- 1835: Ralph Waldo Emerson writes the essay Nature.
- 1835:
J�ns Jacob Berzelius demonstrates that the hydrolysis of starch is
catalyzed more efficiently by malt diastase than by sulfuric acid. He published
the first general theory of chemical catalysis.
- 1837:
Ren� Dutrochet recognizes that chlorophyll was necessary for
photosynthesis.
- 1838:
Congress passes act requiring boiler inspection and testing because of
frequent steamboat explosions. This is the first US legislation
regulating a technology.
- 1839:
Pierre Fran�ois Verhulst develops the logistic model of population
growth.
- 1840:
Publication of Justus von Liebig's Thierchemie which united the field of
chemistry and physiology. He pointed out that that organic compounds in plants
are synthesized from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while
nitrogenous compounds are derived from precursors in the soil.
- 1842:
Julius Robert Mayer enunciates the Law of Conservation of Energy
(1st Law of Thermodynamics), after establishing the work equivalent of Heat.
- 1845:
Herman von Helmoltz and Julius Robert Mayer formulate the Laws
of Thermodynamics.
- 1845:
Alfred Kolbe synthesizes acetic acid.
- 1846:
Joule demonstrates the equivalence for various forms of energy
(heat - electrical - mechanical).
- 1846:
An ether-soaked sponge became the first successful surgical anesthetic
helping to remove a tumor at the Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston.
- 1848:
The American-Mexican War comes to a close.
- 1850's:
The first petroleum refinery consisting of a one-barrel still is
built in Pittsburgh by Samuel Kier.
- 1853:
Kerosene is extracted from petroleum.
- 1854:
The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company becomes the first oil company in
the US
- 1854:
Colera epidemic in London linked to contaminated water by Dr. John Snow.
The removal of the pump-handle at the Broad Street well prevented people
from drinking the contaminated water and stopped the epidemic.
- 1855:
Benjamin Silliman, of New Haven, Connecticut, obtains valuable products
by distilling petroleum. They include; tar, naphthalene,
gasoline, and various solvents.
- 1856:
Bessemer devises a process to make cast steel on a large scale by
blowing air through melted pig iron to burn the carbon and maintain the
resulting steel melted.
- 1856:
Seeking to make a substitute for quinine, the first artificial aniline coal
tar dye is developed by William H. Perkin.
- 1858:
Friederich August Kekul� von Stradonitz proposes that carbon atoms can
form chains.
- 1859:
The first commercially successful US oil well is drilled by E.
L. Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania. This 70 foot well launches the
petroleum industry.
- 1860:
During the First International Congress of Chemistry in Karlsruhe,
Canizzaro presented new methods determine atomic weights; Oxygen
weight of 16 was adopted as measuring basis of element weights, thus setting
Hydrogen's weight, the lightest known element, to approximately 1.
- 1860:
Louis Pasteur germ theory of disease revolutionizes concepts of Medicine
and public health.
- 1863:
Ernest Solvay perfects his method for producing sodium bicarbonate.
- 1863:
The British government passes the "Alkali Works Act" in an attempt
to control environmental emissions.
- 1864:
Ernst Haekel outlines the essential elements of modern zoological
classification.
- 1864:
Louis Pasteur's demolition of the doctrine of spontaneous
generation.
- 1864:
Ernst Seyler performed the first crystallization of a protein:
hemoglobin.
- 1865:
The Civil War (1861-65) ends.
- 1865:
Friederich August Kekul� devices a ring model for the structural
formula of benzene.
- 1865:
The first US petroleum pipeline is built from an oil field near
Titusville, Pennsylvania to a nearby railroad.
- 1866:
Dynamite is developed by Alfred Nobel.
- 1866:
Celluloid is invented by a British entrepreneur named Alexander Parkes
("The Father of Plastics").
- 1866:
Gregor Mendel published his investigations on plant hybrids and the
inheritance of "factors".
- 1866:
Ernst Heinrich Haekel hypothesizes that the nuclei of a cell transmits
its hereditary information. He was the first using the term "ecology" to
describe the study of living organisms and their interactions with other
organisms and with their environment.
- 1867:
The Typewriter is invented.
- 1868:
Charles Darwin elaborated the theory of pangenesis.
- 1868:
Jean Baptiste Boussingnault pointed out that plants require oxygen
for the photosynthesis.
- 1869:
Dmitri Mendelejeff published a chemical elements arrangement table. This
is the basis of the well known periodic table.
- 1869:
The Transcontinental Railroad is completed as the Golden Spike is driven
in at Promontory Point, Utah.
- 1869:
Celluloid was produced by John Hyatt in Albany, New York. The
breakthrough came about because of a search for an ivory substitute that
could be used to make billiard balls. Celluloid was the first synthetic
plastic to receive wide commercial use.
- 1870:
Justus von Liebeg proposed that all ferments were chemical reactions
rather than vital impulses.
- 1871:
Johan Friederich Miescher isolated a substance which he called "nuclein"
from the nuclei of white blood cells. This substance came to be known as
nucleic acid.
- 1872:
Carl Friederich Wilhem Ludwig and Eduard Pf�nger studied the gas
exchange process in the blood and showed that oxidation occurs in the tissues
rather than in the blood.
- 1872:
Lodygin, produced the first incandescent lamps in Russia.
- 1873:
Barbed wire is introduced. Meat becomes plentiful as the cattle
population doubles between 1875 and 1890.
- 1873:
Anton Schneider observed and described the behavior of nuclear filaments
(chromosomes) during cell division, providing the first accurate
description of the process of mitosis in animal cells.
- 1873:
London fog kills 1,150 people; similar incidents repeated in the
following 20 years.
- 1874:
German graduate student Othmar Zeider discovers the chemical formula for
DDT.
- 1875:
Oscar Hertwig showed that the head of the spermatozoon becomes a
pronucleus and combines with the female pronucleus as the zygote nucleus, thus
establishing the concept that fertilization is the conjugation of two
cells.
- 1876:
The Telephone is patented by Alexander Graham Bell.
- 1876:
Nikolaus August Otto designed the first four stroke piston engine.
It is nicknamed the "Silent Otto".
- 1876:
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is formed.
- 1877:
Wilhelm Friederich K�hne proposed the term enzyme (meaning "in
yeast") and distinguished enzymes from the microorganisms that produce them.
- 1877:
Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.
- 1878:
Josiah Willard Gibbs developed the theory of Chemical Thermodynamics
introducing fundamental equations and relations to calculate multiphase
equilibrium, the phase rule, and the free energy concept. His work remained
unknown until 1883, when Wilhelm Ostwald discovered his work and
translated it to German.
- 1879:
First electric train is presented at the international exposition in
Berlin.
- 1879:
Thomas Edison and Sir Joseph Swan independently devise the
first practical electric lights.
- 1879:
Saccharin is discovered by Constantin Fahlberg, a chemist at Johns
Hopkins University. The calorie free sweetener is 300 times stronger than
sucrose and has been sold commercially since about 1900.
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