockyard.source
• 1712The first known working Newcomen steam engine is built by Thomas Newcomen with John Calley, to pump water out of mines in the Black Country of England, the first device to make practical use of the power of steam to produce mechanical work.source
• 1714June 3 – The city of Kassel in Germany inaugurates the summer tradition of the "water stairs" or "great cascades" (Grossen Kaskaden) emptying from the base of the Hercules monument down to the Wilhelmshöhe castle.source
• 1714The river Kander (Switzerland) is redirected into Lake Thun.source
• 1715August 31 – Old Dock, Liverpool, England, the world's first enclosed commercial wet dock (Thomas Steers, engineer), opens.source
• 1715Karlsruhe Palace is built, resulting in the town of Karlsruhe growing up around it.source
• 1715Filippo Juvarra starts working on the previously postponed construction of the church of Santa Christina in Turin.source
• 1715Coffee is first grown in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.source
• 1718Coffee is grown in Surinam (Dutch colony).source
• 1719June 18 – Captain John Perry fixes the Dagenham Breach of the River Thames in England.source
• 1719October 21 – The Red Canal is opened in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, after seven years of construction, at a ceremony in the presence of the Tsar Peter the Great.source
• 1720The Town on Queen Anne's Creek, North Carolina is renamed Edenton, in honor of North Carolina Governor Charles Eden; it is incorporated in 1722.source
• 1720The first yacht club in the world, the Royal Cork Yacht Club, is founded in Ireland.source
• 1721Regular mail service between London and New England is established.source
• 1722The Chiesa del Purgatorio, Venafro, Italy, Catholic Church is built.source
• 1723The Province of Carolina incorporates Beaufort, North Carolina, as the Port of Beaufort, making it the third incorporated town in the province.source
• 1729November 29 – The first (wooden) Putney Bridge is completed, as the only fixed crossing of the River Thames between London Bridge and Kingston, England.source
• 1733May 26 – The introduction of John Kay's Flying Shuttle which revolutionized the textile industry and marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.source
• 1735The King's Highway (Charleston to Boston) is completed.source
• 1735Quebec: Construction begins on the Chemin du roy between Quebec and Montreal.source
• 1735Probable date – Founded by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret, Switzerland, Blancpain becomes the first registered watch brand in the world.source
• 1735A shipbuilding industry begins in Mumbai.source
• 1735Leonhard Euler solves the Basel problem, first posed by Pietro Mengoli in 1644, and the Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem.source
• 1736The Belgrade Fortress is completed.source
• 1736One of the earliest records of use of a bathing machine is made at Scarborough, England.source
• 1738February 11 – Jacques de Vaucanson stages the first demonstration of an early automaton, The Flute Player at the Hotel de Longueville in Paris, and continues to display it until March 30.source
• 1738June 24 – British inventor Lewis Paul receives a patent for roller cotton-spinning machinery.source
• 1738July 1 – English metallurgist William Champion is granted a patent for his process of extracting zinc from other materials in a furnace.source
• 1738Black Forest clockmaker Franz Ketterer produces one of the earliest cuckoo clocks.source
• 1740March 25 – Construction begins on Bethesda Orphanage for boys near Savannah, Georgia, founded by George Whitefield.source
• 1740Spain begins construction on Fort Matanzas in the Matanzas Inlet, approximately 15 mi km south of St. Augustine, Florida.source
• 1741Summer – Upper Priory Cotton Mill is opened in Birmingham, England, as the world's first mechanised cotton mill by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt; although this is not a commercial success, other Paul-Wyatt cotton mills follow.source
• 1742Molde, Norway, becomes a city.source
• 1742Spain completes the construction of Fort Matanzas in the Matanzas Inlet, approximately 15 mi km south of St. Augustine, Florida.source
• 1742Eisenach, Germany builds its Stadtschloss (city castle).source
• 1743Capodimonte porcelain is first manufactured, in Naples.source
• 1745October 11 – At Köslin (modern Koszalin in Poland) Prussian scientist Ewald Georg von Kleist independently invents the first electrical capacitor to store and discharge electricity. The invention, commonly called the Leyden jar is later credited to a subsequent inventor Pieter van Musschenbroek.source
