In your view, what inventions or people changed the course of history?

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/first-in-flight

Were the Wright brothers really the first human beings to fly?

Augustus Moore Herring. After working under another pioneering aviator, Octave Chanute, with whom he had carried out a number of successful gliding experiments, Herring found independent backing and constructed a biplane hang glider of sorts in 1898, which included a small compressed-air engine. Herring first flew this powered, heavier-than-air craft 50 feet on October 10, 1898, over the lakeside dunes of St. Joseph, Michigan. On October 22, he managed a 73-foot flight, which a newspaper reporter witnessed and described...
 

The best thing ever invented/created? Of course, popcorn! :)
Ever kinda wonder how that looked? Was it some Native American sitting around the campfire one night...had a little extra corn, or had had ENOUGH of eating mostly corn, then tossed a handful into the fire? Bet that was interesting a minute later!! LOLOL
 
Of course we have re-written the course of the future. For instance, wood Cabins, Sod homes with Dirt floors.
Horse teams dragging down tree limbs to the building's areas for heat, The one-horse open sleigh, except for
certain groups. Delivering coal via wagon trains of teamsters. Wind Jammers, Steam rails. Stage Coach travels.

Concentrated light beams instead of candlelight in the window. Mayo Clinic instead of Quackery.
The Cinko de Maio holidays. Hellmann's real Mayonnaise & the Titanic.
 
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Steam engine.

It might have been one of the biggest technological developments in the end of feudalism. Transportation, agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. Even all large scale nuclear-sourced electricity relies on the steam engine as do coal, oil, and gas fired plants.

Oops! A duplicate. Sorry.
 
Nuke powered space craft missions.

Things not always working as planned.
Light bulbs on the Xmas tree.

Home at the top of hills with hilly / cliff drives. Parking out in the street so as not to get run over by someone? (backing out of the garage.)
Families relocating from San Fran to the Midwest / southeast & live on mostly level ground.
 
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Of course we have re-written the course of the future. For instance, wood Cabins, Sod homes with Dirt floors.
Horse teams dragging down tree limbs to the building's areas for heat, The one-horse open sleigh, except for
certain groups. Delivering coal via wagon trains of teamsters. Wind Jammers, Steam rails. Stage Coach travels.

Concentrated light beams instead of candlelight in the window. Mayo Clinic instead of Quackery.
The Cinko de Maio holidays. Hellmann's real Mayonnaise & the Titanic.
During WW1 my Father as a member of the Canadian Army, travelled to and from Europe on the RMS Olympic, which was the sister ship to the RMS Titanic. Although the war ended in November of 1918, he didn't arrive back in Canada until July of 1919. Dad volunteered to stay behind for an additional 6 months, to be a guard at a German POW camp in Belgium near the city of Dave. For those six months of easy duty, he got a full years pay, which at $1.10 a day came to $410.15.

When he returned to Toronto in July of 1919, he bought a used Pierce Arrow touring car and started the Toronto Veteran's Taxi Company. By 1927 he owned 14 cars, and he was employing 35 drivers, all of whom were CEF veterans. He sold the business in 1928 for cash, and invested the money in The New Method Laundry Company. JIM.
 
Henry Ford. He left home at the age of 16 and moved to Detroit.
He didn't invent the car, but he figured out a way to produce one that was within the economic reach of the average American. While other manufacturers were content to target a market of the well-to-do, Henry developed a design and a method of manufacturing (Assembly line) that steadily reduced the cost of his Model T.

Instead of pocketing the profits, he lowered the price of the car. As a result, he sold more cars and increased his company's earnings, and this transformed the automotive industry from a luxury machine to a mainstay of American society.
 
During WW1 my Father as a member of the Canadian Army, travelled to and from Europe on the RMS Olympic, which was the sister ship to the RMS Titanic. Although the war ended in November of 1918, he didn't arrive back in Canada until July of 1919. Dad volunteered to stay behind for an additional 6 months, to be a guard at a German POW camp in Belgium near the city of Dave. For those six months of easy duty, he got a full years pay, which at $1.10 a day came to $410.15.

When he returned to Toronto in July of 1919, he bought a used Pierce Arrow touring car and started the Toronto Veteran's Taxi Company. By 1927 he owned 14 cars, and he was employing 35 drivers, all of whom were CEF veterans. He sold the business in 1928 for cash, and invested the money in The New Method Laundry Company. JIM.
nice story.
 
Assembly lines to mass produce those things we all want.
Television. We even leave it on when we are not watching it. It keeps us connected.
Computers, by far, the most impact on our lives.
Where would we be??????? Heck I am writing this on one.
Pay your bills, renew your license, talk to your friends, send a gift card, etc , etc, etc.
The beast in revelations makes me think of the computer with AI.
bob
 

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