Inventions by year and country (from about.com)

' l

Invention Special Information Year Country Boomerang made of mammoth's tusk 28,000 BC Poland Shoes "As late as 1850 most shoes were made on absolutely straight lasts, there being no difference between the right and the left shoe." 8,000 BC Oregon Snowshoes Central Europe 2,000 - 4,000 BC Central Europe abacus Sumerian abacus 2,300 BC Sumeria Kayak Eskimos 2,000 BC Eskimoland Locks Wooden 2,000 BC assyria Pasta Discovered 2,000 BC China Trumpet Egypt 1500 BCE Egypt Glass Naturally occuring. 1400's BC Western Asia, Crete and Egypt Guitar Stone carving of a Hittite bard. 1300 BC Hittite Brush   500 B.C.   Odometer Pliny talking about Alexander the Great 325 BC Greece Archimedes Screw a machine for raising water 240 B.C. Greek Compass China 2nd Century BC China Golf Originally called paganica. 00's BC Romans Glass Window Primitive windows were just holes in a wall 100's Romans Paper Pulp papermaking process by Cai Lun. 105 China Rockets performed for the emperor Carinus 282 Rome gunpowder A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 AD noted saltpetre burnt with a purple flame 492 China Windmills Persia 600´s Persia Grenade Invented in the 600's. 740's Byzantine Empire Coffee Kaldi 800's Ethiopia shopping mall Grand Bazaar 900's Isfahan Firearms In a painting. 1100's China Perpetual Motion Machine Bhāskara II 1150 India toothbrush Monks witnessed 1223 China Buttons as fasteners Previously used as ornamentation. 1200's Germany Spinning Wheel an ancient machine that turned fibers into thread or yarn. Earliest drawing 1237 Bagdhad Eyeglasses Salvino D'Armate 1284 Italy Skyscrapers Lincoln Cathedral 1300 England lacing Openwork fabric 1300's Belgium Railroad stained-glass window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany 1350 Germany Metal Screws Europe 1400's Europe Spring driven Clocks Peter the Good 1430 Germany Periscope Johann Gutenberg 1430's Germany Anemometer Leone Battista Alberti 1450 Italy Cricket End of the 18th century national sport of England 1500's England Microscope Middelburg, Netherlands 1590 Netherlands Revolvers Rifle 1597 Germany Telescope Hans Lippershey 1608 Holland Slide Ruler John Napier 1620 England Sign Language Juan Pablo Bonet 1620 Spain Sandwich beef hung from the rafters "which they cut into thin slices and eat with bread and butter laying the slices upon the butter" 1600's Netherlands Barometer Evangelista Torricelli in 1643 Italy Fishing Reel   1651   Chocolate stores in the west From 1657 England Adhesives/Glue made from fish. Around 1750 Britain Piano Bartolomeo Cristofori 1700 Italy Ballistic Missile Hyder Ali, prince of Mysore, India 1700's India Steam Engines Thomas Newcomen 1712   Thermometer Gabriel Fahrenheit 1724   Sterotyping William Ged 1725   Punch Cards Basile Bouchon 1725 France Baby Carriage William Kent 1733 England Flying Shuttle an improvement to looms that enabled weavers to weave faster. John Kay. 1733 England Electroscope a device for detecting electric charge 1748   refrigerator William Cullen at the University of Glasgow. 1748 USA Sunglasses James Ayscough 1752   Tungsten Wire wire used in lightbulbs. A. F. Cronstedt 1755 Swedin Roller Skates John Joseph Merlin 1760 Belgium Pivoted Scissors Robert Hinchliffe 1761 England Spinning Jenny James Hargreaves patented the spinning jenny used for weaving yarn. 1764 England Carbonated Drinks Joseph Priestley 1767 England false teeth Alexis Duchâteau 1770 France toilet Alexander Cummings 1775 England Spinning Mule Samuel Crompton 1779 England Air Ships balloons, blimps, dirigibles and zeppelins. Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier 1783 France Balloons/Blimps Montgolfier brothers 1783 France Parachutes Louis Sebastien Lenormand 1783   Bifocals Benjamin Franklin 1784 USA Shrapnel Henry Shrapnel 1784 Enland Power Loom Edmund Cartwright 1785 England Pencils Joseph Hardtmuth 1790 Austria Sewing Machines Thomas Saint 1790 England cotton gins Eli Whitney 1792 USA Guillotine Tobias Schmidt 1792 Germany Fireplace (Rumford) Benjamin Thompson 1796   Battery Alessandro Volta 1799 Italy Jacquard Loom Weaved complex designs. Joseph Marie Jacquard 1801 France Electroplating   1805   Pneumatic capsule Phineas Balk 1806 England Steamboats Robert Fulton 1807   Tin can   1810 England Ambulance Dominique Jean Larrey 1815 France Dental floss silk floss Levi Spear Parmly 1815 USA Gyroscope Johann Bohnenberger 1817 Germany Soda Fountain Samuel Fahnestock 1819   Elastic Thomas Hancock 1820   Prony Brake Gaspard de Prony 1821 France Electric Motor Michael Faraday 1821 England Braille Louis Braille 1821 France Photography Nicéphore Niépce 1822 France Balloons (Toy) Michael Faraday 1824 England Fountain Pens Petrache Poenaru 1827 France Electromagnet a device in which magnetism is produced by an electric current 1827 USA Typewriters/Typing William Austin Burt 1829 USA Lawn Mowers Edwin Beard Budding 1830   Modern Cigarettes Originally Central America in the 800's. 1830 France Janney Coupler the standard for the railroad freightcar couplers used even today. Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 1830 England Reapers Cyrus McCormick 1831 USA Steel plows John Deere 1830s USA Stamps Rowland Hill 1837   Commercial Steel Plow John Deere 1837 USA Electric Telegraph Samuel Morse 1837 USA Fuel Cells Sir William Grove 1839   Photovoltics Edmund Becquerel 1839 French Saxophone Adolphe Sax 1841 Belgium Grain Elevator   1842 USA Fax Alexander Bain 1842   Fiber Optics the use of light to communicate. Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet Early 1840's France Sugar Processing Evaporator Norbert Rillieux. 1843 USA Baseball/Baseball Equipment Alexander Cartwright 1845 USA Tube Pressure Gauge Eugene Bourdon 1849   Safety Pin Walter Hunt 1849   Commercial ice cream Jacob Fussell 1851 USA Steel ribbed umbrella Samuel Fox 1852 England Blue Jeans Levi Strauss 1853 USA (Germany Immigrant) Spectrograph measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum 19th century All over Potato Chips   1853   Hopodermic Syringe Alexander Wood 1853 Scotland Petroleum Refining Ignacy Łukasiewicz 1854 Poland Steel Henry Bessemer. first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron 1855 England Sleeping Car George Pullman 1857   Elevator Elisha Otis 1857 New York Fingerprinting Sir William James Herschel to use in India 1858 England Hand driven Vacuum Cleaner Daniel Hess 1860 USA Bicycle Ernest Michaux 1861 France Loudspeakers Johann Philipp Reis 1861 Germany Submarines H. L. Hunley. Conferderacy 1863 USA Pasteurization Louis Pasteur 1864 France Stapler George W. McGill 1866   Boilers George Babcock and Stephen Wilcox 1867 USA Concrete Joseph Monier 1867 France Laccross William George Beers 1867 Canada Dynamite Alfred Nobel 1867 Sweden Air Brakes For trains 1868 USA Traffic Signals outside the British Houses of Parliament in London 1868 England Coat Hangers O. A. North 1869   Pinball Montague Redgrave. British 1869 USA Periodic Table Dmitri Mendeleev 1869 Russia Mobile gasoline Engine Siegfried Marcus 1870 Austria Pyrotechnic Signaling System Martha Coston invented a system of maritime signal flares. 1871 USA Chapstick Dr. Charles Browne Fleet Early 1870's USA TTY, TDD or Tele-Typewriter stock ticker machine 1870's USA Regrigerator Carl von Linde 1870's German Asphalt Edward de Smedt 1872 USA Tennis Walter Wingfield 1873   Vacuum Packed Canning Amanda Jones 1873 USA Barbed Wire Joseph Glidden 1874 USA Sprinkler Systems Henry Parmalee 1874 USA Voting Machines Henry Spratt 1875 USA Automobile Nicolaus Otto 1876 Germany Telephone Alexander Graham Bell 1876 USA Sound Recording Thomas Edison 1877 USA Phonograph Thomas Edison 1877 USA Telephone Switching System Hungarian Tivadar Puskás 1877 USA Lightbulbs Thomas Edison 1879 USA Vending Machines   1880 England Seismograph John Milne 1880 England Corkscrew (sommelier knife) German Karl Wienke 1882 Germany Cash Register James Ritty 1883 USA Shoe Manufacturing Machine Jan Matzeligerdeveloped an automatic method for lasting shoes and made the mass production of affordable shoes possible. Black. 