• 1745November 8 – Jacobite rising of 1745: Charles Edward Stuart crosses from Scotland into England for the first time. He arrives at Longtown, Cumbria, and spends the night at a nearby village, the Riddings, then leads his army south along the right bank of the River Eden the next day.source
• 1748Construction of the Sveaborg fortification begins near Helsinki.source
• 1748Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh.source
• 1749A census is conducted in Finland.source
• 1750November 18 – Westminster Bridge is officially opened in London.source
• 1750Britain produces c. 2% of the entire world's output of industrial goods, before the Industrial Revolution begins.source
• 1752July 30 – The first of the Kronstadt canals, conceived by Peter the Great and designed to link two of the harbors of the Russian city, is completed and opened to maritime traffic.source
• 1753August 6 – Russian scientist Georg Richmann becomes the first person to be electrocuted by his own equipment after he uses an insulated, but improperly grounded, lightning rod in an attempt to gather data on a thunderstorm. Richmann also becomes the first victim of ball lightning during his scientific experiment, in an attempt to replicate the experiments of American Benjamin Franklin.source
• 1753The Cramer family starts a brewing operation at Warstein in North Rhine-Westphalia, originating the Warsteiner brand.source
• 1755March 12 – A steam engine is used in the American colonies for the first time as New Jersey copper mine owner Arent Schuyler installs a Newcomen atmospheric engine to pump water out of a mineshaft.source
• 1755September 17 – Jean-Marc Vacheron founds his watch-making company Vacheron Constantin. To this day, Vacheron Constantin is the oldest watchmaker in the world with an uninterrupted watchmaking history since its foundation. 'Treasures of Vacheron Constantin: A Legacy of Watchmaking since 1755'source
• 1755Wolsey, the clothes manufacturer, is established in Leicester, England; the business celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2005.source
• 1756The first chocolate-candy factory begins operations in Germany.source
• 1756The town of Gus-Khrustalny is established in Russia, with the setting up of a crystal glass factory.source
• 1759May 1 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery in England.source
• 1759October 16 – Smeaton's Tower, John Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of South West England, is first illuminated.source
• 1761July 17 – The first section of the Bridgewater Canal is opened, for the transportation of coal from local mines to Manchester.source
• 1761November 7 – The New London Harbor Light is first lit to guide ships into the Connecticut harbor; the lighthouse, only the fourth to be built has been in continuous operation for more than 250 years.source
• 1762Louis XV orders the construction of the Petit Trianon, in the park of the Palace of Versailles, for his mistress Madame de Pompadour.source
• 1765April 26 – At Saint Petersburg, German engineer Christian Kratzenstein presents to the Russian Academy of Sciences a perfected version of the arithmetical machine originally invented by Gottfried Leibniz. Kratzenstein claims that his machine solves the problem with the Leibniz machine has with calculations above four digits, perfecting the flaw where the machine is "prone to err whenever it is necessary to make a number of 9999 move to 10000", but the machine is not developed further.source
• 1765May 26 – During a stroll in the park "on a fine Sabbath afternoon" at Glasgow Green, Scottish engineer James Watt receives the inspiration that provides the breakthrough in his development of the steam engine; he recounts later that "The idea came into my mind, that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication was made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."source
• 1765August 9 – Russian Empress Catherine II issues a decree authorizing the new way to produce vodka (by freezing).source
• 1766April 3 – Seventeen days after the Stamp Act's repeal in London, news reaches America of the decision.source
• 1766May 29 – In a paper read to the Royal Society, British theoretical chemist Henry Cavendish first describes his process of producing what he refers to as "inflammable air" by dissolving base metals such as iron, zinc and tin in a flask of sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid, drawing the conclusion that the vapor that was released is different from air. Seven years later, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier bestows the name "hydrogen" on the gas.source
• 1769April 29 – Scottish inventor James Watt is granted a British patent for "A method of lessening the consumption of steam in steam engines" – the separate condenser, a key improvement (first devised by Watt in 1765) and the basis for the Watt steam engine which stimulates the Industrial Revolution.source
