13 things that were invented much earlier than you probably thought

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It's easy to think modern technology has always been just that — modern.

The truth is, many pieces of today's technology have actually been in development for decades.

Here are some of the most vital pieces of technology that were born before most of us were.

 

Vaccination - 1796

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Felix Garza Jr.

Edward Jenner introduced the first vaccine before the turn of the 19th century — a rudimentary version of the cowpox virus to eliminate smallpox.

A milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes approached Jenner with several cowpox lesions on her hand. Jenner drew fluid from the lesions, then scratched it into the skin of an 8-year-old boy, his first test subject.

Though the boy came down with a fever initially, his illness quickly abated. When Jenner later introduced the smallpox virus, the boy was immune.

Battery - 1800

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On March 20, the Volta battery — designed by Italian inventor Alessandro Volta — will celebrate its 216th birthday.

Volta initially called the device an "artificial electric organ," in response to the prevailing theory at the time that animal tissue was necessary for conductivity.

Instead he used stacked metal disks and brine-soaked rags. They conducted electricity. The battery was born.

Microphone - 1876

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Shortly after Alexander Graham Bell unveiled his newly invented telephone, German clerk Emile Berliner realized the device's transmitter was fairly weak.

So, with only a rudimentary knowledge of electricity, Berliner set to work on a so-called loose-contact transmitter, which amplified the noise that came from Bell's existing model.

Bell's company, the American Bell Telephone Company, was so impressed with Berliner's work that it hired him as an assistant in its lab.

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