We start around 1440. Illiteracy is widespread, books are a rarity. Then the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg finds the letterpress. He forges movable letters that can be placed on a rail and painted with paint. A sheet of paper is clamped and pressed by the machine. Gutenberg created the first printed Bible.
Simple texts suddenly become accessible to significantly more people. Literacy is gaining momentum due to the media revolution in Europe.
Thomas Alva Edison was a great inventor of electricity and telecommunications. He spearheaded the comprehensive electrification of the industrialized world. Among other things, he registered the patent for his carbon filament lamp in 1880 – the light bulb was born and provided light.
However, it may be that the light bulb already existed before that. Heinrich Göbel claimed he invented it in the 1850s, but did not patent it. However, this cannot be proven. The allegations are currently being dismissed as false.
We stick to a product that also has several contenders for the invention. One thing is certain: Alexander Graham Bell has got the patent for it phone 1876. He submitted this two hours before Elisha Gray.
But it is possible that Johann Philipp Reis was the real inventor. In 1861, he is said to have uttered the phrase “The horse does not eat cucumber salad” during a demonstration for members of the Physical Society over his telephone. But he didn’t have the money to improve the technology. Reis died bitterly in 1873.
As the inventor of steam locomotive applies to Richard Trevithick. That was in 1802 when he mounted a high-pressure machine on a chassis. The patent for the steam engine but announced James Watt as early as 1769.
But the steam engine was more of an invention of several inventors. Strictly speaking, the first versions were built by Heron as early as the 1st century AD. The mathematician and engineer of the Center for Greco-Roman Science built heavy doors that could be opened when a priest lit the sacred fire in front of the temple.
Heron heated water and thus came up with steam, with the pressure with which rope winches were moved. But the Greeks saw it more as a gimmick. And the Romans didn’t need a steam engine either. They had slaves. So it wasn’t until the 17th and 18th centuries that Watt and Trevithick registered their patents.
The well-known early pilots are probably not the first inventors of powered airplanes either. Wilbour and Orville Wright, better known as the Wright brothers, graduated in 1903 in the home-built biplanepowered aircraft a first flight. In four attempts, the best run took 59 seconds, flying 260 meters.
However, the German emigrant Gustav Weisskopf (also Gustave Whitehead) is said to have flown two years earlier. His flight carried him half a mile. However, there are no photos of it, but at least several newspaper reports. In any case, there is still a discussion today who really was the first powered flight graduated
On the other hand, a German can certainly de motorcycles are attributed. Gottlieb Daimler invented the riding car in 1885.
He later came up with this together with his friend Wilhelm Maybach powerboat. And Daimler also built the first car in October 1886, when he installed an engine in a carriage. But the patent on the car doesn’t belong to him, but…
In January 1886, Carl Benz patented the “gas engine operation vehicle”. Today known as car-. The Benz Patent Motor Car Number 1 was a three-wheeled vehicle considered to be the first practical passenger car.
Funny anecdote: Carl Benz would have been afraid of the loud, fast and smelly vehicle. In 1888 his wife Berha and their sons Eugen (15) and Richard (13) were the first to make an excursion of more than 100 kilometers. This trip, of which her husband would know nothing, dispelled the still widespread doubts and was instrumental in the company’s success.
Today we can no longer imagine life without the internet. That was it world wide web only established in 1989. Who invented it is still a matter of debate. But without the HTML logging language developed by Englishman Tim Berners-Lee and used to structure most websites, the Internet would not be as we know it today.
And yes, Berners-Lee developed this at CERN in Geneva. There was already an internal network there. So the first website in the world was that of CERN on Berners-Lee’s computer. In 1993, the company made the software publicly available and the World Wide Web was born.
We will also stay in Switzerland for the last two inventors. This time even with a Swiss passport. The first is by Hannes Keller, the name probably doesn’t tell you anything right away. But if you work with the computer and want to write something flawless, you probably owe it to him.
Because Keller invented Witchpen, the first automatic spelling correction. And in 1983, Witchpen was one of the first word processors to use real-time rendering (WYSYWIG). The user immediately saw how a text is displayed. Many modern text programs have adopted features from Witchpen.
Georges de Mestral was hunting with his dog. Then he noticed that the fruits of a plant were sticking to the dog’s fur and clothes. He saw small hooks on the plant, connected to the fibers and hairs.
With friends from the textile industry, he managed to replicate these hooks. Velcro was born (composed of the French words velours (velvet) and crochet (crochet). We know the product as Velcro. The breakthrough for his “zipper without zipper” was given to him by NASA, who used Velcro, around 1969 things attached to the Apollo space capsule.
Source: Blick
I am Ross William, a passionate and experienced news writer with more than four years of experience in the writing industry. I have been working as an author for 24 Instant News Reporters covering the Trending section. With a keen eye for detail, I am able to find stories that capture people’s interest and help them stay informed.
