James Watt
Born: January 19, 1736 in Greenock, England
Died: August 19, 1819 in Heathfield, United Kingdom
Nationality: British
Occupation: Engineer
Although James Watt did not invent the steam engine, he made improvements to already existing engines that greatly increased their power. Watt also developed several other important inventions: a rotary engine to drive machinery; a double-action engine; a steam indicator to measure pressure in an engine; and a centrifugal governor to automatically regulate engine speed. He developed the concept of horsepower to describe the operating strength of engines. Watt also made important surveys of several canal routes and invented a telescope attachment to measure distance. In 1882 the British Association named a unit of electrical power measurement after Watt.

Henry Ford
Born: July 30, 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan, United States
Died: April 07, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: Automotive executive
Born July 30, 1863
Greenfield, Michigan
Died April 7, 1947
Dearborn, Michigan
American engineer, automobile manufacturer
"You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars." He built an enormous enterprise that was for a time the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world. At one time, a brand-new Ford Model T cost just less than three hundred dollars, a price low enough that Ford's own workers could afford to buy one for their families. It was Henry Ford who put ordinary American workers into cars, which had previously been luxuries for the wealthy. The moving assembly line, a highly efficient means of production in which a series of individual workers had one task to perform as each car moved down the line, came to be associated with Ford's company, and the entire process became known as the American system. It became a global model for industrialization and the economic success of the United States.

Inventions of the 18th Century