A HUNDRED YEARS ago on 26 January 1926, in an attic room in London’s Soho (more famous for ladies of the night than technological breakthroughs), a Scottish engineer gave the first public display of p

In autumn 1883, an unusual news story captured the imagination of the British public. It was a tale of deception, fraud – and telephones. On Friday 21 September, a young barrister’s clerk in Birmingha

GM’s EV1 invented the future, then left ► ...

→ When John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working television set in 1926, a theatre impresario was so worried about the impact on the West End that he offered the scientist £1,000 to throw his de

On 14 January 1878, Queen Victoria welcomed a special guest and his newest invention to Osborne House, her private retreat on the Isle of Wight. In fact, the encounter was significant enough to warran

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of