Writing is developed, at Sumer, as cuneiform script on clay tablets

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script develops at much the same time as the Sumerian cuneiform

The invention of writing marks the transition, in academic terms, from prehistory to history

The delicate seals of the Indus civilization are in a script as yet undeciphered

The Chinese develop a form of scroll, made of strips of bamboo threaded together and rolled up like a wooden blind

The empress of Japan, in a remarkable start to the story of printing, commissions a million copies of a Buddhist charm

The world's first known printed book, a Diamond Sutra, is commissioned by a Buddhist monk in honour of his parents

The concept of movable type for printing is pioneered in China, using fired clay, but it proves impractical

The rulers of Baghdad harness homing pigeons as postmen.

The emperor Henry IV stands as a penitent outside the pope's castle at Canossa, so as to be released from excommunication.

Koreans establish the first type foundry, casting movable type in bronze

A copy of Europe's first book printed from movable type, the Gutenberg Bible, is completed in Mainz

The English admiral Robert Blake introduces a system of signalling at sea by means of flags

Napoleon, in response to his excommunication, has pope Pius VII arrested and kept in captivity in northern Italy and then France

US inventor Samuel Morse gives the first public demonstration, in Philadelphia, of his electric telegraph

Rowland Hill introduces in Britain the world's first postage stamps - the Penny Black and Two Pence Blue

Samuel Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail complete the first telegraph line, between New York and Baltimore

US entrepreneur Cyrus W. Field succeeds in laying a telegraph cable across the Atlantic, but it fails after only a month

Adelaide and Darwin are linked across the entire Australian continent by the Overland Telegraph Line

Italian US immigrant Antonio Meucci files a patent in New York for the invention of the telephone

Alexander Graham Bell makes the first practical use of his telephone, summoning his assistant from another room with the words 'Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you.'

Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates his new invention, the telephone, at the US Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia

21-year-old Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in transmitting a radio signal more than a mile at his home near Bologna

22-year-old Guglielmo Marconi takes out a patent in Britain for the invention of radio

Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in transmitting a wireless telegraph message across the English Channel