1. It has promoted the development of many industrial sectors. By 19 in the 1940s, steam engines were widely used in European countries and the United States. Steam engines are not only widely used in textile and mining, but also in a series of industrial sectors such as metallurgy, printing and dyeing, machinery and chemical industry, which has accelerated the pace of industrial revolution. This led to the fourth major scientific and technological progress in human history (the fourth industrial revolution in history). It promotes the innovation of transportation. The application of steam power fundamentally changed the face of transportation technology, which directly led to the invention of steam locomotives and ships, thus the emergence of railways. The steamboat built by Fulton, an American, opened a new era in the history of world shipping. The steam locomotive made by Stephenson, an Englishman, opened a new era of land transportation. After the 1940s, there was a railway construction boom in Britain, and the United States, France, Germany, Russia and other countries also began to build railways, which soon formed a national railway network, providing faster and more convenient conditions for social production and people's exchanges.