From the Wheel to the Internet: Inventions that Transformed Human Life

According to SAEDNEWS, Throughout history, significant inventions like the printing press, the automobile, antibiotics, photography, and of course, the internet have accelerated human progress and deepened our knowledge. These real inventions are what transformed our world.

Fire

As a natural phenomenon, fire changed the course of human evolution. The earliest documented evidence of the use of fire dates back to about 400,000 years ago during the era of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. There is also evidence that controlled use of fire began even earlier, around a million years ago, by our ancestors, Homo erectus.

The Wheel

The oldest known wheel, dating back to around 3500 BCE, comes from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), where it was used by the Sumerians for shaping pottery. This invention occurred about 300 years before anyone thought to place rotating axles on wooden discs and invent the chariot.

The Compass

The Chinese invented the first crude compass around 200 BCE. It was made from a magnetic stone called lodestone. However, it wasn't until the 11th century CE that this invention was refined into the magnetic compass and began to be used for navigation.

The Automobile

French engineer Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725–1804) is credited with inventing the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle, called the "fardier à vapeur," in 1769. This was the first real automobile in the world.

Gasoline

Gasoline, a fuel derived from petroleum, was first extracted from the Pennsylvania oil fields in 1859. Initially, it was discarded as a byproduct during the distillation of oil to produce kerosene. However, in 1887, Karl Benz recognized this byproduct as a valuable fuel when he invented the gasoline-powered car.

Concrete

The precursor to modern concrete was invented around 1300 BCE when wet-burned limestone was used by workers in the Middle East to coat the walls of clay castles and houses. This material chemically reacted with gases in the air to form a hard, protective surface. The ancient Egyptians and later the Romans used early concrete as mortar in their construction projects.

Railroad

Richard Trevithick (1771–1833), a British mining engineer, invented the first full-scale steam locomotive, which was also the first locomotive in history to move a train. This event took place on February 21, 1804, on a tramway in Wales.

Electric Lightbulb

Thomas Edison is often credited with the discovery of the electric lightbulb in the 1880s, but scientists including Alessandro Volta, Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Warren de la Rue, William Staite, and Joseph Swan also played important roles in the invention of this essential technology in human life.

Electric Battery

In 1799, Italian physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) invented the world’s first electric battery. The unit of electric potential, the volt, is named in his honor.

Airplane

Wilbur and Orville Wright invented and flew the first airplane on December 17, 1903. Their invention is known as "the first heavier-than-air, controlled, and sustained flight." This event marked the beginning of the pioneering era of aviation.

Printing Press

The invention of the printing press made it easy for information to spread across the globe. This device was invented around 1440 by German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (1400–1468).

Telegraph

Samuel Morse (1791–1872) was a pioneer in the development of the telegraph, a device that transmitted electric signals through wires. He also invented Morse code, which uses a series of long and short signals to represent letters.

Steel

The Chinese were the first to use cast iron around 500 BCE. However, during the Industrial Revolution, British engineer Henry Bessemer (1813–1898) developed a process where air was blown into molten iron to produce pure, carbon-free iron.

Transistor

This image shows the version of the first practical transistor, invented in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs in the United States. The transistor became an essential component in almost all modern electronic gadgets.

Telephone

The first telephone call was made using this device on March 10, 1876, by Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922).

Pasteurization

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), a French chemist and microbiologist, established the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. His research in the 1860s showed that heat processing could inactivate harmful and potentially dangerous microbes.

Antibiotics

Many scientists, including Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, played roles in advancing the use of antibiotics in the late 19th century. However, the discovery of penicillin by Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) in 1928, the first effective antibiotic in medical history, is one of the most significant medical breakthroughs.

Refrigerator

James Harrison (1816–1893), a Scottish inventor, is known as a pioneer in mechanical refrigeration, although the first patent for a refrigerator was granted to American inventor Albert T. Marshall in 1899. The first commercial refrigerator, called the "Monitor-Top," was produced by General Electric in 1927.

X-rays

The invention of X-rays by German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895 revolutionized medicine. The first X-ray image showed the hand of his wife, Anna, with a visible ring.

Coins and Banknotes

The first known banknotes were invented in China during the Tang and Song dynasties in the 7th century. This made China the first country to use paper money.

Photography

This is one of the first recorded photographs taken by a camera, which was taken in 1827 by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833). He is considered the inventor of photography.

Nail

The exact history of the nail’s invention is unclear, but archaeologists have found bronze nails in Egypt dating back to around 3400 BCE. Handmade nails were commonly used until the 1790s and 1800s when mass production of nails began.

Television

On January 26, 1926, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (1888–1946) invented the television. This image is the first photo of a moving image produced by a television.

Gunpowder

Gunpowder was invented by Chinese alchemists during the Tang dynasty around 850 CE. It led to military applications in China and eventually around the world. Initially used in fireworks, it later became a component of firearms, marking the beginning of a new era in warfare.

Birth Control Pills

The invention of birth control pills was one of the most important medical advancements of the 20th century. These pills, which contain a combination of estrogen and progesterone hormones, were developed in the 1950s by American biologist Gregory Pincus (1903–1967). This invention significantly changed lives worldwide.

Computer

Charles Babbage, a British mathematician and mechanical engineer, designed the first mechanical computer in the 1820s, which was known as a complex calculating machine. However, credit should also go to Alan Turing, who during World War II designed and built the "Colossus," the world’s first programmable electronic computer at Bletchley Park in England. This machine, created to break encrypted enemy codes, was one of the first crucial steps in the development of modern computers, paving the way for significant advances in computer science and computing.

Credit Card

In 1946, a Brooklyn banker named John Biggins proposed the idea of using a plastic card for credit transactions. By 1950, Ralph Schneider and Frank McNamara, founders of Diners Club, pushed this concept forward. In 1958, American Express and Visa launched their credit cards.

ATM (Automated Teller Machine)

There are several names associated with the invention of the ATM, but the Armenian-American inventor Luther George Simjian (1905–1997) is most recognized for creating the device that revolutionized cash withdrawals and deposits.

Internet

What we know today as the internet was being developed in the United States in the 1950s. No one person is specifically recognized as the inventor of the internet; instead, a team of computer scientists, particularly Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, played key roles in its development. The first practical prototype of the internet emerged in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).

Email

The rise of the internet led to the development of email. The first email was sent in 1971. Interestingly, computer programmer Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) was the first to use the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the device name, a system still used in email addresses today.