Not everything in this list will be a direct result of capitalism. And in all fairness, the United States is not the only capitalist nation around, especially not recently. Well, that’s another issue for another time. The point is that in the U.S. we have (or had) the ability to benefit from, and do with as we please, whatever we create. We have also been able, for the most part at least, been able to keep the what we earn from our labor and intellectual property. That environment has led to a massive collection of inventions and innovations. we all benefit from capitalism, true free trade, and property rights.
So what’s your favorite innovation or invention? Is it on this list?
This list is surely incomplete and very much a work in progress, as I will be returning from time to time to update or correct it. If you find any errors or omission’s, please comment or contact me and I’ll fix or add it. For that matter, if you agree or disagree with my assertions here, comment and tell me why, I would love to know.
- Swim fins
- Octant
- Mail order (1744)
- Lightning rod
- Flexible urethral catheter
- Armonica (glass harmonica)
- Swivel chair
- Flatboat
- Bifocals
- Artificial diffraction grating
- Automatic flour mill
- Cracker
- Cotton gin
- Wheel cypher
- Rumford fireplace
- Suspension bridge (1801)
- Fire hydrant (1801)
- Burr Truss
Self-propelled amphibious vehicle (the Oruktor Amphibolos)- Vapor-compression refrigeration (1805)
- Coffee percolator
- Circular saw
- Dental floss
- Milling machine
- Profile lathe
- Detachable collar
- Graham cracker
- Platform scale
- Flanged T-Rail
- Electric doorbell (1831)
- Mechanical reaper
- Morse code
- Lock-stitch sewing machine
- Threshing machine
- Combine harvester
- Steam shovel
- Wrench (or spanner)
- Solar compass
- Electric relay
- Circuit breaker (1836)
- Self-polishing cast steel plow
- Corn sheller
- Sleeping car (railroad)
- Vulcanized rubber
- Howe truss
- Anesthesia
- Grain elevator
- Hand cranked ice cream maker
- Multiple effect evaporator
- Rotary printing press
- Pratt truss
- Maynard taoe primer
- Baseball
- Printing telegraph
- Doughnut
- Safety pin
- Gas mask
- Inverted microscope
- Fire alarm box
- Elevator brake
- Potato chips
- Clothespin
- Breast pump
- Condensed milk
- Equatorial sextant
- Rolled mass produced toilet paper
- Brown truss
- Pepper shaker
- Monkey wrench
- Mason jar
- Pencil eraser
- Vacuum cleaner
- Escalator
- Burglar alarm
- Twine knotter
- Ironing board
- Lever-action repeating rifle
- Twist drill
- Postcard
- Pin tumbler lock
- Machine gun (hand cranked)
- Breakfast cereal (1863)
- Ratchet wrench
- Roller skates
- Spar torpedo (1864
- Cowboy hat
- Web rotary printing press
- Restroom urinal
- Chuckwagon
- Motorcycle
- Paperclip
- Barbed wire
- Ticker tape
- Water-tube boiler
- Refrigerator car
- Paper bag
- Tape measure
- American football
- Pipe wrench
- Clothes hanger
- Rotary can opener
- Sandblasting
- Hand cranked mixer
- Diner
- Railway air brake
- Jeans
- Knuckle coupler (railroad)
- Earmuffs
- Fire sprinkler
- Ice cream soda
- Quadreplex telegraph
- Forstner bit
QWERTY keyboard/typewriter layout- Electric dental drill
- Mimeograph
- Synthesizer (1876)
- Airbrush
- Tattoo machine
- Phonograph
- District heating
- Carbon microphone
- Free jet water turbine
- Bolometer
- Cash register
- Oil burner
- Electric chair
- Metal detector
- Electric iron
- Christmas lights
- Electric fan
- Solar cell
- Thermostat
- Dissolvable pill
- Thermostat
- Machine gun
- Lap steel guitar
- Popcorn machine
- Photographic film
- Skyscraper
- Fuel dispenser (you know, the gas pump)
- Dishwasher
- Horizontal filing cabinet
- Telephone directory
- Slot machine
- Softball
- Gramophone record
- Comptometer
- AC motor
Kinetoscope- Trolley pole
- Drinking straw
- Stepping switch
- Revolving door
- Telautograph (like a fax machine but in 1888)
- Payphone
- Stop sign as it is today in much of the world;
- Tabulating machine;
- Babcock test, the first inexpensive test to determine fat content of milk
- Smoke detector
- Jackhammer
- Ferris wheel
- Dow process Herbert Henry Dow’s second revolutionary electrolytic process for generating bromine from brine
- Zippers
- Schrader valve (the valve universally used on tires around the world
Bottle Cap- Dimmer (ariable-voltage devices used for various purposes but primerily for lighting.
- The tractor (John Froelich invented and built the first gasoline/petrol-powered tractor in Clayton County, Iowa.
