In the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840, civilization took a major shift to mechanized production techniques from manual ones. Manufacturing was no longer a small scale thing, it was done in gigantic mills with machines, increasing the production at an unprecedented rate.

1) The Water Frame

Before the invention of water frame, items of clothing were generally manufactured in cottage industries. The production capacity of small-scale handlooms and spinning frames were low, and the fabric was generally coarser.

With an increase in demand, Richard Arkwright, in 1767, developed and patented a spinning frame driven by water. It was able to spin 128 threads at a time, increasing the production rate exponentially. However, the water frame was too large to be placed in a cottage and had to be moved into larger spaces referred to as mills, thus, marking the first major shift towards industrial manufacturing systems.

2) Steam Engine

With the world ushering towards mechanized production techniques and improved production rates, two major improvements were needed. First, a reliable energy source driving a more powerful core engine to help improve production rate even further, and an efficient transport system to lessen the time required for delivery of raw materials or finished products to the industries and markets respectively. And voila! The steam engine was born.

Invented in 1781 by James Watt, driven by steam, his ten horsepower engines produced continuous rotary motion and powered a wide range of mechanical equipment. Steam engines helped factories relocate to places where running water was absent to power machinery. By 1883, steam engines were able to generate as much as 6,000 horsepower, driving locomotives and later even steamboats, helping a more effective transport of goods.

Fun Fact: The most powerful diesel-electric in use today is used for freight purposes and offers a power of 5500 hp

3) Telegraph

With the advancements being made to make transportation more efficient, the next major hurdle was reducing distances even further by establishing a reliable and unerring line of communication. The telegraph was the first form of electrical telecommunications, replacing a system which relied upon mere visual clues from atop towers and poles as a mode of communication.

With a wire joining two different telegraphs, the message was relayed as electrical impulses, producing clicks in the telegraph machine, which was subsequently decoded with help of Morse code, allowing real-time transfer of messages, in contrast to letters, which took days to arrive, allowing commerce and media to flourish, alongside helping establish a more effective governance.

Fun Fact: It was so fast that it was used in stock market trading and military battlefield developments at that time. It also led to first telegraphic press association which was established in 1848.

4) Transatlantic Cable

With the telegraph in place, communications between long distances became instantaneous. However, the extent of it was limited to between countries. The next big step was establishing intercontinental communication lines. Samuel Morse then proposed the idea of the transatlantic cable-an undersea cable running under the Atlantic Ocean to be used for telegraph communications, providing instantaneous communication between Europe and America.

The first was laid across the floor of the Atlantic from Telegraph Field, Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland, reducing the communication time from ten days – the time it took to deliver a message by ship – to only 17 hours. It was the first approach in this direction to yield practical results and thus was refined further.

5) Telephone

While the telegraph had become a key form of communication, Alexander Graham Bell's telephone revolutionized long distance communications by permitting transfer of human voice as electrical signals and its intelligible replication. With people now able to talk to each other across continents for the first time, telephones rapidly became indispensable to businesses, government, and households, and are today one of the most widely used electronics.

P.S: “Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you” This was the first sentence over the phone.

6) The Light Bulb

With efficient communication and transport network spanning continents, and a world paving its way towards mechanized production, the inability to work at nights because of the absence of suitable lighting conditions was a major roadblock.

People then relied on lanterns, which weren't only inefficient, but were also a health hazard.  And thus came, the light bulb. While the actual inventor of the light bulb is debatable, Thomas Edison's version of the light bulb lasted many more hours than the others before, primarily because of 3 factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve and a high resistance. The light bulb went on to not only aid in production efficiency, but also to improve the quality of day-to-day life.

7) The Airplane

Building on works of George Cayley, the Wright Brothers in 1903 invented and flew the first airplane, revolutionizing transportation even further, changing the face of personal and business travel alongside dramatically altering warfare.