The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, but Elisha Gray filed a patent the same day.

The first mechanical computer, the Difference Engine, was designed by Charles Babbage in 1822 but never fully built.

The steam engine played a major role in the Industrial Revolution.

Steel was a rare luxury material in the ancient world — mass production became possible only in the 19th century.

Fiber optic cables transmit data as pulses of light and can carry thousands of simultaneous communications.

The first video game ever sold commercially was Computer Space in 1971, before Pong.

Airplane black boxes are painted bright orange for visibility.

The Internet weighs approximately 50 grams — the mass of the electrons in motion that carry its data at any given moment.

GPS exists because of Einstein’s theory of relativity correcting time differences.