- 1748 – William Cullen – Professor, University of Glasgow – first refrigeration machine, a small one, not up to the mark
- 1758 – Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley – refrigeration experiments with a bulb of mercury thermometer
- 1805 – Oliver Evans – US inventor – blueprint for refrigeration machine
- 1834 – Jacob Perkins – US inventor – used Oliver Evans blueprint – built first practical refrigeration machine – built first vapor compression system – “father of the refrigerator” – used by many to call him
- 1851 – John Gorrie – US, doctor – patent for a compressed air refrigerator – to treat his yellow fever patients – to cool air around them – his refrigerator created ice
- 1876 – Carl von Linden – German Engineer – found the process of liquefying gas
- 1913 – Fred W. Wolf – US inventor – invested first home electric refrigerator
- 1918 – William C. Durant – home refrigerator with a self-contained compressor – bulk production
- 1927 – home refrigeration becomes popular across the US
- 1928 – Invention of Freon (chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs) – by Thomas Midgley, Jr. aided by Charles Franklin Kettering
- 1930s onwards – Freon (CFC, HCFC, HFC) used as refrigerants in place of toxic gases like ammonia (NH3), methyl chloride (CH3Cl), and sulfur dioxide (SO2)
- 1947 – first bottom-freezer model – by Amana – USA
- 1949 – first side-by-side refrigerator – by Amana – USA
- 1987 – Montreal Protocol – aimed to phase out CFCs and HCFC with alternatives / CFCs-HCFCs – causing damage to the Ozone layer