This list of IEEE Milestones describes the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) milestones, representing key historical achievements in electrical and electronic engineering.
Prior to 1800
1751 – Book Experiments and Observations on Electricity by Benjamin Franklin
1757–1775 – Benjamin Franklin's Work in London
1799 – Volta's Electrical Battery Invention
1800–1850
1836 – Callan's Pioneering Contributions to Electrical Science and Technology
1828–1837 – Schilling's Pioneering Contribution to Practical Telegraphy
1838 – Demonstration of Practical Telegraphy
1850–1870
1852 – Electric Fire Alarm System
1861–1870 – Maxwell's Equations
1861 – Transcontinental Telegraph
1866 – Landing of the Transatlantic Cable
1866 – County Kerry Transatlantic Cable Stations
1870–1890
1876 – First Intelligible Voice Transmission over Electric Wire
1876 – First Distant Speech Transmission in Canada
1876 – Thomas Alva Edison Historic Site at Menlo Park
1882 – Vulcan Street Plant
1882 – First Central Station in South Carolina
1884 – First AIEE Technical Meeting
1886 – Alternating Current Electrification (demonstrated by William Stanley, Jr.)
1886 – First Generation and Experimental Proof of Electromagnetic Waves
1887 – Thomas A. Edison West Orange Laboratories and Factories
1887 – Weston Meters
1888 – Richmond Union Passenger Railway
1889 – Power System of Boston's Rapid Transit
1890–1900
1890 – Branly Coherer
1890 – Keage Power Station
1891 – Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant
1893 – Battery Industries in Japan
1893 – Mill Creek No. 1 Hydroelectric Plant
1895 – Popov's Contribution to the Development of Wireless Communication
1895 – Adams Hydroelectric Generating Plant
1895 – Krka-Šibenik Electric Power System
1897 – Early Swiss Wireless Experiments, 1897
1897 – Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant
1898 – Decew Falls Hydro-Electric Plant
1898 – Early Developments in Remote-Control (demonstrated by Nikola Tesla)
1898 – Rheinfelden Hydroelectric Power Plant
1900–1920
1900 – Georgetown Steam Hydro Generating Plant
1901 – Transmission of Transatlantic Radio Signals
1901 – Reception of Transatlantic Radio Signals
1899–1902 – First Operational Use Of Wireless Telegraphy
1902 – Poulsen-Arc Radio Transmitter
1903 – Vucje Hydroelectric Plant
1904 – Alexanderson Radio Alternator
1904 – Fleming Valve
1906 – Pinawa Hydroelectric Power Project
1906 – First Wireless Radio Broadcast by Reginald A. Fessenden
1906 – Grand Central Terminal Electrification
1907 – Alternating-Current Electrification of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
1909 – Shoshone Transmission Line
1911 – Discovery of superconductivity
1914 – Panama Canal Electrical and Control Installations
1920–1930
1920 – Westinghouse Radio Station KDKA (AM)
1920 – Funkerberg Königs Wusterhausen first radio broadcast in Germany
1924 – Directive Short Wave Antenna (Yagi-Uda antenna)
1924 – Enrico Fermi's Major Contribution to Semiconductor Statistics
1924–1941 – Development of Electronic Television
1925 – Bell Telephone Laboratories
1928 – One-Way Police Radio Communication
1929 – Shannon Scheme for the Electrification of the Irish Free State
1929 – Yosami Radio Transmitting Station
1929 – Largest Private (dc) Generating Plant in the U.S.A.
1929 – First Blind Takeoff, Flight and Landing
1930–1950
1930–1945 – Development of Ferrite Materials and Their Applications
1931 – Invention of Stereo Sound Reproduction
1932 – First Breaking of Enigma Code by the Team of Polish Cipher Bureau
1933 – Two-Way Police Radio Communication
1934 – Long-Range Shortwave Voice Transmissions from Byrd's Antarctic Expedition
1937 – Westinghouse "Atom Smasher"
1939 – Atanasoff–Berry Computer
1939 – Shannon Development of Information Theory
1939 – Single-element Unidirectional Microphone - Shure Unidyne
1940 – FM Police Radio Communication
1941 – Opana Radar Site
1939–1945 – Code-breaking at Bletchley Park during World War II
1940–1945 – MIT Radiation Laboratory
1942–1945 – US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory
1945 – Merrill Wheel-Balancing System
1945 – Rincón del Bonete Plant and Transmission System
1946 – Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
1947 – Invention of the First Transistor at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.
