How and why does technology change?
Our world is full of computers and digital technology, and it keeps changing. But many of the things we use were first made by people who lived long ago. Let's travel through the ages of history.
- Prehistory🔥 Fire and simple tools
People learnt to control fire and made simple tools and weapons from stone.
- Ancient History · 3200 BCE✍️ Writing and the wheel
Writing, roads and bridges, the wheel, the plough, the abacus, coins and sailing boats. Millstones turned by animals or water ground grain into flour.
- Middle Ages · 476 CE🏰 Libraries and universities
A time of great change and learning. Buildings like the Alhambra in Granada show us the technology of the time.
- Early Modern Age · 1453📰 The printing press
Books could be printed quickly, so newspapers appeared and more people learnt to read. Isaac Newton made discoveries about motion and light.
- Modern Age · 1789🚂 The steam engine
It started the Industrial Revolution. Then oil and electricity brought the telephone, the car, the light bulb, early computers and, in 1989, the World Wide Web.
- Current Age · today📱 Smartphones
Smartphones, video streaming and social media were all developed in the age we live in now.
Before the printing press, books were copied by hand, one by one. They were rare and expensive. With printing, ideas could travel much faster, and many more people could learn.