7 Inventions that Changed the World

Written by: Sitara Nair

There are many inventions in our history that often go unnoticed, from the wheel to the airplane, and you might not even realize how important they are to us! Here are seven of these incredible inventions that changed the world and continue to improve our lives!

The Wheel

While it might seem silly, the wheel is actually one of the most complex and useful inventions in all of human history! Thousands of years ago, transporting items was a real problem, but with the wheel, it became easy. People built carts, wagons, and later vehicles (bicycles, trains, and cars). Without this invention, we wouldn’t be able to travel quickly or transport supplies. The earliest known wheel was discovered in Mesopotamia, an ancient region near modern-day Iraq, and dates to around 3,500 BCE. It was first used for pottery, but was soon adapted for transport and vehicles!

The Printing Press

There was a time before many of us were born where scribes had to copy every single word by hand. This tedious task led to the invention of the printing press, a game changer for reading and writing. In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz, Germany, made the printing press. This device used movable metal letters to print pages quickly. Soon, books became cheaper and more widely available because people no longer had to write each word by hand, an incredible advancement for literature in the early days. Without the printing press, we wouldn’t have newspapers or the majority of the mass-produced books today!

Edison’s Lightbulb

Back in 1879, American inventor Thomas Edison and his team created the first long-lasting, practical lightbulb in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Electric light soon changed everything, allowing for shops, factories, and homes to stay lit after dark. The transition from just sunlight and fire to artificial light was a significant advancement in not just understanding electricity, but in all aspects of life.

Graham Bell’s Telephone

Long-distance communication was slow and often worthless before Alexander Graham Bell’s invention in 1976. Back then, you had to mail letters and wait days or weeks for delivery and responses, which inspired Bell to create a quicker solution. He created the telephone in Boston, Massachusetts, and made the famous first call to his assistant, saying, "Mr Watson, come here — I want to see you," according to author A. Edward Evenson in his book, “The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray-Alexander Bell Controversy and Its Many Players”. Eventually, his revolutionary work was used to create cell phones, smartphones, and video calls, pioneering modern-day communication!

The World Wide Web

In 1969, United States researchers created ARPANET, the first version of the internet ot help scientists share information. Scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf developed the crucial communication protocols for the Internet, helping boost its takeoff. In 1989, TIm-Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN in Switzerland, invented the World Wide Web, which made websites, links and browsing possible. And soon, by the 1990s, the internet became worldwide, soon adopted for schools, games, videos, communication, and practically everything else!

Vaccines

The first vaccine was developed in 1796 in Gloucestershire, England, by Dr. Edward Jenner. Vaccines as a whole protect us from dangerous diseases and save millions of lives annually, and without them, diseases would be incredibly apparent. Jenner used a safe form of cowpox to protect people from smallpox, a common deadly disease at the time. Since then, vaccines have been created for measles, polio, tetanus, flu, and other illnesses. Today, vaccines help keep our communities safe and healthy worldwide, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that approximately 2 million to 3 million lives are saved each year because of them!

The Airplane

The Wright brothers were the two incredible men who made it possible for humans to fly like birds! On December 17th, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew the first powered airplane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The flight lasted just 12 seconds, but this was enough to motivate them to keep working and change history forever. Birds inspired the Wright brothers, and many scientists took after their work and in just a few decades, airplanes cross oceans and connected continents! Today, jets can fly over 500 miles per hour, and rockets can take us to space, something Wilbur and Orville only dreamed of accomplishing.