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Jan 31, 1500
Prosthesis
In 1946, a major advancement was made in the attachment of lower limbs. A suction sock for the above-knee prosthesis was created at University of California (UC) at Berkeley. In 1975, Ysidro M. Martinez' invention of a below-the-knee prosthesis avoided some of the problems associated with conventional artificial limbs. Martinez, an amputee himself, took a theoretical approach in his design. He did not attempt to replicate the natural limb with articulated joints in the ankle or foot. -
Automobile
Though under development in Europe during the nineteenth century, the automobile didn’t really become a practical and reliable source of transportation until the twentieth century. Once it did, it changed everything; overnight the horse and buggy became quaint anachronisms while much of the country was paved over to make room for endless ribbons of asphalt. It also brought about a revolution in the market place, -
Cotton Gin
The cotton gin is a machine that separates seeds, hulls and other unwanted materials from cotton after it has been picked. -
Radio
Few people today can appreciate the impact the advent of radio had on the twentieth century. Not only did it suddenly make it possible for a person to be heard from hundreds or even thousands of miles away without the use of a wire (quite an accomplishment in the first years of the century) but it was the center of family life through the end of the Second World War and into the doldrums of the fifties, when it was gradually replaced by that new-fangled contraption, the television. Today, it se -
Airplane
Just as the locomotive made the world a smaller place in the nineteenth century, the airplane did the same for us in the twentieth century, shrinking our planet to the point that a person could fly anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. Not only have they made travel quick and safe, but aircraft provide many other services as well: from crop dusting and fighting forest fires to overnight delivery of packages and chasing hurricanes. -
Antibiotics
Until Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, almost any little bug that someone picked up was potentially fatal. Once penicillin—and later a whole range of other antibiotics—came on the scene, however, death due to bacterial infection became rare, resulting in a greatly reduced mortality rate and much longer life-span. It also rendered many scourges of the past—from small pox and typhoid to gonorrhea and syphilis—obsolete, venereal disease, something easily treated. -
Answering Machines
The telegraphone was the first practical apparatus for magnetic sound recording and reproduction. It was an ingenious apparatus for recording telephone conversations. It recorded, on a wire, the varying magnetic fields produced by a sound. The magnetized wire could then be used to play back the sound. -
Submarine
Though submersible vessels had been used in the past (the CSS Hunley during the Civil War) and the first true submarine was invented in the 1880’s, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that the modern submarine came into its own. What started as an irritating, but still deadly, weapon in World War One grew into a monstrosity in World War Two- sinking more than any other type of weapon used. Today, with the advent of nuclear power which gave the submarine nearly unlimited range and endurance it -
Ambulance
The Knights of St John then acted as the first emergency workers, treating soldiers on both sides of the war of the battlefield and bringing in the wounded to nearby tents for further treatment. The concept of ambulance service started in Europe with the Knights of St John, at the same time it had also become common practice for small rewards to be paid to soldiers who carried the wounded bodies of other soldiers in for medical treatment. -
Airbags
Walter Linderer's airbag was based on a compressed air system, either released by bumper contact or by the driver. -
Personal Computer
It’s difficult to imagine our world today without computers. Of course, they have been around since World War Two, but they were clunky, massively expensive things that had all the calculating power of a brick. When Steve Wozniak and Stephen Jobs introduced the Apple in 1976, however, it changed everything and the rest is, as they say, history. Today, of course, they are everywhere and we have become so dependent upon them that many people almost feel naked without one. -
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power was to the twentieth century what steam power had been to the nineteenth: a game changer. Suddenly humanity had a power source that didn’t pollute, was efficient and practically unlimited, and so had the potential to change the planet overnight. Unfortunately, it was a two-edged sword in that this same energy source could be used to create the most destructive weapons in history, threatening human survival with its very presence.
