Greatest Inventions of All Time

CHICAGO, January 30, 2002 - Disposable diapers and Post-It Notes stand shoulder to shoulder with the printing press and telescope in the pantheon of great inventions, in to a new feature from the editors at Encyclopaedia

Britannica."Encyclopaedia Britannica's Greatest Inventions," from the company's 2003 almanac, lists 325 innovations that have had profound effects on human life for better or worse. In addition to the usual suspects, such as the automobile and the light bulb, it includes many ordinary staples of modern life, such as the rubber band, Scotch tape, and frozen foods.

The reason for including such quotidian items is their far-reaching impact on society, says Charles Trumbull, editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Almanac 2003. "In school we learn about the epoch-making inventions -- the telephone, the steam engine and the airplane," says Trumbull. "They're important, of course, but what about all the other items we use every day, like e-mail, coat hangers and mirrors? These things didn't just fall from the sky. Someone had to invent them."

The list, which is arranged alphabetically and does not rank items in order of significance, recognizes many previously unsung inventors whose work has left its mark on everyday life. One is Marion Donovan, who developed the disposable diaper in 1950. Denied glory, perhaps because of her invention's indelicate function, Donovan made the Britannica list because her handiwork has been such a boon to parents.

While the majority of inventions are from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, some are surprisingly older. Vending machines, Britannica reports, were invented by the ancient Egyptians. The Aboriginal peoples of Australia created the first boomerang 15,000 years ago. Carbonated soft drinks have been around since 1772 and the flush toilet since 1591.

"Great" is not the same thing as "good" in Britannica's lexicon: the list contains some of the human imagination's more dubious bequests, such as the guillotine, the atom bomb, and the slot machine.And clearly the editors are bent on mischief by including such objects of popular derision as AstroTurf and Muzak. But because this is Encyclopaedia Britannica, even such playfulness has its educational purpose, for as Trumbull explains, "The measure of an invention is its utility. AstroTurf may not win any awards for aesthetics, but try playing baseball indoors without it."

 

