The Greatest American Inventions

The Greatest American Inventions (expand below)
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American Firsts

First to send a telegram: 1836
First in flight: 1903
First to launch a liquid-fuel rocket: 1926
First to discover the planet Pluto: 1930
First to use nuclear weapons: 1945
First to break the sound barrier: 1947
First to discover DNA helix structure: 1952
First to develop a polio vaccine: 1957
First to perform a lung transplant: 1963
First to perform a heart transplant: 1964
First to walk on the surface of the moon: 1969
First to send e-mail: 1971
First in human-powered flight: 1977
First area-wide internet connection: 1983
First to land and operate a rover on the Martian surface: 1997
First to produce a stem cell line: 1998
First to photograph the Martian surface: 2004
First to develop a cancer vaccine: 2006
First to confirm water-ice on the Martian polar caps: 2007
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Other Notable American Inventions

Microprocessor: 1971, Ted Hoff
Bathysphere: 1930, William Beebe and Otis Barton
Tea bags: 1908, Thomas Sullivan
Revolver: 1836, Samuel Colt
Heart-lung machine: 1953, John H. Gibbon
Reaping machine: 1831, Cyrus McCormick
Ferris wheel: 1891, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr
Parking meter: 1935, Carl C. Magee
Sunglasses: 1929, Sam Foster
Hearing aid: 1880, R.G. Rhodes
Burglar alarm: 1858, Edwin T. Holmes
Mimeograph: 1875, Thomas Edison
Sextant: 1731, Thomas Godfrey
Spray gun: 1803, Alan de Vilbiss
Lock-stitch sewing machine: 1833, Walter Hunt
Threshing Machine: 1834, John Avery and Hiram Abial Pitts
Paperclip: 1867, Samuel B. Fay
Barbed wire: 1867, Henry Rose
Vacuum cleaner: 1868, Ives W. McGaffney
Videotape: 1956, Charles Ginsburg and Ray Dolby
Self Starter: 1911, Charles Kettering
Vulcanized rubber: 1844, Charles Goodyear
Band-aid: 1921, Earle Dickson
Frozen food, 1929, Clarence Birdseye
Nylon: 1938, Wallace H. Carothers
Disposable diaper: 1950, Marion Donovan
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Questions to Ponder

Didn't Thomas A. Edison invent incandescent light in 1879?

Unfortunately, an Englishman named Joseph Swan submitted his patent for the lightbulb in England a year before Edison did. Although Swan had invented the lightbulb, it was Edison's carbon filament lightbulb which was the first practical use of incandescent light. In later years, Edison's lightbulb would prove to become commercially decisive. Swan invented incandescent light, but his invention was not practical.

Didn't Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone in 1876?

Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman, did not invent the telephone. Antonio Meucci, an Italian had invented telephony beginning in the 1830's where his invention was perfected in 1873. Likewise, Elisha Gray had invented water transmission and had developed a telephone before Alexander Graham Bell did. Unfortunately, Alexander Graham Bell had a very good team of lawyers and slick publicity on his side. Elisha Gray had legitimately submitted his invention first to the U.S. Patent Office. However, he did not have the $10.00 to process the paperwork. Hence, Graham Bell stole Gray's invention and bribed the patent office where the invention was wrongfully accredited to him in 1876.

In 2002, the United States Congress voted on a resolution stating that given the facts, Alexander Graham Bell was wrongly awarded the patent for the telephone in 1876. Thus, the Congressional resolution recognized that Antonio Meucci was the true father of the telephone.

Didn't Tim Berniers-Lee invent the internet?

Credit is not given to those who do not deserve it. Likewise, the internet is hardly a British invention. Berniers- Lee while at Cern invented the world-wide web in 1989. What most people fail to understand is that the internet and the W.W.W. are two completely seperate platforms of technology. Similar to e-mail, the W.W.W. is an "application" of utilizing the internet. Hence, without the genius minds of people like Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf who invented IP, http, and tcp, Tim Berniers-Lee never would have been able to invent the W.W.W.

The internet as it evolved, was developed in the 1960's at the U.S. Department of Defense's ARPANET in response to the Soviet Union's satellite, Sputnik.

Wasn't Santos Dumont the first person to achieve flight?

Santos Dumont achieved power flight in 1906. The Wright Brothers had beaten him by approximately three years with their first flight in 1903. Moreover, the Wright Flyer III in 1905, a fixed-winged and powered aircraft which was heavier-than-air flew for a record 33 minutes using mechanical controls.

The Wright Brothers are officially credited worldwide through the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics, as achieving "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight".

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