1947 – Invention of Holography
1948 – Birth of the Barcode
1950–1960
1950 – First External Cardiac Pacemaker
1951 – Manufacture of Transistors
1951 – Experimental Breeder Reactor I
1946–1953 – Monochrome-Compatible Electronic Color Television
1955 – WEIZAC Computer
1956 – RAMAC
1956 – Ampex Videotape Recorder
1956 – The First Submarine Transatlantic Telephone Cable System (TAT-1)
1957–1958 – First Wearable Cardiac Pacemaker
1958 – First Semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC)
1959 – Semiconductor Planar Process and Integrated Circuit
1960–1970
1960–1984 – IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
1961–1964 – First Optical Fiber Laser and Amplifier
1962 – Mercury spacecraft MA-6, Col. John Glenn piloted the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft in the first United States human-orbital flight on 20 February 1962. (1)
1962 – Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
1962 – First Transatlantic Transmission of a Television Signal via Satellite
1962 – First Transatlantic Television Signal via Satellite
1962 – First Transatlantic Reception of a Television Signal via Satellite
1962 – Alouette-ISIS Satellite Program
1963 – NAIC/Arecibo Radiotelescope
1963 – First Transpacific Reception of a Television (TV) Signal via Satellite
1963 – Taum Sauk Pumped-Storage Electric Power Plant
1963 – ASCII
1964 – Mount Fuji Radar System
1964 – Tokaido Shinkansen (Bullet Train)
1964 – High-definition television
1964 – TPC-1 Transpacific Cable System
1965 – First 735 kV AC Transmission System
1965 – Dadda multiplier
1962–1967 – Pioneering Work on the Quartz Electronic Wristwatch
1966 – Interactive Video Games
1966 – Shakey, the first mobile robot to be able to reason about its own actions
1967 - First Astronomical Observations Using Very Long Baseline Interferometry
1968 – Liquid Crystal Display by George H. Heilmeier
1968 – CERN Experimental Instrumentation
1969 – Birth of the Internet
1969 – Inception of the ARPANET
1950–1969 – Electronic Technology for Space Rocket Launches
1969 – Electronic Quartz Wristwatch
1970–present
1965–1971 – Railroad Ticketing Examining System (developed by OMRON of Japan)
1972 – Nelson River HVDC Transmission System
1964–1973 – Pioneering Work on Electronic Calculators
1971–1978 – The First Word Processor for the Japanese Language
1972 – Development of the HP-35, the First Handheld Scientific Calculator
1974 – Birth of CP/M Operating System
1975 – Gapless Metal Oxide Surge Arrester (MOSA) for electric power systems
1975 – Line Spectrum Pair (LSP) for high-compression speech coding
1976 – Development of VHS, a World Standard for Home Video Recording
1977 – Lempel–Ziv Data Compression Algorithm
1977 – Vapor-phase Axial Deposition Method for Mass Production of High-quality Optical Fiber
1978 – Digital Image from Synthetic Aperture Radar
1978 – Speak & Spell, the First Use of a Digital Signal Processing IC for Speech Generation
1979 – Compact Disc Audio Player
1979 – 20-inch Diameter Photomultiplier Tubes
1980 – International Standardization of Group 3 (Digital) Fax
1980 – First RISC (Reduced Instruction-Set Computing) Microprocessor
1981 – World’s First Monolithic 16-Bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) for Digital Audio
1984 – First Direct-broadcast satellite Service
1984 – The MU (Middle and Upper atmosphere) radar
1985 – Toshiba T1100 Laptop computer
1985 – Emergency Warning Code Signal Broadcasting System
1987 – High Temperature Superconductor
1987 – SPARC RISC Architecture
1988 – Thin Film Transistor LCD (TFT-LCD)
1988 – Solid State High Voltage DC Converter Station
1988 – TAT-8
1988 – Virginia Smith Converter Station
Special citations
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) – Electrical Pioneer
Computer History Museum
