Discover your family history in millions of family trees and more than 11 billion birth, marriage, death, census, and military records. Search historical records. Discover your family history in millions of family trees and more than 11 billion birth, marriage, death, census, and military records. Search historical records. Start a free family tree online and let us do the searching for you! You'll get hints when we find info that matches your relatives. Start a FREE family tree.
invention category A group or set of inventions that are classified together because of common characteristics. Invention groups that include Agricultural, Communications, Computing, Energy, Transportation and more.
Among the earliest inventions were the abacus, the shadow clock, and the first items such as Kongming lanterns. The Four Great Inventions: the compass, gunpowder, papermaking, and printing, were among the most important technological advances, only known to Europe by the end of the Middle Ages 1000 years later.