~1467 AD -
POLYALPHABETIC CIPHER
Leon Battista Alberti develops a cipher system using multiple shifting substitution alphabets, greatly complicating frequency analysis and advancing Renaissance cryptography.
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~1553 AD -
VIGENÈRE CIPHER
Giovan Battista Bellaso publishes a polyalphabetic cipher using a repeating keyword. Later associated with Blaise de Vigenère, the method becomes one of the most respected cipher systems of the early modern era.
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~1588 AD -
ENGLISH SHORTHAND
Timothy Bright publishes Characterie, one of the first systematic English shorthand systems. A transaction that previously required a full line of text can now be encoded in several symbols. The method is adopted unevenly.
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1837 AD -
PITMAN SHORTHAND
Isaac Pitman publishes Stenographic Sound-Hand, a shorthand system based on phonetics rather than spelling. Transcription speed increases substantially, allowing trained operators to record speech with unprecedented efficiency.
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1837 AD -
MORSE CODE AND THE TELEGRAPH
Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail help develop a practical electrical telegraph system and a standardized signal encoding method later known as Morse code. A message can now travel the length of a continent in under a minute.
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