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- FIRE – it can be argued that fire was discovered rather than invented. Certainly, early humans observed incidents of fire, but it wasn’t until they figured out how to control it and produce it themselves that humans could really make use of everything this new tool had to offer.
- WHEEL – the wheel was invented by Mesopotamians around 3500 B.C., to be used in the creation of pottery. About 300 years after that, the wheel was put on a chariot and the rest is history.
- NAIL – The earliest known use of this very simple but super-useful metal fastener dates back to Ancient Egypt, about 3400 B.C. If you are more partial to screws, they’ve been around since Ancient Greeks (1st or 2nd century B.C.).
- OPTICAL LENSES – from glasses to microscopes and telescopes, optical lenses have greatly expanded the possibilities of our vision. They have a long history, first developed by ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, with key theories of light and vision contributed by Ancient Greeks.
- Wheel. Before the invention of the wheel in 3500 B.C., humans were severely limited in how much stuff we could transport over land, and how far. The wheel itself wasn't the most difficult part of "inventing the wheel."
- Printing press. German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press sometime between 1440 and 1450. Key to its development was the hand mold, a new molding technique that enabled the rapid creation of large quantities of metal movable type.
- Penicillin. It's one of the most famous discovery stories in history. In 1928, the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-filled Petri dish in his laboratory with its lid accidentally ajar.
- Compass. Ancient mariners used the stars for navigation, but this method didn’t work during the day or on cloudy nights, making it dangerous to travel far from land.
- Suspension Bridges
- Toilets
- The Walkman
- The Pill
- Super Soaker
- The Blood Bank
- Space Telescopes
- The Pizza Box and Pizza Table
- X-Rays
- Wildlife Cams
Suspension bridges are nothing new; there’s one in China that until recently used bamboo that’s at least 1000 years old, and may be over 2000. But the modern suspension bridges that came along in the 1800s were something else altogether: They were cheaper to build, easier to repair, and provided plenty of leeway in case of flooding. Eventually, the...
Dry and flush toilets have been around for thousands of years, and while many of us take these pieces of porcelain hardware for granted these days, there’s no doubt that life would look much different—and much worse—without them. “Toilets are the key to a thriving, healthy society,” Kimberly Worsham, sanitation expert and founder of FLUSH(Facilitat...
Though many of today’s kids didn’t know what a Walkman was until they saw Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill flaunt one in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, they pay unofficial homage to the device every time they play a song on their smartphone. Transistor radios had been around since the 1950s, but it was Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka who really revolutioniz...
By the end of the 19th century, bicycles were offering women a relatively cheap, easy form of independence. Their movements,and the clothing they wore, became less restricted. Decades later, a new item would hit the market and further revolutionize women’s rights: the Pill. Hormonal birth control pills (often shortened to just the Pill) weren’t the...
For decades, squirt guns were flimsy pieces of plastic that could barely muster enough power to water a houseplant. Then the first Super Soaker—then called the Power Drencher—hit the market in 1990, bringing along with it a Schwarzenegger-esque machismo and a sophisticated air-pressure system that promised to drench unsuspecting targets from far fu...
Less than a century ago, patients requiring a blood transfusion were in a race against time. There was no organized network for people to donate blood, and because blood was difficult to preserve, there was no way to store it for future use. Patients had to find their own blood donorsbefore it was too late. In 1937, after devising a technique for p...
When Lyman Spitzer proposed the invention of a space telescope in the 1940s, humans could look at our universe only through land-based instruments. Earth’s atmosphere acted like a veil between the land-based telescopes and space, blurring images and hindering detection of far-off celestial phenomena. Spitzer’s research paved the way for the Hubble ...
The pizza industry has undergone numerous innovations in recent decades, but one element that has remained largely the same is the box your pie comes in. Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan changed the game in the early 1960s when he worked with Triad Containers in Detroit to develop the modern pizza box. Prior to this, pizzas were delivered in bag...
One fall evening in 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen, a German physics professor, was experimenting with the conduction of electricity through low-pressure gases when he accidentally discovereda mysterious ray capable of making a chemical-coated screen fluoresce a few yards away. He went on to put objects between the tube and the screen to see the shadows the...
The first “wildlife cams” were invented by Pennsylvania Congressman and photography enthusiast George Shiras around the end of the 19th century. He got the idea from a hunting technique used by the Ojibwa tribe called jacklighting, in which a fire is built in a pan and placed in the front part of a canoe while the hunter sits in the bow. “The glow ...
Nov 1, 2013 · 6. The steam turbine. As with Mr. Wyman, the turbine deserved credit not only “in the utilization of steam as a prime mover” but in its use in the “generation of electricity.”. 7. Internal ...
- Christopher Mcfadden
- The invention of the wheel was a big deal. The wheel is an original engineering marvel and one of the most famous inventions. This basic technology not only made it easier to travel but also served as the foundation for a vast number of other innovative technologies.
- The compass ranks up there with the most important inventions. Some believe this relatively modern invention was first created for fortune-telling and “geomancy.”
- The modern world wouldn’t exist without the automobile.
- The steam engine was a true revolution in technology. A Spanish mining administrator named Jerónimo de Ayanz is thought to have been the first to develop a steam engine.
People also ask
What are the 20 inventions that shaped the world around US?
What were some revolutionary inventions that changed the world?
How have human inventions changed life on Earth?
Was fire the most important invention of all?
Dec 18, 2012 · The printing press, the compass, paper currency, steel, electric light and more are some of the inventions that shaped human history and culture. Learn how these innovations influenced navigation, exploration, warfare, economy and science.
Apr 1, 2015 · Raconteur was also interested, so they polled over 400 scientists, academics, and tech journalists to find out which inventions have been the most revolutionary. The top six inventions, as voted by this group, include the internet, the printing press, and the wheel. See below for descriptions on all six:
