Here Are 111 Amazing Facts About Famous American Invention

Many of the most significant and remarkable American inventions in human history have been invented in the last half-century, and most of them were born in the United States.

Many of America's inventions directly impact people's lives, while others have had a more significant global impact. From advances in computer technology to critical inventions in our hospital rooms, many of the inventions on this list are a part of our daily lives.

Let us check out some famous American inventors along with their American inventions. World war II was the biggest propeller for many other inventions we use to date.

Be the assembly line productions or mass production technique or the high tech developments that gave a valley in San Francisco the moniker Silicon Valley and become part of the American culture. We have the famous laser printer or the Ford Model - T or contact lenses used in our daily lives.

Research and development are extremely important components to creating an invention that can work for the betterment of humanity. Read on to know more about American inventions and then also check facts on American inventors and famous inventions.

Timeline Of Inventions By American Inventors

Many inventions were made in the world between the Colonial Era and the Gilded Age by innovators who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the country. Here is a timeline of inventions by famous Americans:

• Lightning rod (1749): A lightning rod is one of the components of lightning protection. A lightning protection system includes a rooftop system containing conductors, many conductive connections from the rooftop towards the earth, bonding links to metal items inside the facility, and a grounded system.
• The tipped lightning pole conductor usually referred to as a 'thunder magnet' or 'Benjamin Rod', is said to be designed by Benjamin Franklin in 1749 or 1750, after he realized that electricity and thunder were the same things.
• Dr. Franklin's 'electrical kite' string was linked to an insulated braided rope for his knuckles in 1752. In 1752, Dr. Franklin attached his 'electrical kite' string to an insulating silk ribbon for his knuckles. The kite was then fastened to the iron lock.
• Dr. Franklin had finally established that thunder was an electrical discharge when a metal key got an electrical charge from a lightning bolt throughout a thunderstorm witnessed by his son William Franklin.
• Armonica (1761): In 1761, Benjamin Franklin created the glass harmonica, often known as the glass armonica.
• A glass design inspired by Edmund Delaval's liquid wine bottle performance at Cambridge, England.
• Dr. Franklin collaborated with London glassblower Charles James to create one, which was played for the first time by Marianne Davies in early 1762 and given the name armonica after the Italian word for harmony.
• Flatboat(1782): A flatboat is a rectangle boat with such flat and square edges that is often used for passengers and cargo on inland rivers.
• Jacob Yoder planned and built a massive ship at the Redstone Old Fort on the Monongahela River after fighting inside the Pennsylvania Army during the American War of Independence.
• In May 1782, he loaded grain onto a ship and transported it to New Orleans.
• It was the first commercial attempt to sail the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
• Bifocals (1784): Eyeglasses with two distinct optical powers in their corrective lenses are known as bifocals.
• Although Benjamin Franklin is known for creating the very first set of bifocals in the late 1760s, according to the Library Company of Philadelphia in America, the first representation of Dr. Franklin using his dual glasses dates from a satirical cartoon published in 1784.
• Escalator (1859): An escalator is a moving staircase that transports people between levels of a building through a conveyor system.
• An escalator is a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that travel up or down on rails, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.
• Escalators are commonly found and used in shopping malls, department shops, and airports.
• Nathan Ames of Saugus, Massachusetts, invented the escalator in 1859 for an invention he called 'revolving stairs'.
• The escalator in Ames, on the other hand, was never built.
• Jesse W. Reno patented the first operational escalator in 1892, and it launched as a new novelty ride at the Old Iron Pier in Coney Island, New York, in 1896.

Inventions in the United States (1890 - 1945)

• Internal combustion-powered tractor (1892): A tractor is a unique farm vehicle designed to generate a high tractive effort at low speeds to carry a trailer or agricultural or construction machinery.
• Farming equipment can be pulled behind or placed on the tractor, and if the implementation is automated, the tractor can also provide power.
• While steam-powered tractors had been produced previously, in Clayton County, Iowa, John Froelich developed and built the first gasoline-powered tractor in 1892.
• Volleyball (1895): Volleyball is an Olympic sport in which a net separates two teams of six active players.
• Under structured regulations, each team tries to score points against the other by grounding a ball on the opposing team's court.
• In 1895, while attending a YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts, William G. Morgan devised the sport known as 'Mintonnette. Alfred S. Halstead later renamed it volleyball.
• Collapsible Periscope (1902): Simon Lake, who named his instrument the 'omniscope' or 'skalomniscope', is credited with the research and invention of collapsible periscope for use in submarine warfare 1902.
• A periscope is equipment used in submarines for observation from a concealed position.
• It consists of a tube with mirrors positioned parallel and at a 45-degree angle with a line between them.
• Periscopes allow a submarine to survey the surrounding sea and air for targets and threats while submerged at a shallow depth.
• The periscope is retractable into the hull when not in use.
• Air conditioning (1902): The cooling and dehumidification of interior air for thermal comfort are known.
• Willis Carrier created and produced the world's first mechanical air conditioning machine in 1902, using a coil system to chill and remove moisture from humid air in a printing mill that was wrinkling magazine pages.
• Airplane (1903): A fixed-wing aircraft, commonly known as an airplane, is a heavier-than-air object that gets lifted in the air due to the difference in air pressure between the upper and lower wing surfaces.
• On December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Wright brothers, Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, completed the first powered and sustained airplane flights under pilot control in the Wright Flyer I.
• The Wright Flyer III was capable of circling the sky 30 times in 39 minutes for a total distance of 24.5 miles by October 1905.
• Rather than creating more powerful engines, as some other experimenters did, the Wright brothers focused on discovering the mysteries of control to conquer the flying issue from the start of their aeronautical endeavor. Wright brothers paved the way for a new way of travel for all of us.
• Liquid-fuel rocket (1926): A liquid-fuel rocket has an engine that employs liquid propellants.
• Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in history on March 16, 1926, near Auburn, Massachusetts, using liquid oxygen and gasoline as propellants.

