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Incandescent light bulbs
Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1880. It is an electric light that produces light when a filament wire is heated to high temperatures by an electic current that causes it to glow. -
X-rays
Wilhelm Rontgen was the first to study x-rays. An x-ray is electromagnetic radiation used in medical imaging. -
Wright Flyer I
Orville and Wilbur Wright built the first powered ariplane called the Wright Flyer I. December 17, 1903 was its first flight. -
Penicillin
In 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming discovered that penicillin had antibacterial agents that could kill certain types of disease-causing bacteria in the body. -
Microwave Oven
Percy Spencer invented the first microwave oven after World War II. It was called the Radarange. Tappan introduced the first home-use microwave in 1955. A microwave oven is a kitchen appliance that heats food by using electromagnetic radiation that rotates and heats polarized molecules of food. -
Internet
The internet is a global system of interconnected networks that use the standard internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide. ARPANET led the development of internetworking. -
First handheld mobile phone
A handheld mobile phone is a device that connects wirelessly to the public switched telephone network. John F. Mitchell, Motorola's chief of portable communication products, had a major role in the development of handheld mobile phones. -
Personal computer
More people could get personal computers due to the use of the microprocessor. This enabled computers to be smaller and cheaper. -
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW) is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the internet. Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote the proposal for the World Wide Web. -
Text messages
On December 3, 1992 the first text message was sent by Neil Papworth, a Canadian test engineer, to Richard Jarvis. It read "Merry Christmas". A text message is sent by typing and sending a short electronic message between 2 or more mobile phones. Matti Makkonen came up with the original idea for text messaging in 1984. -
Mapping human genome
The first rough draft for mapping the human genome was completed by Genome Bioinformatics Group at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2000.