- Silicon carbide, or carborundum, a compound of silicon and carbon bonded together to form ceramics.
- spectroheliograph, an instrument used in astronomy that captures a monochromatic image photographic image of the Sun (at a single wavelength of light)
- Laxative
- Radio (or maybe not if it was really Marconi)
- Single-sideband modulation
- Frequency modulation
- Moustrap
- Vollyball
- Comic strip (but don’t put Muhammad in on or you might be killed)
- Cotton candy
- Muffler
- Charcoal briquette
- Remote control
- Semiautomatic shotgun
- Synthetic bristled hairbrush
- Vertical filing cabinet
- Installer bit
- Sousaphone
- Wing wrapping
- Airplane
- Autopilot
- Air traffic control (1929)
- Runway lighting
- Flight simulator (we invented fake-flying too)
- Flash lamp (camera flash)
- Merrill-Crowe process (technique for removing gold from a cyanide solution)
- Carbide lamp
- Thumbtack
- Key punch
- Mercury-vapor lamp
- Assembly line (arguably one of the greatest inventions of all time, Used globally with great impact on everything)
- Disposable safety razor
- Electric razor
- Radio direction finder
- Hearing aid
- Postage meter
- Teddy bear
- Mercury arc valve (ectrical rectifier whcih converts AC into DC)
- Air conditioning
- Collapsible periscope
- Wood’s lamp
- Windshield wipers
- Offset printing
- Round baler
- Fly swatter
- Architectural acoustics
- Batting helmet
- Dragline excavator
- AC power sockets and plugs
- Automatic transmission
- Ice pop
- Audion tube
- Suppressor (firearm silencer)
- Paper shredder
- Electrostatic precipitor (air cleaner)
- Paper towel
- Electric washing machine
- Electric mixer
- Skee ball
- Regenerative circuit
- Electric traffic light
- Electric blanket
-
Exit now for fast food...
- Road surface marking
- Automobile starters
- Fortune cookie
- Traffic cone
- Supermarket
- Tow truck
- Condenser microphone
- Cloverleafe interchange (hiway)
- Toggle light switch
- Pop-up toaster
- Silica gel
- Blender
- Hydrualic brake
- Superheterodyne receiver
- Steam cipher
- Jungle gym
- Pneumoencephalography
- Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating)
- Radial arm saw
- Audiometer
- Neutrodyne
- Water skiing
- Flowchart
- Wirephoto
- Garage door
- Garage door opener
- Crystal oscillator
- Adhesive bandage
- Bulldozer
- Masking tape
- Catton swab
- Instant camera
- Earth inductor compass
- Moviola
- Radio altimeter
- Langmuir probe
- Power steering
Drive through- Liguid fuel rocket
- Bread slicer (possibly the greatest thing since sliced bread)
- Jukebox
- Garbage disposal
- Negative feedback amplifier
- Recliner (like your lazy-boy)
- Ice cube tray
- Bubble gum
- Iron lung
- Freon
- Tampon
- Sunglasses
- Particle accelerator (also 1929)
- Car audio
- Pressure sensative tape
- Tape dispenser
- Chocolate chip cookie
- Thermistor
- Bathysphere
- Electric guitar
- Strobe light
- Aerogel
- Golf carts (What would Obama do without these, walk?)
- Staple remover
- Peristaltic pump
- Radio telescope
- Drive-in theater
- Landing vehicle tracked
- Multiplane camera
- Impact sprinkler
- Trampoline
- Richter magnitude scale
- Franchising
- Black light
- Parking meter
- pH meter
- Gomco clamp
- Phillips-head screw
- EEG brain topography
- Programming languages
- Chair lift
- Bass guitar
- Photosensitive glass
- Digital computer
- Shopping cart
- Sunglasses (polarized)
- Blood bank
- Cyclamate
- Beach ball
- Fiberglass
- Xerography
- Nylon
- Teflon
- Soft serve ice cream
VU meter- Vocoder
- Fluxgate magnetometer
- Deodorant (this one is really important)
- Acrylic fiber
- Sold body electric guitar
- Corn dog
- Ames process
- Napalm
- Microwave over
- Cruise control
- Spoonplug fishing lure
- Cancer chemotherapy
- DEET
- Diaper (waterproof, modern baby diaper)
- Proton therapy
- Cloud seeding
- Transistor
- Defibrillator
- Acrylic paint
- Magnetic particle clutch
- Supersonic aircraft
- Hairspray
- Windsurfing
- Video game
- Cable television
- Flying disc (frisbee)
- Cat liter
- Radiocarbon dating
- Centrifugal clutch
- Compiler
- Crash test dummy
- Atomic clock
- Holter monitor
- Modacrylic
- Ice resurfacer
- Airsickness bag
- Artificial snow
- Credit card
- Leaf blower
- Hamming code
- Sengstaken-Blakemore tube
- Stellarator
- Portable ice chest
- Wetsuit
- Correction fluid (white-out)
- Airbag
- Polio vaccine
- Barcode
- Heart lung machine
- Marker pen
- Apgar scale
- Wheel clamp
- Wiffle ball
- MASER
- Carbonless copy paper
- Crossed-field amplifier
- Zipper storage bags (ziplock bags)
- TV diner (what good is a microwave without them?)
