Inventions

Tim Berners-Lee

The British computer scientist invented the World Wide Web around 1989 at the CERN research centre, to link documents over the internet. He created HTTP, HTML and the first website.

💡 Did you know? He deliberately made his invention free and unpatented.

Johannes Gutenberg

Around 1450 Gutenberg's printing with movable metal type made books fast and cheap to reproduce for the first time. This hugely accelerated education, the Reformation and science.

💡 Did you know? His most famous work is the 'Gutenberg Bible'.

Thomas Edison

Edison developed not the first, but the first practical, long-lasting light bulb: plus a whole electricity grid. He held over 1000 patents.

💡 Did you know? His motto: 'Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.'

Alexander Graham Bell

Bell received the patent for the telephone in 1876, introducing long-distance communication. He also worked all his life on helping the deaf.

💡 Did you know? The first words on the telephone are said to have been: 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.'

Carl Benz

In 1886 Benz built the 'Motorwagen', the first practical automobile with a petrol engine. His company later became Mercedes-Benz.

💡 Did you know? The first long drive was made secretly by his wife Bertha Benz: over 100 km, to make the car known.

James Watt

Watt decisively improved the steam engine, making it efficient enough for factories and mines. It thus became the engine of the Industrial Revolution.

💡 Did you know? The unit of power, the 'watt', is named after him.

Alexander Fleming

Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, which has saved countless lives. Bacteria in a Petri dish had been killed by a mould.

💡 Did you know? The discovery was an accident: he had left the dish out by mistake before a holiday.

Albert Einstein

Einstein revolutionised the understanding of space, time and gravity. His formula E=mc² shows the equivalence of mass and energy.

💡 Did you know? He received the Nobel Prize not for relativity but for the photoelectric effect.

Wright brothers

The US brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first controlled powered flight in 1903. Their 'Flyer' stayed aloft for just twelve seconds at first.

💡 Did you know? They had run a bicycle workshop: which helped them build light, sturdy structures.

Alfred Nobel

The Swedish chemist made the dangerous explosive nitroglycerin manageable with dynamite. With his fortune he endowed the Nobel Prizes.

💡 Did you know? A newspaper error once called him a 'merchant of death' in his lifetime: said to have prompted the endowment.