INVENTION	YEAR	INVENTOR	COUNTRY
aerosol can	1926	Erik Rotheim	Norway
air conditioning	1902	Willis Haviland Carrier	US
airbag, automotive	1952	John Hetrick	US
airplane, engine-powered	1903	Wilbur & Orville Wright	US
airship	1852	Henri Giffard	France
alphabet	c. 1700–1500 BC	Semitic-speaking peoples	eastern coast of Mediterranean Sea
American Sign Language	1817	Thomas H. Gallaudet	US
animation, motion-picture	1906	J. Stuart Blackton	US
answering machine, telephone	1898	Valdemar Poulsen	Denmark
aspartame	1965	James Schlatter	US
aspirin	1897	Felix Hoffmann (Bayer)	Germany
assembly line	1913	Henry Ford	US
astrolabe	c. 2nd century	—	—
AstroTurf	1965	James M. Faria, Robert T. Wright	US
audiotape	1928	Fritz Pfleumer	Germany
automated teller machine (ATM)	1968	Don Wetzel	US
automobile	1889	Gottlieb Daimler	Germany
baby food, prepared	1927	Dorothy Gerber	US
bag, flat-bottomed paper	1870	Margaret Knight	US
Bakelite	1907	Leo Hendrik Baekeland	US
ball bearing	1794	Philip Vaughan	England
balloon, hot-air	1783	Joseph & Étienne Montgolfier	France
bandage, adhesive	1921	Earle Dickson	US
bar code	1952	Joseph Woodland	US
barbed wire	1874	Joseph Glidden	US
barometer	1643	Evangelista Torricelli	Italy
battery, electric storage	1800	Alessandro Volta	Italy
beer	before 6000 BC	Sumerians, Babylonians	Mesopotamia
bicycle	1818	Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun	Germany
bifocal lens	1784	Benjamin Franklin	US
bikini	1946	Louis Réard	France
blood bank	late 1930s	Charles Richard Drew	US
blow-dryer	1920	Racine Universal Motor Co., Hamilton Beach Manufacturing Co.	US
bomb, atomic	1945	J. Robert Oppenheimer, et al.	US
bomb, thermonuclear (hydrogen)	1952	Edward Teller, et al.	US
boomerang	c. 15,000 years ago	Aboriginal peoples	Australia
Braille system	1824	Louis Braille	France
brassiere (bra)	1913	Mary Phelps Jacob	US
bread, sliced (bread-slicing machine)	1928	Otto Frederick Rohwedder	US
button	c. 700 BC	Greeks, Etruscans	Greece, Italy
buttonhole	13th century	—	Europe
calculator, electronic hand-held	1967	Jack S. Kilby	US
calculus	1680s	Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (invented separately)	England and Germany (respectively)
calendar, modern (Gregorian)	1582	Pope Gregory XIII	Italy
camcorder	1982	Sony Corp.	Japan
camera, motion picture	1891	Thomas Alva Edison, William K.L. Dickson	US
camera, portable photographic	1888	George Eastman	US
can, metal beverage	1933	American Can Co.	US
can opener	1858	Ezra J. Warner	US
candle	c. 3000 BC	—	Egypt, Crete
canning, food	1809	Nicolas Appert	France
carbon-14 dating	1946	Willard F. Libby	US
cardboard, corrugated	1871	Albert Jones	US
cards, playing	c. 10th century	—	China
cash register	1879	James Ritty	US
cat litter	1947	Edward Lowe	US
catalog, mail-order	1872	Aaron Montgomery Ward	US
cellophane	1911	Jacques E. Brandenberger	Switzerland
celluloid	1869	John Wesley Hyatt	US
cement, portland	1824	Joseph Aspdin	England
cereal flakes, breakfast	1894	John Harvey Kellogg	US
chewing gum (modern)	c. 1870	Thomas Adams	US
chocolate	c. 3rd–10th century	Maya, Aztecs	Central America, Mexico
chronometer	1762	John Harrison	England
clock, pendulum	1656	Christiaan Huygens	The Netherlands
clock, quartz	1927	Warren A. Marrison	Canada/US
cloning, animal	1970	John B. Gurdon	UK
coffee, drip	1908	Melitta Bentz	Germany
coffee, decaffeinated	1905	Ludwig Roselius	Germany
coins	c. 650 BC	Lydians	Turkey
compact disc (CD)	1980	Philips Electronics, Sony Corp.	The Netherlands, Japan
compass, magnetic	c. 12th century	—	China, Europe
computed tomography (CT scan, CAT scan)	1972	Godfrey Hounsfield, Allan Cormack	UK, US
computer, electronic digital	1939	John V. Atanasoff, Clifford E. Berry	US
computer, laptop	1983	Radio Shack Corp.	US
computer, personal	1974	MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems)	US
concrete, reinforced	1867	Joseph Monier	France
condom, latex	c. 1930	—	—
