Science and Technology 1750 to 1900 - AP World History: Modern

Britain began experiencing the Industrial Revolution decades earlier than the rest of the world. This is due to the many advantages that Britain had over the rest of the world in terms of supplies of resources and technology. While Britain begins the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700's, the rest of the world won't catch up until nearly 100 years later.

Iron and coal were essential needs of any nation attempting to be an industrial power. Britain had access to some of the largest deposits of these resources anywhere in the world at the time. This gave them a serious leg up on the competition because they could expand much more rapidly due to this supply.

While Britain did have large academic societies surrounding their many universities, they did not have substantially larger academic groups than any other nation. For example, the nation of Prussia overall was the most educated nation on the planet at this point in history due to their compulsory school system.

Pasteur was a famed Medical Biologist. He was the man that invented the process of pasteurization. He also revolutionized the field of vaccinations with his rabies vaccine. He was also the one to bring the concept of cleanliness as a means to fight disease to the fore as a public policy.

Tesla was constantly at odds with his former mentor, Thomas Edison. It is fitting that his most famous invention would do the same. While Edison had pioneered DC, or direct current, as a form of electricity, Tesla championed the idea of AC, or alternating current. At the time Edison's system was by far the more popular and accepted, but today Tesla's AC current is the standard the world relies on.

Edison had over patents filed during his lifetime. While he did invent a part to improve the telegraph in the late 1800's, he did not invent the telegraph.

Crop Rotation was meant to help farmers improve their yield each year. This process consisted of changing which field farmers grew each crop in each year. This meant that since each crop took certain nutrients out of the soil, the soil had a chance to recover before growing that same plant again.

Every plant takes a different amount of nutrients out of the soil. This means if you grow the same plant in the same place for years, then the soil will stop yielding much for food because there is not enough nutrients to sustain the plants. Crop rotation means that if you grow something different in the same spot then the soil has a year to recoup the nutrients it lost thus making the yield constantly high.

The Enclosure movement was born from the idea that large farms were the most productive and therefore it was in society's best interest to give the large farms exclusive rights to these formerly public lands. The name enclosure comes from the name for the border fences that were put up across the English Countryside, called enclosures.

The seed drill was not a new invention; however, until the mid 1800's the seed drill had never been a practical or effective machine. This changed in the Industrial Revolution when inventing hit a new high. The newly made seed drill could effectively plant seeds in the ground and cover them up, saving farmers countless hours.

Selective Breeding was revolutionary for farming and the agricultural business. This new process meant that only the strong animals on any given farm would be bred so as to keep the herds at their best. This also meant that there would be lines of animals that were physically superior to any seen before due to the strong being breed while the week died out over successive generations.

While all major periods of change in and around this era, the Industrial Revolution is the one that left the most wide reaching mark on this time, and as such is synonymous with the period. The Industrial Revolution reached nearly all the people of the Western world at the time.

The spinning wheel was the precursor to the Spinning Jenny. The primary difference was that a spinning wheel could only spin one spool of thread at any given time, but the spinning jenny could spin several thread spools at once. This significantly accelerated the work process for textile factories.

In order to keep a spinning jenny operating at all times at the same pace the Water frame was invented to power it. Most mills of the time were situated on rivers so they could use the flowing of the river to power the mill. The same idea worked to power a spinning jenny as a water frame uses the flow of water to constantly operate the machine.

The steamboat was a revolution in the sailing business. By incorporating a steam engine into the ship as the main form of propulsion it significantly increased the speed of ships and therefore greatly reduced the time ships had to spend traveling from place to place.

James Watt is known as the father of the steam engine. As such the steam engine became known as the Watt engine. His design created the first usable and practical steam engines. This design became commonly used in no small part due to the efforts of his business partner Matthew Boulton, who sold the engine as the way of the future.

The railroad began to be a ubiquitous sight in most developed nations in the 1800's. The railroad had become the main form of transportation over any great distance thanks to the invention of the steam engine and the ability to lay tracks for trains. While trolleys would be a common sight in cities, they came much later after the end of the Industrial Revolution. The same could be said for automobiles, which did not gain widespread use until well after the turn of the 20th Century.

Richard Trevithick created what was at the time the first ever steam powered locomotive. He was a miner and the son of a miner. He created the steam powered rail car so that it could be used pulling rock and coal up from mines easier and more safely.

If Dante had been alive to witness these factories and the conditions people worked in them, he may have used them for inspiration when writing his famed book "Inferno." The chemicals that people breathed in while working hour days were borderline deadly. Add this to the extremely low pay and the high risk of being maimed by the machinery and these factories become terrible places to work.