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== History ==
{{see also|Control systems#History}}
[[File:Colonne distillazione.jpg|thumb| Control of [[fractionating column]]s is one of the more challenging applications.]]
Automatic control systems were first developed over two thousand years ago. The first feedback control device on record is thought to be the ancient [[Ktesibios]]'s [[water clock]] in [[Alexandria]], Egypt, around the third century BCE. It kept time by regulating the water level in a vessel and, therefore, the water flow from that vessel. This certainly was a successful device as water clocks of similar design were still being made in Baghdad when the Mongols [[Siege of Baghdad (1258)|captured]] the city in 1258 CE. A variety of automatic devices have been used over the centuries to accomplish useful tasks or simply just to entertain. The latter includes the automata, popular in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, featuring dancing figures that would repeat the same task over and over again; these automata are examples of open-loop control. Milestones among feedback, or "closed-loop" automatic control devices, include the temperature regulator of a furnace attributed to [[Cornelis Drebbel|Drebbel]], circa 1620, and the centrifugal flyball governor used for regulating the speed of steam engines by James Watt in 1788.
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