History of Technology Timeline

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Before joining Britannica in 2007, he worked at the University of Chicago Press on the...</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link gtm-byline font-12 byline-contributor text-decoration-underline"> Erik Gregersen</span></div> <div class="font-serif font-12 text-gray-700"> <span class="qa-fact-checked-by">Fact-checked by</span> <div class="editor-popover popover p-0"> <a class="d-block p-20 font-12" href="/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419" > <div class="editor-title font-16 font-weight-bold">The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 text-black">Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link font-12 "> The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</span></div></div> </div> <article class="topic-content content mt-20"><figure class="md-assembly md-feature-assembly print-false" data-type="1" data-descid="1"><div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media " data-type="image"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/84/203584-050-57D326E5/speed-internet-technology-background.jpg" target="_blank" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center " data-href="*"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/84/203584-050-57D326E5/speed-internet-technology-background.jpg?w=600&q=60" alt="Abstract vector hi speed internet technology background" data-width="1600" data-height="1131" loading="eager"><button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"><em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em></button></a></div><figcaption class=""><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"><span><button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-white js-content" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"><span class="link-blue">(more)</span></button></span></div><cite class="credit d-block mt-5">© Kran Kanthawong/Dreamstime.com</cite></figcaption></figure><ul class="bullet"><li><strong>3.3 million years ago: The first tools</strong><br>The history of technology begins even before the beginning of our own species. Sharp flakes of stone used as knives and larger unshaped stones used as hammers and anvils have been uncovered at Lake Turkana in Kenya. The tools were made 3.3 million years ago and thus were likely used by an ancestor such as <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australopithecus" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Australopithecus</a></em>.</li><li><strong>1 million years ago: Fire</strong><br>When humanity first used fire is still not definitively known, but, like the first tools, it was probably invented by an ancestor of <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Homo-sapiens" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Homo sapiens</a></em>. Evidence of burnt material can be found in caves used by <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Homo-erectus" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Homo erectus</a></em> beginning about 1 million (and maybe even 1.5 million) years ago.</li><li><strong>20,000 to 15,000 years ago: Neolithic Revolution</strong><br>During the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Neolithic" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Neolithic Period</a> several key technologies arose together. Humans moved from getting their food by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hunter-gatherer" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">foraging</a> to getting it through <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/agriculture" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">agriculture</a>. People came together in larger groups. Clay was used for pottery and bricks. Clothing began to be made of woven fabrics. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/wheel" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">wheel</a> was also likely invented at this time.</li><li><strong>6000 BCE: Irrigation</strong><br>The first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/irrigation" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">irrigation</a> systems arose roughly simultaneously in the civilizations of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Tigris-Euphrates-river-system" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Tigris-Euphrates river valley</a> in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mesopotamia-historical-region-Asia" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Mesopotamia</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Nile-River" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Nile River</a> valley in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Egypt</a>. Since irrigation requires an extensive amount of work, it shows a high level of social organization.</li><li><strong>4000 BCE: Sailing</strong><br>The first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/ship" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">sailing ships</a> were used on the Nile River. Since the Nile does not allow as much space for free sailing as the ocean, these ships also had oars for navigation.</li><li><strong>1200 BCE: Iron</strong><br>About this time, the production of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iron-Age" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">iron</a> became widespread as that metal supplanted <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bronze-Age" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">bronze</a>. Iron was much more abundant than <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/copper" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">copper</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/tin" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">tin</a>, the two metals that make up bronze, and thus put metal tools into more hands than ever before.</li><li><strong>850 CE: Gunpowder</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/alchemy" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Alchemists</a> in China invented <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/gunpowder" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">gunpowder</a> as a result of their search for life-extending elixirs. It was used to propel <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/rocket-jet-propulsion-device-and-vehicle" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">rockets</a> attached to arrows. The knowledge of gunpowder spread to Europe in the 13th century.</li><li><strong>950: Windmill</strong><br>Nearly 5,000 years after the first sailing ships, the wind was first used to operate a mill. The first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/windmill" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">windmills</a> were in Persia. They were horizontal windmills in which the blades were set on a vertical shaft. Later, European windmills were of the vertical type. It has been speculated that the windmill may have been invented independently in Persia and in Europe.