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| c. 1450 |
| | | The oldest surviving spring mechanism (enabling clocks to become small and portable) is put to work | |
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| c. 1500 |
| | | The first watches, made in Nuremberg, are spherical clocks about three inches in diameter, worn usually on a ribbon round the neck | |
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| c. 1550 |
| | | The tinderbox provides a new way of making fire - with just flint, steel and tinder | |
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| 1589 |
| | | An English clergyman, William Lee, develops the world's first industrial machinery, to knit stockings | |
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| 1590 |
| | | Zacharias Janssen, a spectacle maker in the Dutch town of Middelburg, creates the first microscope | |
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| 1608 |
| | | A lucky accident reveals the principle of the telescope to a spectacle maker, Hans Lippershey. In the Dutch town of Middelburg | |
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| 1609 |
| | | Galileo improves on the Dutch telescope (and doubles his salary by presenting one to his employer) | |
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| 1643 |
| | | Evangelista Torricelli, observing variations in a column of mercury, discovers the principle of the barometer | |
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| c. 1650 |
| | | A German burgomaster, Otto von Guericke, devises an air pump capable of creating a vacuum | |
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| 1656 |
| | | Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens constructs the first pendulum clock, on Christmas Day in the Hague | |
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