Maritime
5 inventions in this category
Caravel
The caravel emerged because Portuguese explorers needed a ship that could sail both with and against the wind—returning home from Africa required beat...
Diving bell
The diving bell represents humanity's first successful technology for extending underwater time beyond a single breath. The principle required no soph...
Dock
The dock emerged independently in Egypt and the Indus Valley as the solution to a convergent problem: how to load, unload, and maintain ships efficien...
Dry dock
When the Spanish Armada sailed in 1588, England had maintained a permanent dry dock at Portsmouth for nearly a century. Spain had not. The English fle...
Lighthouse
A harbor is only as useful as the last dangerous mile before it. That is the problem the lighthouse solved. Long-distance sea trade had already produc...