Modern (1900-2000)
40 inventions
Airplane
The first powered flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 37 meters. Only 5 people witnessed it. They c...
Penicillin
Fleming discovered it by accident when mold contaminated a petri dish. He did not develop it into a ...
Internet
TCP/IP was the protocol that made the internet possible. ARPANET, the precursor, sent its first mess...
World Wide Web
Invented at CERN to help scientists share research. The first website went live on August 6, 1991. B...
Transistor
Invented at Bell Labs, it replaced vacuum tubes. Made possible every modern electronic device. The t...
Television
Farnsworth sketched his idea for electronic TV at age 14 while plowing a field. RCA tried to steal h...
Antibiotics
Fleming discovered penicillin but Florey and Chain made it usable. Selman Waksman discovered strepto...
DNA Structure
They used X-ray data from Rosalind Franklin without her knowledge or consent. The double helix model...
Nuclear Fission
Hahn did the chemistry, Meitner provided the theoretical explanation while exiled in Sweden. Meitner...
Contraceptive Pill
The pill gave women control over reproduction for the first time. Pincus was funded by Margaret Sang...
GPS
The first GPS satellite launched in 1978. Full constellation of 24 satellites completed in 1993. Ori...
Helicopter
Sikorskys VS-300 was the first practical single-rotor helicopter. Leonardo da Vinci sketched a helic...
Microwave Oven
Spencer noticed a candy bar melting in his pocket near radar equipment. He tested popcorn and an egg...
Zipper
Sundback improved earlier designs to create the modern zipper. The term zipper was coined by B.F. Go...
Ballpoint Pen
Biro noticed newspaper ink dried instantly and adapted it for pens. He fled to Argentina before WWII...
Solar Cell
The first practical solar cell converted 6% of sunlight to electricity. Initially too expensive for ...
Camera Phone
Kahn rigged a digital camera to his phone to share photos of his newborn daughter. The first commerc...
3D Printer
Hull invented stereolithography, building objects layer by layer. His company 3D Systems commerciali...
MRI Scanner
Damadian demonstrated that cancer cells and normal cells respond differently to magnetic fields. Pau...
Pacemaker
Greatbatch accidentally installed the wrong resistor, creating a rhythmic pulse. The first implant w...
Plastic
Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic. Baekeland called it the material of a thousand uses....
Air Conditioning
Carrier invented it to control humidity in a printing plant, not for comfort. It transformed where p...
Insulin
Before insulin, type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. Banting sold the patent for 1 dollar, saying i...
Polio Vaccine
Salk refused to patent it, saying the patent belongs to the people. When asked who owned it, he repl...
Turing Machine
A theoretical device that defined the concept of computation. Turing proved some problems are fundam...
ENIAC
The first general-purpose electronic computer. Occupied 167 square meters and consumed 150 kilowatts...
Integrated Circuit
Kilby built the first IC at Texas Instruments. Robert Noyce independently developed a practical vers...
Fiber Optics
Kao demonstrated that glass fibers could transmit light signals over long distances. He determined t...
Radio Telescope
Jansky detected radio waves from the Milky Way while studying static for Bell Labs. Grote Reber buil...
Scanning Electron Microscope
Von Ardenne built the first scanning electron microscope. Modern SEMs can magnify up to 10 million t...
Jet Engine
Whittle patented the turbojet in 1930 but the RAF showed no interest. Hans von Ohain independently d...
Rocket (Liquid Fuel)
Goddards first rocket flew 12 meters in 2.5 seconds. The New York Times mocked him, saying rockets c...
Battery (Lithium-Ion)
Whittingham discovered the concept, Goodenough doubled the energy density, Yoshino made it practical...
Artificial Heart
The Jarvik-7 was the first permanent artificial heart. Barney Clark received it and lived 112 days. ...
CT Scanner
Hounsfield built the first CT scanner at EMI, the same company that owned the Beatles. The first sca...
Defibrillator
Kouwenhoven developed the first external defibrillator at Johns Hopkins. The portable version was in...
Blood Transfusion
Landsteiner discovered blood groups A, B, AB, and O. Before this, transfusions were Russian roulette...
Laser
Maiman built the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in May 1960 using a synthetic r...
Barcode
Woodland sketched the idea by drawing Morse code dots and dashes in the sand of Miami Beach and stre...
Velcro
De Mestral, a Swiss engineer, noticed burrs clinging to his dog after a walk in the Alps in 1941 and...