- Automatic sliding door
- Acoustic suspension loudspeaker
- Morgen clamp
- CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation)
- Synthetic diamond
- Radar gun
- Crosby-Kugler capsule
- Nuclear submarine
- Hard disk drive
- Operating system (computer, batch processing)
- Kart racing
- Fortran (programming language)
- Videotape
- Particle storage ring
- Skid-steer loader
- Wireless microphone
- Laser
- Confocal microscopy
- Sugar packet
- Air-bubble packing (bubble wrap)
- Boron nitride allotrope
- Gamma camera
- Cryotron
- Lisp programming language
- Carbon fiber
- Integrated Circuit
- Fusor
- Weather satellite
- Spandax (gee, thanks)
- Artificial turf
- Magnetic stripe card
- Magnetic stripe card reader
- Global navigation satellite system (US GPS is still the only fully functional one in existence)
- Combined oral contraceptive pill
- Obsidian hydration dating
- Gas laser
- Electronic spreadsheet
- Wearable computer
- Frozen carbonated beverage
- Biofeedback
- Communication satellite
- Chimney starter
- LED (light-emitting diode
- Electret microphone
- Jet injector
- Laser diode
- Glucose meter
- Computer mouse (human input device, HID)
- Lung transplantation
- BASIC programming language
- Balloon catheter
- Geosynchronous satellite
- Neutron bomb
- Plasma display
- Moog synthesizer
- 8-track cartridge
- Permanent press (fabric)
- Heart transplantation
- Carbon dioxide laser
- Liquid crystal display
- SQUID (superconducting Quantum Interference Devices-very sensitive magnetometers)
- Argon laser
- Adaptive equalizer
- Kevlar
- Hypertext
- Cordless telephone
- Space pen
- Minicomputer
- Compact disc
- Chemical laser
- Dynamic random access memory (DRAM, computer memory)
- Internal frame backpack
- Food bank
- Hand-held calculator
- Racquetball
- Virtual reality
- Bone marrow transplantation
- Lunar module
- Laser printer
- Bioreflective glass
- Widebody aircraft
- Taser
- Charge coupled device
- Mousepad
- Chapman Stick
- Markup language
- Wireless local area networks (Wireless LAN)
- Personal Computer
- Fuzzball router
- Superartificial airfoil
- Microprocessor (CPU)
- Floppy disc
- Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
- String trimmer (weed eater)
- C-programming language
- Video game console
- PET scanner
- Personal watercraft
- E-paper
- Recombinant DNA
- Catalytic converter
- Mobile telephone (1973)
- Voicemail (1973, because now that you can have a phone all the time, you may not want to always answer it)
- Heimlich maneuver
- Post-it note
- Scanning electron microscopre
- Quantum well laser
- Universal product code (UPC barcode)
- Digital camera
- Ehternet (computer network)
- Compact fluorescent lamp (1976, damn I hate these things)
- Hepatitis B virus vaccine
- Gore Tex (waterproof, breathable fabric, makes great boots and coats)
- Human powered watercraft
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Chemical oxygen iodine laser
- Bulletin board systems (BBS)
- Polar fleece
- Fetal surgery
- Total internal reflection fluorescence microscope
- Space shuttle
- Internet
- Blind signature
- Laser turntable
- Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine
- Polymerase chain reaction
- Stereolithography
- Digital Micromirror Device
- PERL
- Wheeled luggage
- Fused deposition modeling
- Tcl
- Ballistic electron emission microscopy
- Electron beam ion trap
- Nicotine patch
- Firewall (computer)
- Resin identification code
- ZIP file format
- Selective laser sintering
- Magnetic lock
- Optical space telescope
- Sulfur lamp
- Blog, weblog (1993)
- GPS (the only fully functional Global Navigation Satellite
- System (GNSS) in the world)
DNA computing- Bose-Einstein condensate
- Screenless hammer mill
- Xtracycle
- nanoimprint lithography
- Scroll wheel
- JavaScript
- Flash Programming
- Low plasticity burnishing
- Bait car
- Mars rover
- DVR (Digital Video Recorder
- PageRank
- Virtual Globe (3D software model or representation of the Earth or another world)
- Torino scale
- Phase charge incubator
- Microwave Anisotropy probe
- Self balancing personal transporter (the segway)
- SERF (spin-exchange relaxation-free magnetometer)
Fermionic condensate- HPV Vaccine
- 3D Model rendering
- Shingles vaccine
- Trongs
- Nanowire battery
- Biometric contact lens
- Composite aircraft
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THIS IS GOOD