</li><li><strong>1044: Compass</strong><br>The first definitive mention of a magnetic <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/compass-navigational-instrument" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">compass</a> dates from a Chinese book finished in 1044. It describes how soldiers found their way by using a fish-shaped piece of magnetized iron floating in a bowl of water when the sky was too cloudy to see the stars.</li><li><strong>1250–1300: Mechanical clock</strong><br>Hourglass and water <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/clock" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">clocks</a> had been around for centuries, but the first mechanical clocks began to appear in Europe toward the end of the 13th century and were used in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/cathedral-Christian-church" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">cathedrals</a> to mark the time when services would be held.</li><li><strong>1455: Printing</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Gutenberg" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Johannes Gutenberg</a> completed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/printing-publishing" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">printing</a> of the <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gutenberg-Bible" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Bible</a></em>, which was the first book printed in the West using movable type. Gutenberg’s printing press led to an information explosion in Europe.</li><li><strong>1765: Steam engine</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Watt" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">James Watt</a> improved the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Newcomen" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Newcomen steam engine</a> by adding a condenser that turned the steam back into liquid water. This condenser was separate from the cylinder that moved the piston, which meant that the engine was much more efficient. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/steam-engine" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">steam engine</a> became one of the most important inventions of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Industrial Revolution</a>.</li><li><strong>1804: Railways</strong><br>English engineer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Trevithick" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Richard Trevithick</a> improved James Watt’s steam engine and used it for transport. He built the first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/railroad" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">railway</a> locomotive at an ironworks in Wales.</li><li><strong>1807: Steamboat</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Fulton-American-inventor" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Robert Fulton</a> put the steam engine on water. His <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/steamboat" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">steamboat</a> that was eventually called the <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clermont-steamboat" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Clermont</a></em> took 32 hours to go up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. Sailing ships took four days.</li><li><strong>1826/27: Photography</strong><br>In the early 1820s, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicephore-Niepce" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Nicéphore Niépce</a> became interested in using a light-sensitive solution to make copies of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/lithography" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">lithographs</a> onto glass, zinc, and finally a pewter plate. He then had the great idea to use his solution to make a copy of an image in a camera obscura (a room or box with a small hole in one end through which an image of the outside is projected). In 1826 or 1827, he made an eight-hour-long exposure of the courtyard of his house, the first known <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/photography" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">photograph</a>.</li><li><strong>1831: Reaper</strong><br>For thousands of years, harvesting crops was very labour-intensive. That changed with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cyrus-McCormick" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Cyrus McCormick</a>’s invention of the mechanical <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/reaper-agriculture" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">reaper</a>. The earliest reaper had some mechanical problems, but later versions spread throughout the world.</li><li><strong>1844: Telegraph</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-F-B-Morse" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Samuel Morse</a> was a successful painter who became interested in the possibility of an electric <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">telegraph</a> in the 1830s. He patented a prototype in 1837. In 1844 he sent the first message over the first long-distance telegraph line, which stretched between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. The message: “What hath God wrought.”</li><li><strong>1876: Telephone</strong><br>Once it was possible to send information through a wire in the form of dots and dashes, the next step was actual voice communication. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Graham-Bell" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Alexander Graham Bell</a> made the first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/telephone" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">telephone</a> call, on March 10, 1876, when he asked his assistant Tom Watson to come to him: “Mr Watson—come here—I want to see you.”</li><li><strong>1876: Internal-combustion engine</strong><br>German engineer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nikolaus-Otto" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Nikolaus Otto</a> built an <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/internal-combustion-engine" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">engine</a> that, unlike the steam engine, used the burning of fuel inside the engine to move a piston. This type of engine would later be used to power automobiles.