contact lenses	1887	Adolf Fick	Germany
contraceptives, oral	early 1950s	Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Min Chueh Chang	US
corn, hybrid	1917	Donald F. Jones	US
correction fluid, white	1951	Bette Nesmith	US
cotton gin	1793	Eli Whitney	US
coupon, grocery	1894	Asa Candler	US
crayons, children's wax	1903	Edwin Binney, C. Harold Smith	US
cream separator (dairy processing)	1878	Carl Gustaf Patrik de Laval	Sweden
credit card	1950	Frank McNamara, Ralph Schneider (Diners' Club)	US
crossword puzzles	1913	Arthur Wynne	US
DDT	1874	Othmar Zeidler	Germany
defibrillator	1952	Paul M. Zoll	US
dentures	c. 700 BC	Etruscans	Italy
detector, metal	late 1920s	Gerhard Fisher	Germany/US
detector, home smoke	1969	Randolph Smith, Kenneth House	US
diamond, artificial	1955	General Electric Co.	US
diapers, disposable	1950	Marion Donovan	US
digital videodisc (DVD)	1995	consortium of international electronics companies	Japan, US, The Netherlands
dishwasher	1886	Josephine Cochrane	US
DNA fingerprinting	1984	Alec Jeffreys	UK
doughnut, ring-shaped	1847	Hanson Crockett Gregory	US
door, revolving	1888	Theophilus von Kannel	US
drinking fountain	c. 1905–1912	Luther Haws, Halsey W. Taylor (invented separately)	US
dry cleaning	1855	Jean Baptiste Jolly	France
dynamite	1867	Alfred Nobel	Sweden
elastic, fabric	c. 1830	Thomas Hancock	UK
electric chair	1888	Harold P. Brown, Arthur E. Kennelly	US
electrocardiogram (ECG, EKG)	1903	Willem Einthoven	The Netherlands
electroencephalogram (EEG)	1929	Hans Berger	Germany
electronic mail (e-mail)	1971	Ray Tomlinson	US
elevator, passenger	1852	Elisha Graves Otis	US
encyclopedia	c. 4th century BC or 77 AD	Speusippus (compliation of Plato's teachings) or Pliny the Elder (comprehensive work)	Greece or Rome
engine, internal-combustion	1859	Étienne Lenoir	France
engine, jet	1930	Sir Frank Whittle	UK
engine, liquid-fueled rocket	1926	Robert H. Goddard	US
engine, steam	1698	Thomas Savery	England
escalator	1891	Jesse W. Reno	US
eyeglasses	1280s	Salvino degli Armati or Alessandro di Spina	Italy
facsimile (fax)	1842	Alexander Bain	Scotland
fiber optics	1955	Narinder S. Kapany	India
fiberglass	1938	Owens Corning (corp.)	US
film, photographic	1884	George Eastman	US
flashlight, battery-operated portable	1899	Conrad Hubert	Russia/US
flask, vacuum (Thermos)	1892	Sir James Dewar	Scotland
food processor	1971	Pierre Verdon	France
foods, freeze-dried	1946	Earl W. Flosdorf	US
foods, frozen	c. 1924	Clarence Birdseye	US
Fresnel lens	1820	Augustin-Jean Fresnel	France
fuel cell	1839	William R. Grove	UK
genetic engineering	1973	Stanley N. Cohen, Herbert W. Boyer	US
Geiger counter	1908	Hans Geiger	Germany
glass	c. 2500 BC	Egyptians or Phoenicians	Egypt or Lebanon
glass, safety	1909	Édouard Bénédictus	France
greeting card, Christmas	1843	John Callcott Horsley	England
guillotine	1792	Joseph-Ignace Guillotin	France
guitar, electric	1941	Les Paul	US
gunpowder	c. 10th century	—	China or Arabia
hanger, wire coat	1903	Albert J. Parkhouse	US
helicopter	1939	Igor Sikorsky	Russia/US
holography	1948	Dennis Gabor	Hungary
hypodermic syringe	1853	Charles Gabriel Pravaz	France
in vitro fertilization (IVF), human	1978	Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards	UK
ink	c. 2500 BC	—	Egypt, China
insulin, extraction and preparation of	1921	Sir Frederick Grant Banting, Charles H. Best	Canada
integrated circuit	1958	Jack S. Kilby	US
Internet	1969	Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) at the Dept. of Defense	US
iron, electric	1882	Henry W. Seely	US
irradiation, food	1905	—	US/UK
jeans	1873	Levi Strauss, Jacob Davis	US
JELL-O (gelatin dessert)	1897	Pearle B. Wait	US
jukebox	1889	Louis Glass	US
Kevlar	1965	Stephanie Kwolek	US
Kool-Aid (fruit drink mix)	1927	Edwin E. Perkins	US
laser	1958	Gordon Gould and Charles Hard Townes, Arthur L. Schawlow (invented separately)	US
laundromat	1934	J.F. Cantrell	US
