Timeline of motor and engine technology
(c. 30–70 AD) – Hero of Alexandria describes the first documented steam-powered device, the aeolipile.13th century - Chinese chronicles wrote about a solid rocket motor used in warfare1698 – Thomas Savery builds a steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines.1712 – Thomas Newcomen builds a piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines.1769 – James Watt patents his first improved steam engine.1806 – François Isaac de Rivaz invented a hydrogen powered engine, the first successful internal combustion engine.1807 - Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude build a fluid piston internal combustion engine, the Pyréolophore and use it to power a boat up the river Saône.1816 – Robert Stirling invented his hot air Stirling engine, and what we now call a "regenerator".1821 – Michael Faraday builds an electricity-powered motor.1824 – Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot first publishes that the efficiency of a heat engine depends on the temperature difference between an engine and its environment.1837 – First American patent for an electric motor (U.S. Patent 132).1850 – The first explicit statement of the first and second law of thermodynamics, given by Rudolf Clausius.1860 - Lenoir 2 cycle engine1872 - Brayton Engine1877 – Nikolaus Otto patents a four-stroke internal combustion engine (U.S. Patent 194,047).1882 – James Atkinson invents the Atkinson cycle engine, now common in some hybrid vehicles.1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the first supercharger.1886 – Hot bulb engine was established by Herbert Akroyd Stuart, Gottlieb Daimler invents the Petrol engine.1888 – An AC induction motor is featured in a paper published by Galileo Ferraris and is patented in the U.S. by Nikola Tesla.1892 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine (U.S. Patent 608,845).1899 – Ferdinand Porsche creates the first hybrid vehicle.1903 – The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices was published by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky1905 – Alfred Büchi patents the turbocharger.1913 – René Lorin invents the ramjet.1915 – Leonard Dyer invents a six-stroke engine, now known as the Crower six-stroke engine named after his reinventor Bruce Crower.1926 - Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket.1929 – Felix Wankel patents the Wankel rotary engine (U.S. Patent 2,988,008).Late 1930s – Hans von Ohain and Frank Whittle separately build pioneering gas turbine engines intended for aircraft propulsion, leading to the pioneering turbojet powered flights in 1939 Germany and 1941 England.1939 – The BMW company's BMW 801 aviation radial engine pioneers the use of an early form of an engine control unit, the Kommandogerät.1940s – Ralph Miller patents his Miller cycle engine.1954 – Felix Wankel creates the first working Wankel engine.1957 - Rambler Rebel announced Electrojector electronic fuel injection option, however no production models were offered with the option.1966 – RD-0410 nuclear thermal rocket engine was ground-tested.1960s – alternators replace generators on automobile engines.1970s – electronically controlled ignition appears in automobile engines.1975 – Catalytic converters are first widely introduced on production automobiles in the US to comply with tightening EPA regulations on auto exhaust.1980s – electronically controlled ignition improved to reduce pollution.1980s – electronic fuel injection appears on gasoline automobile engines.1989 – The Bajulaz Six-Stroke Engine was invented by the Bajulaz S A company, based in Geneva, Switzerland; it has U.S. Patent 4,809,511 and U.S. Patent 4,513,568.1990s – Hybrid vehicles that run on an internal combustion engine (ICE) and an electric motor charged by regenerative braking.