</li><li><strong>1879: Electric light</strong><br>After thousands of trials, American inventor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Edison" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Thomas Edison</a> got a carbon-filament <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/lighting" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">light bulb</a> to burn for 13½ hours. Edison and others in his laboratory were also working on an electrical power distribution system to light homes and businesses, and in 1882 the Edison Electric Illuminating Company opened the first power plant.</li><li><strong>1885: Automobile</strong><br>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/internal-combustion-engine" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">internal-combustion engine</a> improved, becoming smaller and more efficient. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Benz" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Karl Benz</a> used a one-cylinder engine to power the first modern <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">automobile</a>, a three-wheeled car that he drove around a track. However, the automobile did not make a commercial splash until 1888, when his wife, Bertha, exasperated with Karl’s slow methodical pace, took an automobile without his knowledge on a 64-mile trip to see her mother.</li><li><strong>1901: Radio</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Guglielmo-Marconi" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Guglielmo Marconi</a> had been experimenting with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/radio-technology" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">radio</a> since 1894 and was sending transmissions over longer and longer distances. In 1901 his reported transmission of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Morse-Code" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Morse code</a> letter <em>S</em> across the Atlantic from Cornwall to Newfoundland excited the world.</li><li><strong>1903: Airplane</strong><br>On December 17 Orville Wright made the first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/airplane" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">airplane</a> flight, of 120 feet, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wright-brothers" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">He and his brother Wilbur</a> made four flights that day. On the last, Wilbur flew 852 feet.</li><li><strong>1926: Rocketry</strong><br>As a young boy in the late 1890s, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Goddard" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Robert Goddard</a> was inspired by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/H-G-Wells" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">H.G. Wells</a>’s <em>The War of the Worlds</em> and the possibilities of space travel. As a middle-aged man in the mid-1920s, he achieved the first test flight of a liquid-fueled <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/rocket-jet-propulsion-device-and-vehicle" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">rocket</a>, from his aunt’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket flew 12.5 meters (41 feet) in the air.</li><li><strong>1927: Television</strong><br>After the development of radio, the transmission of an image was the next logical step. Early <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/television-technology" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">television</a> used a mechanical disk to scan an image. As a teenager in Utah, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philo-Farnsworth" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Philo T. Farnsworth</a> became convinced that a mechanical system would not be able to scan and assemble images multiple times a second. Only an <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/electronics" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">electronic</a> system would do that. In 1922 the 16-year-old Farnsworth worked out a plan for such a system, but it wasn’t until 1927 that he made the first electronic television transmission, a horizontal line.</li><li><strong>1937: Computer</strong><br>Iowa State mathematician and physicist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-V-Atanasoff" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">John Atanasoff</a> designed the first electronic digital <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/computer" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">computer</a>. It would use <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/binary-number-system" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">binary numbers</a> (base 2, in which all numbers are expressed with the digits 0 and 1), and its data would be stored in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/capacitor" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">capacitors</a>. In 1939 he and his student Clifford Berry began building the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/Atanasoff-Berry-Computer" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)</a>.</li><li><strong>1942: Nuclear power</strong><br>As part of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Manhattan-Project" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Manhattan Project</a> to build the first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/atomic-bomb" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">atomic bomb</a>, it was necessary to understand <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/nuclear-reaction" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">nuclear reactions</a> in detail. On December 2 underneath the football stands at the University of Chicago, a team of physicists led by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Enrico-Fermi" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Enrico Fermi</a> used <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/uranium" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">uranium</a> to produce the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-reactor" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">first self-sustaining chain reaction</a>.</li><li><strong>1947: Transistor</strong><br>On December 23 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/Bell-Laboratories" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Bell Labs</a> engineers <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Bardeen" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">John Bardeen</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Houser-Brattain" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Walter Brattain</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shockley" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">William Shockley</a> gave the first public demonstration of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/transistor" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">transistor</a>, an electrical component that could control, amplify, and generate current. The transistor was much smaller and used less power than vacuum tubes and ushered in an era of cheap small <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/electronics" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">electronic</a> devices.