• 1769July 3 – Richard Arkwright patents a spinning frame in England, able to spin threads mechanically.source
• 1769October 23 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates a steam-powered artillery tractor (see drawing) in France.source
• 1770January 1 – The foundation of Fort George, Bombay is laid by Colonel Keating, principal engineer, on the site of the former Dongri Fort.source
• 1770November 14 – James Bruce discovers what he believes to be the source of the Nile.source
• 1770The Baron d'Holbach's (anonymous) materialist work Le Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral is produced in Neuchâtel.source
• 1771March 15 – The Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers first meets in London, the world's oldest engineering society.source
• 1771November 16 – During the night the River Tyne in the north of England floods, destroying many bridges and killing several people; the replacement main bridge at Newcastle upon Tyne will not be completed until 1781.source
• 1771Limoges porcelain manufacture is established in France.source
• 1773Marsala wine first shipped to England.source
• 1774January 27 – British industrialist John Wilkinson patents a method for boring cannon from the solid, subsequently utilised for accurate boring of steam engine cylinders.source
• 1774February 7 – The volunteer fire company of Trenton, New Jersey, predecessor to the paid Trenton Fire Department created in 1892, is founded. In 1905, at 131 years, it claims to be the oldest continuously serving department in the U.S.source
• 1774German cobbler Johann Birkenstock creates the first Birkenstock sandals.source
• 1775June 16 – The post of chief engineer of the Continental Army is created.source
• 1775Breguet, one of the oldest Swiss luxury watch brands, clock and jewelry manufacturers is founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris.source
• 1775Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.source
• 1775John Wilkinson invents and patents a new kind of boring machine.source
• 1775James Watt's 1769 steam engine patent is extended to June 1800 by Act of Parliament and the first engines are built under it.source
• 1776The first commercial examples of the Watt steam engine are sold.source
• 1778April 30 – The 1800 ft long Hudson River Chain, designed to prevent British ships from moving up the river toward West Point, New York is stretched across the river and anchored by an engineering team under the direction of Captain Thomas Machin.source
• 1778The term thoroughbred is first used in the United States, in an advertisement in a Kentucky gazette, to describe a New Jersey stallion called Pilgarlick.source
• 1779July 20 – Tekle Giyorgis I begins the first of his five reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.source
• 1779The spinning mule is perfected by Lancashire inventor Samuel Crompton.source
• 1779The Iron Bridge is erected across the River Severn in Shropshire, the world's first bridge built entirely of cast iron. It will open to traffic on January 1, 1781.source
• 1779Boulton and Watt's Smethwick Engine, now the oldest working engine in the world, is brought into service (May).source
• 1779Industrial Revolution in England:source
• 1780July 17 – The first bank created in the United States, the Bank of Pennsylvania, is chartered.source
• 1780The Woodford Reserve bourbon whiskey distillery begins operation in Kentucky.source
• 1780The original Craven Cottage is built by William Craven, 6th Baron Craven, in London, on what will become the centre circle of Fulham F.C.'s pitch.source
• 1781January 1 – Industrial Revolution: The Iron Bridge opens across the River Severn in England.source
• 1781October 20 – A Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in the Habsburg monarchy.source
• 1782April 21 – A Lak Mueang (city pillar) is erected on Rattanakosin Island, located on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River, by order of King Rama I, an act considered the founding of the capital city of Bangkok.source
• 1782October 18 – The first franking privilege is granted for official correspondence to be sent at no charge to and from members of the Confederation Congress, at government expense, during periods when the Congress is in session.source
• 1782The British Parliament extends James Watt's patent for the steam engine to the year 1800.source
• 1783October 3 – The first Waterford Crystal glassmaking business begins production in Waterford, Ireland.source
• 1783The Evan Williams (bourbon) distillery is founded in Bardstown, Kentucky.source
• 1785January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.source
• 1785March 10 – American engineer James Rumsey sends a letter to George Washington informing of his plans to create a steamboat.source
