- 1866 -
A monk, Gregor Mendel grows pea plants to observe inheritance. In doing so he discovers the basic principles of Heredity and proposes two laws: The Law of Independent Assortment and the Law of Segregation

- 1908 -
Thomas Hunt Morgan experiments with fruit flies in order to better understand genes. He proposes the Chromosome Theory of Heredity - claiming that genes are located on chromosomes and are sex-linked.

- 1944-
Oswald Avery and Macyn McCarty prove that DNA and not protein contain the heredity material in most living creatures.

- 1952 -
Robert Briggs and Thomas King clone the first animal (a Northern Leopard Frog)

- 1953 -
James Watson and Francais Crick determine that DNA is a twisted double helix, thus creating the DNA model we all know and love today.

- 1973 -
The first recombient DNA organism is created by Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer by taking DNA from a toad and inserting it into a bacterium. This marks the beginning of what is considered modern Genetic Engineering.

- 1976 -
Geentech the world’s first genetic engineering company is founded. Two years later, Geentech scientists successfully clone human insulin.

- 1983 -
PCR DNA slicing technique developed by Kary Mullis.

- 1984 -
"Genetic Fingerprinting" techniques developed by Alec Jeffreys.

- 1990 -
Dolly the sheep is cloned by Ian Wilmut.

- 2001 -
The first draft of the Human Genome is completed by Celera Genomics and the International Human Genome Consortium.