1883 USA Solar power Charles Fritts 1884 USA Cordite a smokeless gunpowder, Paul Vieille 1884 France Soft Drinks Charles Aderton invented the Dr Pepper 1885   snaps Heribert Bauer 1885 Germany Dishwasher Josephine Cochran 1886   Braces Edward Angle. Orthodontic “tubes” 1886 USA Yellow Pages   1886   Softball George Hancock 1887 USA Drinking Straws Marvin Stone 1888   Aluminum Charles Martin Hall 1889 USA Aspirin Bayer 1889 Germany Pizza Neapolitan pie with tomato 1889 Italy Film William Friese-Greene 1889 USA hand stamp William Purvis. Black 1890 USA Calcium Carbide Process Major James Morehead 1891 England Letter Box Philip Downing 1891   Basketball James Naismith 1891 Canada Escalator Jesse Reno 1891   tractors John Froelich 1892 USA toothpaste Dr. Washington Sheffield 1892 USA Diesel Rudolf Diesel 1893 Germany Radio Nikola Tesla 1893 USA Carborundum Edward Goodrich Acheson 1893 USA Corn Flakes Originally named Granose by Kellog 1894 USA Alternating Current Charles Proteus Steinmetz 1895 USA (German Immigrant) Volleyball William Morgan 1895   Street Sweeper C. B. Brooks 1896   X-Rays Frost brothers 1896 USA Answering Machines Valdemar Poulsen 1898 Denmark Flashlight Eveready 1898   Spark Plugs Nikola Tesla 1898 USA Shoelaces Very old, but did not become widely popular until the 20th century Popular in the 20th century All over Push Pins Edwin Moore 1900 USA Assembly Line Ransom E. Olds 1901 USA Safety razor with disposable blades King Camp Gillette 1901 USA Air Conditioning Willis Carrier 1902 USA Arc Transmitter Valdemar Poulsen 1902   Airplane Wilbur and Orville Wright 1903 USA Crayons Crayola 1903 USA Peanut Butter Dr. Ambrose Straub 1903 USA Lighters Carl Auer von Welsbach 1903 Austria Thermo Sir James Dewar 1904 Germany RADAR Christian Huelsmeyer 1904 Germany Vacuum Tubes John Ambrose Fleming, "oscillation valve" 1904 USA Plastic Leo Hendrik Baekeland 1907 USA Outboard Motor Ole Evinrude 1907 Norway Cellophane   1908   Synthetic Rubber Bayor company 1909 Germany vinyl Gordo Prust 1909 USA Seaplane at Martinque 1910 France Vitamins Umetaro Suzuki 1910 Japan ECG/EKG/Electrocardiography Augustus Waller 1911 England SONAR Lewis Fry Richardson 1912 England Electric traffic light Lester Wire 1912 USA Brazziere Mary Phelps Jacob 1913   Scooters Autoped Company 1914 USA zippers Gideon Sundback. Swedish 1914 USA Modern Gas Mask James Bert Garner 1915 USA Depth Charge   1915 England Electric plug Harvey Hubbell widespread by 1915 USA Grocery Bag Walter H. Deubner 1915 USA Sneakers Keds 1916 USA Calculators   1917   Laser   1917   Detergents to alleviate World War I soap shortages 1917 Germany Band-Aid Earle Dickson 1920 USA Lie Detector John Larson 1921   Blenders Stephen Poplawski 1922 USA Snowmobile Joseph-Armand Bombardier 1922   Radiovision Charles Jenkins 1923   Snowblower Arthur Sicard 1925 Canadian PVC Waldo Semon 1926 USA Respirators Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw 1927   Freon Refrigerator General Electric "Monitor-Top" 1927 USA Quartz Watch Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton at Bell Telephone Laboratories 1927 USA Cold Fusion Energy J. Tandberg 1927 Sweden Jukebox Automatic phonograph produced by the Automated Musical Instrument Company 1927 USA Electric razors Jacob Schick 1928 USA Altimeter Paul Kollsman 1928 Germany Freon Thomas Midgley and Charles Kettering 1928   Penicillin Alexander Fleming 1928 Scotland Bubble Gum Walter E. Diemer 1928 USA Sliced Bread Otto Frederick Rohwedder 1928 USA Kinescope a tube needed for television transmission. 