• 1785May 23 – Benjamin Franklin receives a patent for bifocals.source
• 1785Coal gas is first used for illumination.source
• 1786March 13 – Construction begins in Dublin on the Four Courts Building, with the first stone laid down by the United Kingdom's Viceroy for Ireland, the Duke of Rutland.source
• 1786October 6 – HMS Bellerophon begins service with the Royal Navy.source
• 1786James Rumsey tests his first steamboat on the Potomac River, at Shepherdstown, Virginia.source
• 1787August 27 – Launching a 45 ft m steam powered craft on the Delaware River, John Fitch demonstrates the first U.S. patent for his design.source
• 1787December 3 – James Rumsey demonstrates his water-jet propelled boat on the Potomac River.source
• 1788February 1 – Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent a steamboat.source
• 1788Annual British iron production reaches 68,000 tons.source
• 1789September 11 – Alexander Hamilton is appointed as the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.source
• 1789Thomas Jefferson returns from Europe, bringing the first macaroni machine to the United States.source
• 1789The pedal-powered tricycle is invented by two Frenchmen, Blanchard and Maguier.source
• 1789Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio) is built to protect early U.S. settlements in the Northwest Territory.source
• 1790March 1 – The first United States Census is authorized; it is held later in the year.source
• 1790April 10 – The United States patent system is established.source
• 1790June 9 – Royal assent is given to establishment of the port of Milford Haven in Wales.source
• 1790July 31 – Inventor Samuel Hopkins becomes the first to be issued a U.S. patent (for an improved method of making potash).source
• 1791August 6 – The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (Prussia) is finished.source
• 1791August 26 – John Fitch is granted a patent for the steamboat in the United States.source
• 1791Camembert cheese reputedly first made by Marie Harel, a farmer from Normandy.source
• 1792June 13 – Vancouver becomes the first European to enter Burrard Inlet.source
• 1792George Anschutz constructs the first blast furnace in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.source
• 1792Scottish engineer William Murdoch begins experimenting with gas lighting.source
• 1792Claude Chappe successfully demonstrates the first semaphore line, between Paris and Lille.source
• 1793September 18 – The cornerstone to the future United States Capitol is dedicated by U.S. President Washington at the site of the new Federal City on the Potomac River.source
• 1793The first year of regular production begins for the United States Mint, and the half cent is minted for the first time.source
• 1794March 14 – Eli Whitney is granted a United States patent for the cotton gin.source
• 1794March 27 – The United States Government authorizes the building of the first six United States Navy vessels; in 1797 the first three frigates, , and will go into service (not to be confused with October 13, 1775, which is observed as the Navy's Birthday).source
• 1794The Oban distillery is built in Scotland.source
• 1795July 25 – Construction of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales begins.source
• 1795The Hudson's Bay Company trading post Fort Edmonton is constructed; the city of Edmonton, Alberta, eventually grows from it.source
• 1796March 30 – Carl Gauss obtains conditions for the constructibility by ruler and compass of regular polygons, and can announce that the regular 17-gon is constructible by ruler and compasses.source
• 1796August 9 – The Wearmouth Bridge in England, designed by Rowland Burdon in cast iron, opens to traffic. Its span of 72 m ft makes it the world's longest single-span vehicular bridge extant at this date.source
• 1796December – The British government begins work on a 40-acre (162,000 m²) site at Norman Cross, for the world's first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp.source
• 1796Annual British iron production reaches 125,000 tons.source
• 1797May 10 – The first ship of the United States Navy, the frigate USS United States, is commissioned.source
• 1798January – Eli Whitney contracts with the U.S. federal government for 10,000 muskets, which he produces with interchangeable parts.source
• 1798April 30 – The United States Department of the Navy is established as a cabinet-level department. Benjamin Stoddert, a civilian businessman, is appointed as the first Navy Secretary by President Adams.source
• 1799William Cockerill begins building cotton-spinning machinery in Belgium.source
• 1799Eli Whitney, holding a 1798 United States government contract for the manufacture of muskets, is introduced by Oliver Wolcott Jr. to the concept of interchangeable parts, an origin of the American system of manufacturing.source