lawn mower, gasoline-powered	c. 1940	Leonard Goodall	US
Lego	late 1940s	Ole Kirk Christiansen	Denmark
light bulb, incandescent	1879	Thomas Alva Edison	US
light bulb, fluorescent	1934	Arthur Compton	US
light-emitting diode (LED)	1962	Nick Holonyak, Jr.	US
linoleum	1860	Frederick Walton	UK
lipstick, tube	1915	Maurice Levy	US
liquid crystal display (LCD)	1963	George Heilmeier	US
lock and key	c. 2000 BC	Assyrians	Mesopotamia
locomotive	1829	George Stephenson	England
longbow	c. 1000	—	Wales
loudspeaker	1924	Chester W. Rice, Edward W. Kellogg	US
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)	early 1970s	Raymond Damadian, Paul Lauterbur	US
margarine	1869	Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès	France
matches, friction	1827	John Walker	England
metric system of measurement	1795	French Academy of Sciences	France
microphone	1878	David E. Hughes	UK/US
microscope, compound optical	c. 1600	Hans & Zacharias Jansen	The Netherlands
microscope, electron	1933	Ernst Ruska	Germany
microwave oven	1945	Percy L. Spencer	US
miniature golf	c. 1930	Garnet Carter	US
mirror, glass	c. 1200	Venetians	Italy
missile, guided	1942	Wernher von Braun	Germany
mobile home	1919	Glenn H. Curtiss	US
money, paper	late 900s	—	China
Monopoly (board game)	1934	Charles B. Darrow	US
Morse code	1838	Samuel F.B. Morse	US
motor, electric	1834	Thomas Davenport	US
motor, outboard	1907	Ole Evinrude	Norway/US
motorcycle	1885	Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach	Germany
mouse, computer	1963–64	Douglas Engelbart	US
Muzak	1922	George Owen Squier	US
nail, construction	c. 3300 BC	Sumerians	Mesopotamia
necktie	17th century	—	Croatia
neon lighting	1910	Georges Claude	France
nuclear reactor	1942	Enrico Fermi	US
nylon	1937	Wallace H. Carothers	US
oil lamp	1784	Aimé Argand	Switzerland
oil well	1859	Edwin Laurentine Drake	US
pacemaker, cardiac	1952	Paul M. Zoll	US
paper	c. 105	Ts'ai Lun	China
paper clip	1899	Johan Vaaler	Norway
paper towel	1931	Arthur Scott	US
parachute, modern	1797	André-Jacques Garnerin	France
parking meter	1932	Carl C. Magee	US
particle accelerator	1929	Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton	Ireland/UK
pasteurization	1864	Louis Pasteur	France
pen, ballpoint	1938	Lazlo Biro	Hungary
pencil	1565	Conrad Gesner	Switzerland
periodic table	1871	Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev	Russia
personal watercraft, motorized	1968	Bombardier, Inc.	Canada
petroleum jelly	1870s	Robert Chesebrough	US
phonograph	1877	Thomas Alva Edison	US
photocopying (xerography)	1937	Chester F. Carlson	US
photography	1837	Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre	France
photography, instant	1947	Edwin Herbert Land	US
Play-Doh	1956	Noah W. & Joseph S. McVicker	US
plow, steel	1836	John Deere	US
pocket watch	c. 1500	Peter Henlein	Germany
polyethylene	1935	Eric Fawcett, Reginald Gibson	UK
polygraph (lie detector)	1921	John A. Larson	US
polyvinyl chloride (PVC)	1872	Eugen Baumann	Germany
Post-it Notes	mid-1970s	Arthur Fry (3M)	US
potato chips	1853	George Crum	US
printing press, movable type	c. 1450	Johannes Gutenberg	Germany
Prozac	1972	Ray W. Fuller, Bryan B. Molloy, David T. Wong	US
radar	c. 1904	Christian Hülsmeyer	Germany
radio	1896	Guglielmo Marconi	Italy
radio, car	early 1920s	William P. Lear	US
rayon	1884	Louis-Marie-Hilaire Bernigaud, count of Chardonnet	France
razor, electric	1928	Jacob Schick	US
razor, safety	c. 1900	King Camp Gillette	US
reaper, mechanical	1831	Cyrus Hall McCormick	US
record, long-playing (LP)	1948	Peter Carl Goldmark	US
refrigerator	1842	John Gorrie	US
remote control, television	1950	Robert Adler	US
respirator	c. 1955	Forrest M. Bird	US
revolver	1835–36	Samuel Colt	US
Richter scale	1935	Charles Francis Richter, Beno Gutenberg	US
rifle, assault	1944	Hugo Schmeisser	Germany
roller coaster	1884	LeMarcus A. Thompson	US
rubber, vulcanized	1839	Charles Goodyear	US
rubber band	1845	Stephen Perry	UK