Inventions in the United States (1946–1991)

• Space observatory (1946): Any apparatus in outer space, such as a telescope that is used to observe distant planets, galaxies, and other alien objects, is referred to as a space observatory.
• Much before the Soviet Union’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik launched into orbit, American theoretical astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer presented the idea of a telescope in space in 1946.
• Spitzer proposed a gigantic telescope that would not obstruct the Earth's atmosphere. Spitzer's vision became a reality after advocating for such a system in the 1960s and 1970s.
• On April 20, 1990, The Hubble Space Telescope was the world's first space-based optical telescope launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-31).
• Credit card (1946): A credit card is a payment method named after the little plastic card that customers are given.
• The card's issuer provides the user with a line of credit from which they can borrow money to pay a merchant or get a cash advance.
• In 1946, American banker John C. Biggins of the Flatbush National Bank of Brooklyn created the first bank-issued credit card.
• Supersonic aircraft (1947): The sound barrier is broken when an aircraft transitions from transonic to supersonic speed in aerodynamics.
• On October 14, 1947, the first human-crewed supersonic flight, flown by Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1 which broke the sound barrier just over a month after the United States Air Force was founded as a separate military.
• Nuclear submarine (1955): The world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, transformed naval combat.
• Subs using traditional engines require a diesel engine for surface travel and an electric motor for submerged travel, where diesel engines need oxygen.
• The USS Nautilus would travel thousands of miles beneath the surface with a single fuel charge if it relied on nuclear power.
• Global navigation satellite system (1960): A global navigation satellite system (GNSS) provides worldwide coverage and autonomous geospatial location.
• Using time signals delivered along a line of sight by radio from satellites in outer space, a GNSS allows tiny electronic receivers to identify their place within a few meters, such as longitude, latitude, and altitude.
• Transit, invented by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory under the direction of Richard Kershner, was the first of its kind.
• The technology was first developed for the US Navy in 1958, and a prototype satellite, Transit 1A, was launched in September 1959. However, that satellite was unable to enter orbit.
• A Thor-Ablestar rocket successfully launched Transit 1B, a second satellite, on April 13, 1960. In August 1988, the last Transit satellite was launched.
• The communications satellite (1962): NASA launched Telstar, the world's first active communications satellite and the first satellite designed to deliver the Thanks to technological advancements, the people telephone and high-speed data communications, in 1962, after American aerospace engineer John Robinson Pierce invented it.
• Its name is still used for several television transmission satellites today.
• A communications satellite is an artificial satellite in space used for telecommunications. Several orbits are used by modern communications satellites.
• Communications satellites provide a microwave radio relay technology suitable to submarine communication cables for fixed point-to-point services.
• Mobile phones (1973): A mobile phone, often known as a cell phone, is an electronic device that transmits voice and data across a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites.
• For many years, early mobile FM radiotelephones were in use. Still, due to the limited number of radio frequencies available in any given area, the number of phone calls was also limited.
• Multiple small sections called cells with the same frequencies could be used to alleviate this difficulty.
• The first call from a mobile phone was made from a car phone in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 17, 1946, but the system was unworkable from what is now known as a portable handset.
• The AT&T service, which was essentially a giant party line, cost $30 per month plus 30-40 cents every local call. Martin Cooper finally invented the first handheld cellular/mobile phone in 1973

List Of American Inventors

America is recognized as a nation where people are encouraged to think outside the box and innovate. Because so many innovators came up with innovative concepts, the United States invented the patent concept. President George Washington signed the first patent, which was issued in 1790. Many great innovators have existed throughout history, but their surname knows only a few.

