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Heating, Cooling & Refrigeration · Recorded milestone

Refrigerated trucking

Recorded year1940

Frederick McKinley Jones' Thermo King units build the cold chain for food and medicine.

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Built on

Home refrigeratorRecorded · 1914enables

Led to

TV dinnerRecorded · 1953requires
Ultra-cold vaccine chainRecorded · 2020enables
Radiative cooling assists refrigeration across climatesForecast · ~2031influences
Spoilage-free cold chainForecast · ~2050enables

Sources & evidence

Additional source

Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.