19h 51min, jan 19, 1769 y - Watt Patents Steam Engine

Description:

Watt improved the primitive 1705 steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen. Newcomen's steam engine was invented to pump water out of mines and allowed mines to use coal rather than costly and bothersome animal power. In the 1760s, Watt was hired to fix Newcomen's steam engine. It was then that he realized that the current steam engine was highly inefficient and could be easily improved by adding a condenser. Watt teamed up with Matthew Boulton, a wealthy English salesman, and by the 1780s they had spread the first practical steam engine all across Britain.

Before Watt's steam engine, factories relied on water power and had to be built along rivers, which were often far from raw materials. Since the steam engine runs off of coal, factories could now be built essentially anywhere that coal could be transported to. English factories now essentially had unlimited power which allowed for the lengthening of the workday and the transformation of the industrial revolution.

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