</li><li><strong>1957: Spaceflight</strong><br>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Soviet Union</a> surprised the world on October 4, when it launched the first artificial satellite, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/Sputnik" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Sputnik 1</a>, a small 83.6-kg (184.3-pound) metal sphere. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/space-exploration" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">space race</a> began between the Soviet Union and the United States, opening up a new front in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Cold War</a>.</li><li><strong>1974: Personal computer</strong><br>The first <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/computer" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">computers</a> that emerged after World War II were gigantic, but, with advances in technology, especially in putting many transistors on a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/integrated-circuit" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">semiconductor chip</a>, computers became both smaller and more powerful. Finally, they became small enough for home use. The first such <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/personal-computer" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">personal computer</a> was the Altair, which was soon supplanted in 1977 by the Apple II, the TRS-80, and the Commodore PET.</li><li><strong>1974: Internet</strong><br><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vinton-Cerf" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Vinton Cerf</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Elliot-Kahn" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Robert Kahn</a> produced the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/TCP-IP" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">TCP/IP</a> (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), which describes how data can be broken down into smaller pieces called packets and how these packets can be transmitted to the right destination. TCP/IP became the basis for how data is transmitted over the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/Internet" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Internet</a>.</li><li><strong>2012: CRISPR</strong><br>American biochemist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jennifer-Doudna" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Jennifer Doudna</a> and French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier developed CRISPR-Cas9, a method for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/gene-editing" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">editing genes</a>—that is, making changes to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/DNA" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">DNA</a> sequences. Gene editing has the potential to treat many diseases but also opens up the ethical gray area of creating designer humans.</li><li><strong>2017: Artificial intelligence</strong><br>The team behind the AlphaGo <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">artificial intelligence</a> program announced that it had become the world’s best go player. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/go-game" class="md-crosslink bullet" data-show-preview="true">Go</a> is a game with very simple rules but many possible positions. The previous year AlphaGo had defeated the great player Lee Sedol in a match 4–1. AlphaGo then played itself and, through continual improvement, was able to defeat the version that had defeated Lee, 100–0. Through machine learning, AlphaGo had become better at the game than any human.</li></ul><span class="AM-END-OF-ARTICLE am-inline"></span></article> </div> </div> </div> <aside class="cm-rightrail d-none d-md-block ad-rail"></aside> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> <div class="grid gx-0"> <div class="col"> <div class="md-loading hidden display-4 font-weight-normal"></div> <div class="text-center my-20 mb-100"> <button class="md-infinite-load-next btn btn-blue" data-value="next-page">Load More</button> </div> </div> <div class="col-md-da-320 hidden-xs"> </div> </div></div> </div> </main> <div id="md-footer"></div> <noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5W6NC8" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript> <script type="text/javascript" id="_informizely_script_tag"> var IzWidget = IzWidget || {}; (function (d) { var scriptElement = d.createElement('script'); scriptElement.type = 'text/javascript'; scriptElement.async = true; scriptElement.src = "https://insitez.blob.core.windows.net/site/f780f33e-a610-4ac2-af81-3eb184037547.js"; var node = d.getElementById('_informizely_script_tag'); node.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, node); } )(document); </script>  <script> window.ap3c = window.ap3c || {}; var ap3c = window.ap3c; ap3c.cmd = ap3c.cmd || []; ap3c.cmd.push(function() { ap3c.init('ZO4siT4cLwnykPnzZWJtd3Byb2Q', 'https://engage.email.britannica.com/'); ap3c.track({v: 0}); }); ap3c.activity = function(act) { ap3c.act = (ap3c.act || []); ap3c.act.push(act); }; var s, t; s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = "https://engage.email.britannica.com/app.js"; t = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t); </script> <script class="marketing-page-info" type="application/json"> {"pageType":"Story","templateName":"COMPANION","pageNumber":1,"pagesTotal":11,"pageId":6734,"pageLength":null,"initialLoad":true,"lastPageOfScroll":false} </script> <script class="marketing-content-info" type="application/json"> [] </script> <script src="https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-130/js/libs/jquery-3.5.0.min.js?v=3.130.14"></script> <script type="text/javascript" data-type="Init Mendel Code Splitting"> (function() { $.ajax({ dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: 'https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-130/dist/story-page.js?v=3.130.14' }); })(); </script> <script class="analytics-metadata" type="application/json"> {"leg":"B","adLeg":"B","userType":"ANONYMOUS","pageType":"Story","pageSubtype":"COMPANION","articleTemplateType":null,"gisted":false,"pageNumber":1,"hasSummarizeButton":false,"hasAskButton":false} </script> <script type="text/javascript"> EBStat={accountId:-1,hostnameOverride:'webstats.eb.com',domain:'www.britannica.com', json:''}; </script> <script type="text/javascript"> ( function() { $.ajax( { dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: '//www.britannica.com/webstats/mendelstats.js?v=1' } ) .done( function() { try {writeStat(null,EBStat);} catch(err){} } ); })(); </script> <div id="bc-fixed-dialogue"></div> </body> </html>

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