Timeline of materials technology 3rd millennium BC - Copper metallurgy is invented and copper is used for ornamentation 2nd millennium BC - Bronze is used for weapons and armor 1st millennium BC - Pewter beginning to be used in China and Egypt 16th century BC - The Hittites develop crude iron metallurgy 13th century BC - Invention of steel when iron and charcoal are combined properly 10th century BC - Glass production begins in Greece and Syria 50s BC - Glassblowing techniques flourish in Phoenicia 20s BC - Roman architect Vitruvius describes low-water-content method for mixing concrete. 700s - Porcelain is invented in China 1450s - Crystallo[?], a clear soda-based glass is invented by Angelo Barovier[?] 1590 - Glass lenses are developed in Netherlands and used for the first time in microscopes and telescopes. 1738 - William Champion[?] patents a process for the production of metallic zinc by distillation from calamine and charcoal. 1779 - Bry Higgins[?] issued a patent for hydraulic cement (stucco) for use as an exterior plaster. 1799 - Alessandro Volta makes a Copper / Zinc acid battery 1821 - Thomas Johann Seebeck[?] invents the thermocouple 1824 - Patent issued to Joseph Aspin[?] for portland cement. 1825 - Hans Christian Orsted produces metallic aluminum 1839 - Charles Goodyear[?] invents vulcanized rubber 1839 - Jacques Daguerre[?] and William Fox Talbot invent silver-based photographic processes 1855 - Bessemer process for mass production of steel patented. 1861 - James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates color photography 1883 - Charles Fritts[?] makes the first solar cells using selenium wafers 1902 - August Verneuil[?] develops a process for making synthetic rubies. 1909 - Leo Baekeland presents the Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic 1911 - Superconductivity discovered. 1916 - Jan Czochralski[?] invents a method for growing single crystals of metals. 1924 - Corning scientists invent Pyrex[?], a glass with a very low thermal expansion coefficient. 1931 - Julius Nieuwland[?] develops the synthetic rubber called neoprene 1931 - Wallace Carothers develops nylon 1938 - Roy Plunkett[?] discovers the process for making poly-tetrafluoroethylene, better known as teflon 1947 - First germanium Transistor invented. 1947 - First commercial application of a piezoelectric ceramic: barium titanate used as a phonoigraph needle. 1951 - Individual atoms seen for the first time using the Field ion microscope 1953 - Karl Ziegler[?] discovers metallic catalysts which greatly improve the strength of polyethylene polymers 1954 - 6% efficiency silicon solar cells made at Bell Laboratories 1959 - Pilkington Brothers patent the float glass process. 1962 - SQUID superconducting quantum interference device invented. 1968 - Liquid crystal display developed by RCA 1970 - Silica optical fibers grown by Corning