• Benjamin Franklin -Benjamin Franklin is one of the few figures in American history. Inventor, forefather, and statesman were just a few of the titles he held throughout his daily life.
• Benjamin Franklin is one of the most sought-after historical autographs available today.
• Despite never having served as president, Franklin has established himself as a historical figure, thanks to his achievements as an inventor.
• Benjamin Franklin was a curious man with an inquisitive mind.
• He is credited with inventing the lightning rod, odometer, bifocal eyeglasses, longarm reaching tool, the Franklin stove, swimming fins, and the glass harmonica.
• Thomas Edison- Thomas Alva Edison is known as America's greatest inventor. He was an American inventor and businessman.
• He invented various technologies such as electricity generation, modern communications, audio recording, and motion pictures.
• The phonograph, motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb are among the inventions that have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world.
• Working with many researchers and staff, he was one of the first inventors to apply the ideas of organized science and cooperation to the process of innovation.
• He was the first to build a laboratory for industrial research.
• Alexander Graham Bell -Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who created and patented the first working telephone.
• He is considered to be a founding member of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885. (AT&T).
• Several of Bell's later inventions were highlights of his career, including ground-breaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics.
• However, Bell was not one of the 33 National Geographic Society founders.
• Nikola Tesla -A Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla who came to America, was an electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist who contributed to the development of the modern alternating current (AC) energy distribution system or the electrical currents as we know it.
• In 1888, Westinghouse Electric licensed his alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, which became the foundation of the polyphase system.
• Tesla rose to prominence as an inventor, demonstrating his accomplishments at his lab to celebrities and wealthy clientele, and was famed for his theatrics at public talks.
• In his high-voltage, high-frequency power tests in New York and Colorado Springs throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his concepts for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution.
• He made statements in 1893 on the possibilities of wireless human communication with his gadgets.
• George Eastman -Photographers can thank George Eastman for introducing them to their favorite pastime. The late 1800s was when photography technology was quickly evolving.
• Eastman was an inventor and entrepreneur. He intended to make photography more accessible to the general public, and the Kodak camera was his answer.
• Because no chemical was required, Eastman's development of roll film made photography accessible to the general public.
• Eastman was able to develop a translucent film that could be inserted directly into the camera with the help of chemist Henry Reichenbach.

Most Famous American Inventions

Here are details of some of the most famous American inventions in history:

• Light Bulb - Thomas Edison is a well-known inventor from the United States. He demonstrated the first usage of an electric light bulb in 1879.
• The light bulb, like many inventions, was not created in a vacuum; patents were awarded to various British scientists in the 1840s.
• Edison's business sought to improve the light bulb and bring electricity to every home in the United States.
• Due to the availability of electric lights, companies could implement night shifts for their employees to enhance output.
• Personal computer- A personal computer (PC) is a computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it usable for individuals and designed to be controlled directly by the end-user without the assistance of a computer operator.
• The Kenbak-1, invented in 1971 by John Blankenbaker, is officially recognized by the Computer History Museum as the world's first personal computer.
• Industrial Robots - In 1954, George Devol invented the first factory robot, based on the Ford efficient assembly line concept. His product was dubbed Unimation (Universal Automation).
• In 1960, Devol sold his first robot to General Motors.
• Devol obtained a patent for the first computer-controlled robot from a Stanford University inventor 10 years later.
• He turned his concept into a PUMA product (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly).
• This robot, which resembled a human arm, was utilized for high-speed assembly line tasks in the manufacturing industry.
• Manufacturing robots have significantly decreased the necessity for costly, error-prone manual labor.
• The telephone - Alexander Graham Bell patented the Telephone in 1876. Conducting business became considerably faster and more efficient thanks to the telephone.
• ARPANET and the World Wide Web - By the late 1960s, the United States of America had only a few powerful research computers. Because of the scarcity, many researchers could not access the information stored on these computers, putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
• The project’s goal was to build a research database that could be accessed from any computer in the country. This initiative eventually evolved into the internet, where you are reading this blog article right now!
• The internet's ease of access to information has drastically transformed a manufacturer's capacity to find information and even new clients.
• The World Wide Web is not dedicated to one inventor. It has a group of inventors at various levels working on it simultaneously.

Facts About American Inventions

Here are some interesting American invention facts:

• Percy Spencer invented the microwave when a researcher went past a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
• Elisha Gray patented his concept one hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent for the telephone in 1876. The patent was granted to Bell after years of investigation.
• The light bulb, electric trains, and the movie camera were among the 1,093 patents submitted by Thomas Edison.
• Edison had 34 telephone patents, 141 battery patents, 150 telegraph patents, and 389 patents for electric light and electricity when he died in 1931.
• Thomas Edison held a patent for a cigar that was said to burn eternally.
• Alexander Parkes invented the first artificial plastic, which he demonstrated in public at the Great International Exhibition in London in 1862.
• Slinkys were created by an airline mechanic who messed around with engine parts when he noticed one of the springs could be used for something else. A regular Slinky is 87 ft (26.5 m) long when stretched out flat.
• Lester Wire for the first version of an electric traffic light or Charles Babbage, who is considered the father of computers.