Major Inventors & Inventions 1900-1999

[Omer]

Orville and Wilbur Wright
Orville was at the controls of the world’s first powered flight while Wilbur observed (1903).

John Ambrose Fleming
Invented the diode - a vital part of radios and televisions (1904)

Christian Hulsmeyer
The first radar system used in shipping (1904)

Leo Baekeland
Inventor of plastic (1905)

Reginald Fessenden
Invented radio broadcasting (1906)

Mary Phelps Jacob
Invented the bra (1913)

Gidoen Sundback
Invented the zip (1913)

John Thompson
Invented the sub-machine gun (1920)

Frederick Banting / Charles Best
Isolated insulin (1921)

Karel Capek
Invented the first robot (1921)

Clarence Birdseye
Started the idea of frozen food (1924)

John Logie Baird
Invented the television - its first public demonstration was at Selfridges in London (1925)

Robert Goddard
Invented liquid fuel rocket (1926)

Alexander Fleming
Discovered penicillin and paved the way for antibiotics (1928)

Frank Whittle
The jet engine (1930)

Percy Shaw
Inventor of the cats eyes - a major factor in improved road safety (1934)

Laszlo Jose Biro
Invented the ball point pen (1938)

Igor Sikorsky
Inventor of the modern helicopter (1939)

Enrico Fermi
Built the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago (1942)

Willem Kolff
Invented the kidney dialysis machine (1944)

Percy LeBaron Spencer
Invented the microwave oven (1946)

George deMestral
Invented velcro (1948)

Carl Djerassi
Developed the contraceptive pill (1951)

Sir Christopher Cockerell
Invented the hovercraft (1955)

Jonas Salk
Made the vaccine for polio (1955)

Jack Kilby
Made the first microchip - the start of miniaturisation of technology (1958)

Wilson Greatbatch
Invented the first heart pacemaker (1960)

Douglas Engelbart
Invented the computer mouse (1964)

Stephanie Kwolek
Invented kevlar (1966)

Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman and James von Tassel
The portable calculator (1967)

George Gray
Invented the LCD and LED (1970)

Herbert Boyer
Pioneer of genetic engineering (1973)

Akio Morita
Inventor of the personal stereo (1979)

Tim Berners-Lee
Creator of the World Wide Web (1989)

Ian Wilmut
Headed team that produced the first cloned sheep - Dolly (1997)