This stunning visual guide explores and explains the greatest inventions, ideas, and discoveries throughout the ages, and introduces their inventors.

Discover the first inventions, from fire, stone tools, and the wheel to ploughs and paper, that shaped societies and grew mighty civilizations and empires such as those in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and ancient China.

In the centuries that followed, "Eureka" moments abounded, with James Watt's steam engine during the Industrial Revolution, Henry Ford's car assembly line at the start of the 20th century, the Wright brothers' flying machines, Thomas Edison's light bulb, John Logie Baird's television, and so much more.

Read about more recent, era-defining moments during the Digital Revolution, such as the first website developed by Tim Berners-Lee, and the growth in the use of robotics in industry and at home.

Inventions A Children's Encyclopedia reveals the stories behind crucial and quirky contraptions, products of the world's most brilliant minds.