Pound Lock

China

Chinese Engineer Qiao Weiyo, working on the canal system in medieval China, develops the pound lock, now standard on all modern canals to control water flow.

World Population : 170,060,000

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Milestones

World Population Reaches 8 Billion
Trail of Tears
COVID-19 Pandemic
Antibiotics
World Population at 9 Billion
Freshwater Scarcity
Living Beyond Our Means
World’s Largest Solar Plant
Hole in the Ozone Layer Shrinking
Record-breaking CO2 Concentrations
U.S and China to Curb Carbon Emissions
More Megacities
Warming Temperatures
Effects of Climate Change
Meat Production Rising
Future of Megacities
Global Cancer Burden
Coral Reefs in Danger
Urban World
World Hunger
Farm Labor
Safe Drinking Water Goal
Growing Ecological Footprint
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
World Population Reaches 7 Billion
Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan
Lifestyle Diseases on the Rise
Recycled Content of Paper
Global Health Progress
Hybrid Electric Cars
World Population Reaches 6 Billion
Meat Consumption Rising
Millennium Development Goals
Obesity Epidemic
Human Genome Sequenced
Katrina Strikes New Orleans
An Inconvenient Truth
China Surpasses U.S. as Largest Carbon Emitter
Global Fisheries in Jeopardy
Climate Change is Unequivocal
Global Financial Crisis
Union Carbide Disaster in Bhopal, India
Hole in the Ozone Layer
Nuclear Meltdown at Chernobyl
World Population Reaches 5 Billion
Declining Biodiversity
The IPCC
World Wide Web
Passing 350 ppm
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Jobs vs. Owls
Iodine Deficiency Prevention
The Earth Summit
GMOs in our food supply
World Population Conference
Rwandan Genocide
Ban of DDT
Cellular Phone
An End to Leaded Gas
Curbside Recycling
World Population Reaches 4 Billion
First Female President
Cambodian Genocide
Tobacco Consumption
Test-Tube Baby
Home Pregnancy Test Kit
Toxic Waste at Love Canal
Nuclear Meltdown at Three Mile Island
China’s One-Child Policy
Smallpox Eradicated
Solar Power
HIV Identified
Silent Spring Sparks a Movement
Farm Workers Rights
Environmental Protection in America
Smoking Warnings
The Bullet Train
Family Planning in Iran
The Population Bomb
The Tragedy of the Commons
Measles Vaccine
A Walk on the Moon
Santa Barbara Oil Spill
The Cuyahoga River Fire
Earth Day and the EPA
Green Revolution
Earth’s Ecological Footprint
First Email Sent
Family Planning in India
First Solar Cell
Polio Vaccine
The Space Race
The Great Leap Forward
Curbing Urban Sprawl
CO2 Monitoring in Hawaii
New Auto Emission Laws in California
World Population Reaches 3 Billion
Birth Control Pills
World Food Program
Discovery of DDT
World War II
Cigarettes in WWII
The Holocaust
Species Protection in America
Manhattan Project
The United Nations
The Baby Boom
Rise of Poultry Consumption
Malaria Eradication Efforts
Migration Between India and Pakistan
World Health Organization
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Megacities
First Self-Service Grocery Store
Hermetically-Sealed Refrigerator
Spanish Flu Epidemic
Women’s Suffrage
Advent of Frozen Foods
World Population Reaches 2 Billion
First World Population Conference
Invention of the Television
The Great Depression
The Dust Bowl
Kwashiorkor
Hoover Dam
Washing Machine
Electricity-Generating Windmill
Ellis Island Opens
First Voting Machine
The Sierra Club
Invention of the Radio
Invention of Air Conditioning
Wright Brothers Flight
Workers’ Rights
Meat Inspection Act
Ford’s Model T
Beginning of Chemical Fertilizer
World War I
Genocide in the Ottoman Empire
Passenger Pigeon Driven to Extinction
First Birth Control Clinic
Pasteurization
Charles Darwin and Evolution
U.S. Conservation – National and State Parks
The National Labor Union
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
American Public Health Association
Aquaculture in the U.S
Epic Droughts
Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone
Light Bulb
Malaria
Gas-powered Car
Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Child Labor
First Fertilizer Factory
Start of Public Health Movement
Invention of the Telegraph
Irish Potato Famine
Pioneer of Antiseptic Procedures
Women’s Suffrage Movement
First Female Doctor in U.S.
Pre-Industrial CO2 Levels
Water-borne Diseases and Sanitation
American Romanticism
Rubber Condom
Thresher
First U.S. Census
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
Smallpox Vaccine
Thomas Malthus
A City of One Million
World Population Reaches 1 Billion
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Invention of Canning
Iodine in Salt
Commercial Natural Gas Well
Steam-Powered Railway
City Public Transit
New Farm Equipment
Sustainable Resource Management in Japan
Leeuwenhoek Observes Microbes
Urban Planning in Pennsylvania
Commercial Steam Engine
Seed Drill
Personal Sacrifice in India
Effects of the Industrial Revolution
Flush Toilet
Capitalism
The Great Exchange
African Slave Trade
Smallpox in the Americas
Copernicus and his Heliocentric Model
Compound Microscope
Collapse of Easter Island
Jamestown Settlement
Invention of Forceps
Peace of Westphalia
Age of Enlightenment
The Little Ice Age
Magnetic Compass
The Great Famine
Aztecs
The Black Death
Aquaculture in the Ming Dynasty
Pollution Control in England
Age of Iron in West Africa
Aztec Medicine
Invention of the Printing Press
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Maritime Route between Europe and India
Gunpowder Discovered
First Windmills
Smallpox Identified
Medieval Warm Period
Pound Lock
Avicenna and The Canon of Medicine
Angkor Wat
Paper Money
Forestry in Germany
Cloth Mills
Blast Furnace in Europe
Mongol Invasions
Energy from Coal
Al-Mansuri Hospital
First Oil Wells
Water Mill
Breastcollar Horse Harness
Fall of the Roman Empire
Peak of the Mayan Civilization
Dust Veil Event in South America
Justinian Plague
Heavy-wheeled Plow
Three-crop Rotation
Beginning of Islam
Papermaking in the Arab World
Japanese Smallpox Epidemic
Decline of the Mayan Civilization
Roman Aqueducts
Spice Trade
Chinese Medicine
Horse Collar
Roman Roads
Papermaking in China
The Silk Road
Ptolemys Geographia
Antonine Plague
Christianity and the Roman Empire
Golden Age of India
Major Civilizations