1929   Cyclotron Ernest Lawrence 1929 USA Particle Accelerators Ernest O. Lawrence. Cyclotron 1929 USA Television John Logie Baird 1929 Scotland Chain Saw Andreas Stihl 1929 Switzerland Applicator Tampon Dr. Earle Haas 1929 USA Frozen Foods Clarence Birdseye 1929 USA Adhesive Tape   1930 USA Pentothal Donalee Tabern and Ernest Volwiler early 1930s USA O-Ring Niels Christensen 1930's   Orgone Accumulator Dr Wilhelm Reich 1930's USA Video Camera BBC 1930's England Freeze Drying Tray freeze dryer 1930's ? Parking Meter Carl Magee 1932   Fuel Cells Francis T Bacon 1932 England Reflectors Percy Shaw 1934 England Nylon/Neoprene Dupont. Wallace brothers. 1935 USA Vinyl Waldo Semon 1935 USA Electric Blanket   1936   Polystyrene Dow Chemical company 1937 USA Duramold a process that involves laminating and molding thin sheets of veneer together Late 1930's USA Polyurethane Otto Bayer 1937 Germany Ball Point Pens Ladislo Biro 1938 Hungary Teflon Accidentally inventeed by Roy Plunkett 1938 USA Fluorescent Lamps General Electric 1938 USA Atomic Bomb Development starts 1939 USA Jet Engine Dr. Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle. On the plane Heinkel He 178. 1939 Germany Freezer General Foods 1940 USA Paint Roller   1940   Disposable Catheter David S. Sheridan 1940's USA Blood Bank Dr. Charles Richard Drew 1941 USA Polyester John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson 1941 England Styrofoam Dow's Chemical Physics Lab 1941 USA Saran Wrap Dow Chemical Company 1942 USA Aqualung Aqua-lung 1943 France Flying Saucers Roswell 1945 USA Dialysis Machine Willem Kolff Dutch 1945 USA nylon Dupont 1945 25% market share USA Bikini Jacques Heim and Louis Reard 1946 France Tupperware Earl Tupper 1946 USA Transistor John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley 1947   Video Games "Cathode ray tube Amusement Device" by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann 1947 USA Gerber Variable Scale Joseph Gerber. To measure distances on a map. 1948 Germany Kitty Litter Edward Lowe 1948 USA Seat Belts Volvo 1949   Crash Test Dummies GM 1949 USA Cortisone Percy Lavon Julian (Black) 1949 USA RAM Intel. Magnetic core memory 1949 USA Zamboni The original ice cleaning machine invented by Frank Zamboni. 1949 USA Copy Machine Chester Carlson. Xerox. 1949 USA Diapers (Disposable) Marion Donovan 1950 USA Remote Control Zenith 1950   Garbage Bag Harry Wasylyk 1950 Canada Nystatin the world's first useful antifungal antibiotic 1950 USA Credit Cards Diner's club 1950 USA Pacemaker John Hopps 1951 Canada Sailboards   1950's   Neutronic Reactor Enrico Fermi. Italian 1952 USA Scotchgard Patsy Sherman 1952 USA Fortran John Backus and IBM 1953 USA Geodesic Domes Richard Buckminster Fuller 1954   Biofilters/Biofiltration   1955 Germany Photovoltics/Photoluminescence Western Electric 1955 USA Satellites the former Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I 1957   Use of velcro George de Mestral. Swiss 1957 USA Scanning and Sorting Machine Drum scanner. National Bureau of Standars. 1957 USA Cruise Control Ralph Teetor, Chrystler 1958 USA Rolodex Newell Rubbermaid 1958 USA Automatic Doors Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt 1960 USA Oral Contraceptives estrogen (oestrogen) and a progestin (progestogen 1960 USA Panty Hose USA 1960's USA Venetian Blinds Edward Bopp and Fredrick Bopp 1960's USA Contact Lenses Otto Wichterle 1961 Chech Republic Vaccination Needle Benjamin Rubin 1961 USA ERMA and MICR magnetic ink character recognition for reading checks 1961 USA Commercialized Polio Vaccine Jonas Salk 1962 USA Cassette Tape Philips 1963   LCD - Liquid Crystal Display James Fergason 1963 USA BASIC John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz 1964 USA Electrogasdynamics Systems Meredith Gourdine. Black. Converted natural gas to electricity for everyday use. 1964 USA Compact Disk James Russell 1965   Kevlar Stephanie Kwolek invented a material five times stronger than steel. Dupont. 