#908 Johannes Gutenberg – inventor of the printing press
In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and changed the world. It is not very often where you can say that an invention caused such enormous ripples that…
In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and changed the world. It is not very often where you can say that an invention caused such enormous ripples that…
Alexander Cumming invented the S-bend in 1775. Toilets have existed for thousands of years, but the S-band (now the U-bend) was an invention that helped transition to indoor toilets and…
Shuji Nakamura invented the blue LED, without which we wouldn’t be able to have white LEDs, and we would be damaging the environment even more than we are at the…
Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman were the creators of the RSA encryption that we use many times, possibly hundreds of times, a day. They gave the first letters…
Norman Ernest Borlaug was known as the father of the Green Revolution because of the new strain of wheat he developed and the millions, possibly billions, of people he saved…
Henrietta Lacks developed cervical cancer and the cells taken from a tumor biopsy have formed the HeLa cell line, named after her. Ms. Lacks didn’t know that her cells had…
Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seat belt in 1959. There is no way of working out how many people his invention has saved, but it must be over a million,…
During his career, Maurice Hilleman developed over 40 vaccinations. It is thought that his vaccinations save over 8 million lives every year. However, he was not interested in making a…
Henry Dunant was born in Geneva on 8 May 1828. Have you heard of the Red Cross? I expect most people have. But you may never have heard of Henry…
Christiaan Huygens was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor. He was responsible for many discoveries during his lifetime. He discovered a new way to make more accurate telescope lenses…