Inventors 1900 to 1999
Inventors and their inventions from 1900 to 1999 have come to dominate our lives. Here are a few of the major inventions and their inventors from the Twentieth Century.
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Orville was at the controls of the world’s first powered flight while Wilbur observed (1903). |
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John Ambrose Fleming |
Invented the diode - a vital part of radios and televisions (1904) |
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Christian Hulsmeyer |
The first radar system used in shipping (1904) |
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Inventor of plastic (1905) |
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Reginald Fessenden |
Invented radio broadcasting (1906) |
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Mary Phelps Jacob |
Invented the bra (1913) |
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Gidoen Sundback |
Invented the zip (1913) |
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John Thompson |
Invented the sub-machine gun (1920) |
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Frederick Banting / Charles Best |
Isolated insulin (1921) |
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Karel Capek |
Invented the first robot (1921) |
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Clarence Birdseye |
Started the idea of frozen food (1924) |
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Invented the television - its first public demonstration was at Selfridges in London (1925) |
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Invented liquid fuel rocket (1926) |
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Discovered penicillin and paved the way for antibiotics (1928) |
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Frank Whittle |
The jet engine (1930) |
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Percy Shaw |
Inventor of the cats eyes - a major factor in improved road safety (1934) |
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Laszlo Jose Biro |
Invented the ball point pen (1938) |
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Inventor of the modern helicopter (1939) |
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Built the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago (1942) |
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Willem Kolff |
Invented the kidney dialysis machine (1944) |
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Percy LeBaron Spencer |
Invented the microwave oven (1946) |
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George deMestral |
Invented velcro (1948) |
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Carl Djerassi |
Developed the contraceptive pill (1951) |
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Sir Christopher Cockerell |
Invented the hovercraft (1955) |
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Jonas Salk |
Made the vaccine for polio (1955) |
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Jack Kilby |
Made the first microchip - the start of miniaturisation of technology (1958) |
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Wilson Greatbatch |
Invented the first heart pacemaker (1960) |
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Douglas Engelbart |
Invented the computer mouse (1964) |
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Stephanie Kwolek |
Invented kevlar (1966) |
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Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman and James von Tassel |
The portable calculator (1967) |
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George Gray |
Invented the LCD and LED (1970) |
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Herbert Boyer |
Pioneer of genetic engineering (1973) |
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Akio Morita |
Inventor of the personal stereo (1979) |
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Tim Berners-Lee |
Creator of the World Wide Web (1989) |
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Ian Wilmut |
Headed team that produced the first cloned sheep - Dolly (1997) |