saccharin	1879	Ira Remsen, Constantin Fahlberg	US, Germany
saddle	c. 200 BC	—	China
safety pin	1849	Walter Hunt	US
satellite, successful artificial earth	1957	Sergey Korolyov, et al.	USSR
satellite, communications	1960	John Robinson Pierce	US
saxophone	1846	Antoine-Joseph Sax	Belgium
Scotch tape	1930	Richard Drew (3M)	US
scuba gear	1943	Jacques Cousteau, Émile Gagnan	France
seat belt, automotive shoulder	1959	Nils Bohlin (Volvo)	Sweden
sewing machine	1841	Barthélemy Thimonnier	France
shoelaces	1790	—	England
silicone	1904	Frederic Stanley Kipping	UK
skateboard	1958	Bill & Mark Richards	US
skates, ice	1000 BC	—	Scandinavia
skates, roller	1760s	Joseph Merlin	Belgium
ski, snow	c. 2000–3000 BC	—	Sweden, Finland, Norway
skyscraper, steel-frame	1884	William Le Baron Jenney	US
slot machine	1890s	Charles Fey	US
snowmobile	1922	Joseph-Armand Bombardier	Canada
soap	600 BC	Phoenicians	Lebanon
soft drinks, carbonated	1772	Joseph Priestley	UK
sonar	1915	Paul Langevin	France
stamps, postage	1840	Sir Rowland Hill	UK
stapler	1866	George W. McGill	US
steamboat, successful	1807	Robert Fulton	US
steel, mass-production	1856	Henry Bessemer	UK
steel, stainless	1914	Harry Brearley	UK
stereo, personal	1979	Sony Corp.	Japan
stereophonic sound recording	1931	Alan Dower Blumlein	UK
stethoscope	1819	René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec	France
stock ticker	1867	Edward A. Calahan	US
stove, electric	1896	William Hadaway	US
stove, gas	1826	James Sharp	UK
straw, drinking	1888	Marvin Stone	US
submarine	1620	Cornelis Drebbel	The Netherlands
sunglasses	1752	James Ayscough	UK
sunscreen	1944	Benjamin Green	US
supermarket	1930	Michael Cullen	US
synthesizer, music	1955	Harry Olson, Herbert Belar	US
synthetic skin	1981	Ioannis V. Yannas, John F. Burke	US
tampon, cotton	1931	Earle Cleveland Haas	US
tank, military	1915	Admiralty Landships Committee	UK
tea bag	early 1900s	Thomas Sullivan	US
teddy bear	1902	Morris Michtom	US
Teflon	1938	Roy Plunkett	US
telegraph	1832–35	Samuel F.B. Morse	US
telephone, wired-line	1876	Alexander Graham Bell	Scotland/US
telephone, mobile	1946	Bell Laboratories	US
telescope, optical	1608	Hans Lippershey	The Netherlands
television	1923, 1927	Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, Philo Taylor Farnsworth	Russia/US, US
thermometer	1592	Galileo	Italy
thermostat	1830	Andrew Ure	UK
threshing machine	1778	Andrew Meikle	Scotland
tire, pneumatic	1888	John Boyd Dunlop	UK
tissue, disposable facial	1924	Kimberly-Clark Co.	US
tissue, toilet	1857	Joseph Gayetty	US
toaster, electric	1893	Crompton Co.	UK
toilet, flush	c. 1591	Sir John Harington	England
toothbrush	1498	—	China
tractor	1892	John Froehlich	US
traffic lights, automatic	1923	Garrett A. Morgan	US
transistor	1947	John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, William B. Shockley	US
typewriter	1868	Christopher Latham Sholes	US
ultrasound imaging, obstetric	1958	Ian Donald	UK
vaccination	1796	Edward Jenner	England
vacuum cleaner, electric	1901	Herbert Cecil Booth	UK
Velcro	1948	George de Mestral	Switzerland
vending machine	c. 100–200 BC	—	Egypt
Viagra	1997	Pfizer Inc.	US
video games	1972	Nolan Bushnell	US
videocassette recorder	1969	Sony Corp.	Japan
videotape	1950s	Charles Ginsburg	US
virtual reality	1989	Jaron Lanier	US
vision correction, laser	1987	Stephen Trokel	US
washing machine, electric	1907	Alva J. Fisher	US
wheel	about 3500 BC	proto-Aryan people or Sumerians	Russia/Kazakhstan or Mesopotamia
wheelbarrow	1st century BC	—	China
wheelchair	1590s	—	Spain
windmill	644	—	Persia
wine	before 4000 BC	—	Middle East
World Wide Web	1989	Tim Berners-Lee	UK
wristwatch, digital	1970	John M. Bergey	US
X-ray imaging	1895	Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen	Germany
Zamboni (ice resurfacing machine)	1949	Frank J. Zamboni	US
zipper	1893	Whitcomb L. Judson	US

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