1965 USA Tidal Power Plants Rance Power Plant 1966 France Bar Codes Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver 1966 USA AstroTurf   1967 USA Household microwave oven Raytheon 1967 USA Jacuzzi Roy Jacuzzi, fully integrated whirlpool bath 1968   ATM  - Automatic Teller Machines In a chemical bank in New York 1969 USA Laser Disc   1969   Smoke Detectors Randolph Smith and Kenneth House 1969   Laser Printers Xerox 1969 USA CCD George Smith and Willard Boyle. Charge Coupled Devices. 1969 USA Cuisinart Carl Sontheimer 1971 USA Floppy Disk Alan Shugart. IBM 1971 USA CAT-Scans Hounsfield and Cormack 1971 USA Commercial Snowmaking Machines Art Hunt, Dave Richey and Wayne Pierce 1950 Early 1970's USA Phototypesetting Popularity Louis Moyroud and Rene Higonnet. From 1940's. 1970's. USA Touch Screen Technology one of the easiest to use and most intuitive of all PC interfaces. PLATO project. 1972 USA Air Bags Chevrolet 1973 USA Jet Ski Clayton Jacobsen II. Kawasaki. 1973 USA Polaroid Photography Edwin Land. 1975 USA Skateboard California late 1970s USA VisiCalc the first computer spreadsheet program 1979   Liquid Paper Bette Graham. Gillette 1979 USA Cell Phones the FCC slowed the progress9. NCC 1979 Japan Tagamet Graham Durant, John Emmett and Charon Ganellininhibits the production of stomach acid. GlaxoSmithKline 1979 USA Trivial Pursuit Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. 1979 Canadians Liquid Soap   1980   Naturally Colored Cotton Sally Fox 1982 USA Email Government 1982 USA Genetic Engineering Cloning genetically engineered molecules in foreign cells. The first genetically engineered medicine was synthetic human insulin 1982 USA Computers The Apple Lisa was the first home computer 1983 USA PCR Kary Mullis 1983 USA Superconductors Alex Müllerand Johannes Bednorz 1986   Scanning Tunneling Microscope - STM Gerd Karl Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer 1986 Germany Water Based Fuels Rulolf Gunnerman 1987 USA Prozac the world's most widely prescribed antidepressant. FDA approved in '87 1987 USA Optical Diagnostic Equipment Tuan Vo-Dinh. Can detect and diagnose diseases by optical scanning. 1987 USA Closed Captioning Systems display text on a television. late 1980s USA Full Spectrum Lighting John Ott. OttLite Technology 1989 USA Modern Pacemaker Wilson Greatbatch lithium-iodide cell 1990 USA Ghost Detectors Joseph P. Carcia 1990 USA Optical Analysis System Ellen Ochoa. Robotically manufacture goods or in robotic guiding systems. 1990 USA Robot Ants James McLurkin. Black 1991 USA Smart Pills any pill that can deliver or control its delivery of medicine without the patient having to take action beyond the initial swallow. Jerome Schentag and David D'Andrea. 1992 USA Smart Gels Toyoichi Tanaka. Materials that expand or contract when triggered by tiny changes in temperature, light, a solvent or other stimulus." 1992 Japan GPS/Global Positioning System Full Operational Capability with 24 satellites. 1995 USA DVD Matshusita 1995 Japan Java a programming language and environment written by Patrick Naughton, Mike Sheridan and James Gosling. 1995 USA Cloning Dolly the sheep 1996 Scotland Viagra Pfizer's Sandwich, Kent, research facility 1996 England Widespread use of internet US military 1996 USA Geobond Patricia Billings invented a indestructible and fireproof building material. 1997 USA Electrochemical Paintbrush nanotechnology used in etching microchips 1997 USA Digital Camera Nikon 1999 Japan Trillian The king of instant messengers. designed to be an IRC client 2000 USA Artificial Heart Abiocor 2001 USA Laptop dominance Overtaking desktop sales. Second half of 2008 USA