Curated category
American inventions
- USBIn 1995, seven major technology companies gathered to solve a growing problem on personal computer back panels. Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and…
- Bass guitarPaul Tutmarc stood outside his music store in Seattle, Washington during the 1930s. He held a new instrument that changed how musicians played low notes…
- Liquid-crystal displayIn 1888, Friedrich Reinitzer observed a strange behavior in cholesterol extracted from carrots. He found the substance melted twice and generated colors…
- Electric guitarGeorge Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker created the first commercially marketed electric guitar in 1932. They called this instrument the Frying Pan because…
- Debit cardIn 1983, Denmark introduced the Dankort, a plastic card that changed how people paid for groceries. By September of that year, the first electronic…
- Commodore 64In January 1982, the Commodore 64 made its first public appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The team behind this machine had worked…
- Multitrack recordingRoss Snyder developed the first multitrack recording machine at Ampex in 1955. This device used one-inch magnetic tape to record eight separate audio…
- KeroseneA clear liquid with a density between 0.78 and 0.81 grams per cubic centimeter, kerosene flows easily at room temperature.
- SupermarketA former garage in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, became the birthplace of the modern supermarket on the 4th of August 1930. Michael J.
- StoryboardIn the early 1930s, Walt Disney Productions developed the storyboard process as it is known today. Before this moment, most filmmakers shot their films like…
- SynthesizerIn 1938, the Hammond Organ Company unveiled the Novachord. This massive instrument relied on 72 voltage-controlled amplifiers and 146 vacuum tubes to…
- Breakfast cerealIn 1854, a German immigrant named Ferdinand Schumacher began the modern cereal revolution inside a small store in Akron, Ohio.
- Coca-ColaJohn Stith Pemberton, a Confederate Colonel wounded in the American Civil War and addicted to morphine, created Coca-Cola in Atlanta.
- AmigaJay Miner joined Atari in the 1970s and led development of the Television Interface Adaptor for the Video Computer System.
- TransistorIn 1925, physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent in Canada for a field-effect transistor. He intended this device as a solid-state replacement for…
- Credit cardIn 1950, Ralph Schneider and Frank McNamara launched the Diners Club card in New York City. This small plastic rectangle changed how people paid for meals…
- Nuclear weaponOn the 16th of July 1945, the desert sky over Alamogordo, New Mexico, turned white with a light brighter than a thousand suns. J.
- Polio vaccineIn the early 1930s, John A. Kolmer began grinding spinal cords from infected monkeys to create a live polio vaccine. He soaked these tissues in salt…
- Random-access memoryIn June of 1948, the Manchester Baby computer successfully ran its first program. This machine relied on a Williams tube for its main memory.
- Space ShuttleOn the 24th of September 1966, NASA and the Air Force released a joint study concluding that a new vehicle was required to satisfy their respective future…
- JavaScriptIn 1995, Brendan Eich sat at a desk inside Netscape Communications Corp. and began writing code for what would become JavaScript.
- Solar cellIn 1839, a nineteen-year-old French physicist named Edmond Becquerel stood in his father's laboratory and observed something strange.
- Apollo Lunar ModuleIn July 1962, eleven firms were invited to submit proposals for the Lunar Excursion Module. Nine companies responded in September with a 60-page limited…
- AirplaneIn 1799, George Cayley set forth the concept of the modern airplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion, and control.
- Curiosity (rover)Curiosity touched down on Mars at 05:17:57 UTC on the 6th of August 2012. The landing site sat inside Gale crater near a location now called Bradbury Landing.
- Rapid transitIn 1863, the Metropolitan Railway opened in London as the world's first rapid transit system. It used steam locomotives and ran partially underground.
- Space tourismIn April 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito boarded a Soyuz-TM32 spacecraft and became the first person to travel to space for recreation.
- Video game consoleRalph H. Baer devised the concept of playing simple, spot-based games on a television screen in 1966. This idea became the basis for the Magnavox Odyssey…
- Adobe FlashIn 1993, FutureWave Software released SmartSketch, a vector drawing application designed for pen computers running the PenPoint operating system.
- InternetIn the 1960s, computer scientists began developing systems for time-sharing of computer resources. F. J. Corbató and his team at MIT published The Compatible…
- TelevisionThe word television first appeared in print on the 24th of August 1900. A Russian scientist named Constantin Perskyi used it during a paper presentation at…
- Integrated circuitIn September 1958, Jack Kilby stood in a laboratory at Texas Instruments and demonstrated the first working integrated circuit.
- LaserOn the 16th of May 1960, Theodore Maiman stood in a laboratory at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. He held a synthetic ruby crystal that…
- Personal computerIn 1946, the ENIAC machine became operational and could be run by a single person. This mode of operation predated batch programming or time-sharing systems…
- Field-programmable gate arrayAltera delivered the industry's first reprogrammable logic device in 1984. The EP300 featured a quartz window in its package that allowed users to shine an…
- Video gameOn the 25th of January 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a cathode-ray tube amusement device.
- Space telescopeAmerican theoretical astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer proposed placing a telescope in space during 1946. His document titled Astronomical Advantages of an…
- Golden Dome (missile defense system)On the 27th of January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the United States Armed Forces to construct a missile shield before…