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FEATURES
Our history through the things we made or found LOUISE FERREIRA
Money
Money has been making the world go round for the last 100 000 years or so (well, back then it was shells and red ochre, but you get the point). Eventually, trade came to include precious metals, but since dragging bars of gold around on market day wasn’t particularly practical, some genius developed coins. Paper currency evolved as representative money, where the piece of paper didn’t have any intrinsic value but was a receipt (i.e. proof) of a reserve commodity. This is different from today’s system of fiat money, where the cash itself carries value.
AGRICULTURE
Booze
The flush toilet – not to mention the rest of modern plumbing – is probably the invention for which I am most grateful. It actually existed millennia ago, in the Indus Valley, Crete and Rome, but when the Roman Empire fell the technology disappeared. I am convinced that this was what caused the Dark Ages. In 1596 Sir John Harington invented a new version and installed one for Elizabeth I, but she disliked the noise. Alexander Cummings invented the S-bend, which prevents air rising up from the sewer, in 1775, and in 1819, Albert Giblin was awarded a patent for the siphon discharge system. Thomas Crapper, who is often mistakenly considered the inventor of the flush toilet, actually owned a plumbing company that used Giblin’s design. Incidentally, the word “crap” was already in use by the time Crapper was born, which must have led to interesting advertising opportunities. This is why the modern city is able to exist – imagine living in a metropolis with three or four million people and no plumbing.
The development of telecommunication, and the telephone in particular, has had a massive impact on society - it is impossible to imagine a world without it. Who the actual inventor of the telephone is is a matter of some dispute, with both Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray laying claim to it, and Thomas Edison also making a contribution. However, the patent was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
Alcohol has existed since 10 000 BC. Initially, fermented beverages were considered a nutritional staple before the invention of bread; later, it was also used for religious purposes, with many cultures worshipping deities associated with alcohol. Naturally, it didn’t take them long to discover its recreational possibilities – or the effects of over-indulgence.
Agriculture began to develop in what is now the Middle-East around 9 500 BC, presumably after hunter-gatherers became fed up with running after their food. The first crops to be cultivated in this area, called the Levant, were wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas, peas, flax and, something called bitter vetch (sounds like a woman scorned). Over several centuries, this choice expanded to include oranges, dates, mangoes and cotton. Farming developed independently in China, with rice and millet, and in parts of the Americas, which gave us corn and potatoes.
Flush toilet
The phone bill
Choo! Choo! The steam engine had a massive impact on society, leading to the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s - as well as unemployment, as many labourers were replaced by machines. Steam power was already known in Roman Egypt in the first century, but inventors only started utilising it a millennium and a half later. Several low-pressure engines were developed in the 1700s, but it was with James Watt’s separate condenser in 1774 that things really started happening, eventually leading to the invention of the high-pressure engine and the steam locomotive. Images courtesy of www.flickr.com, www.photobuket.com, Masterfile.
Click! Click!...Snap! Snap! Joseph Niépce took the first photograph in 1814; unfortunately, it wasn’t permanent. Together with Louis Daguerre he developed the first practical method of photography, called the daguerreotype, in 1836. It made use of a copper plate; film was only invented in 1885 by George Eastman, who manufactured paper film before using celluloid from 1889. The name of his camera? The Kodak.
SEX...WITH THE LIGHTS ON! Edison was a very busy fellow.Alot of experimenting with electricity had gone on in the 18th and 19th centuries, but his invention of the first commercially practical electric light bulb in 1879 could probably be seen as a symbol of the modern use of electricity. Although there were several versions of incandescent lamps before Tommy came along, his simply worked much better.