Can you name a famous non-American invention?

The car.

The block heater for your car in winter.

I would certainly call the internet an “American invention”, but the others on your list have international precursors. I know they make the American history books as “firsts”, but that’s kind of selecting one individual step out of a series and saying “Mine!”

Similarly, my country (Canada) has mythologized some inventions, such as basketball, insulin, the snowmobile, and the Canadarm. Some of these are the result of building on older ideas, or collaboration with international colleagues.

Err, okaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!!

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-01-08/the-50-greatest-british-inventions

As for the internet, as we know it today:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

telephone, internet, computer, mp3, steam engine, moveable type, aeroplane, x-rays, nuclear fission, nuclear theory, germ theory, electron microscope, combustion engine, airbag, batteries, light bulb, Das Auto, rockets, space stations, jet engine, jet powered aeroplane, telescope, heliocentric theory, theory of evolution, theory of gravity, theory of relativity, quantum physics, theory of electromagnetism, antibiotics, gun powder, guns, swords, spears, bows and arrow, armour, shields, artillery, trebuchet, catapults, wheels, fire, metal working, agriculture, animal husbandry, writing, reading, speech, language, cooking, sewing, leather working, hunting, science, medicine and i am sure i am forgetting a ton of other things.

and just to be a bit nationalistic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_inventions_and_discoveries

penicillin, X-ray machine, stirrups, pendulums, clocks, printing press, genetics, weaving, ironworking, Braille

They were making clocks thousands of years before the USA came into existence.

Same with pendulums “One of the earliest known uses of a pendulum was a 1st-century seismometer device of Han Dynasty Chinese scientist Zhang Heng”

Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin. He was Scottish.

@Dutchess_III yes – that was the point. Although I had not read the date limitation the OP had put on the question as hadn’t some others.

Oh crap. I mis read it. My bad.

The bicycle.

Of course a sure bet is that anything existing before America was invented eslewhere, except of course the bible and Jesus.

The wheel.

democracy

America.

abolition of slavery

Television. In 1884, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, a 23-year-old university student in Germany, patented the first electromechanical TV system which employed a scanning disk, a spinning disk with a series of holes spiraling toward the center, for rasterization. The first demonstration of the instantaneous transmission of images with scanning and refresh was by Georges Rignoux and A. Fournier in Paris in 1909.

Info from Wikipedia

Proper football
Proper motor racing, other shapes than oval exist

Croissants !!!

Motion pictures

Bronze.

People already named a ton if things above.

Are Einstein’s discoveries American? He came to America fairly late in life. He was German born and then later settled in America.

Soooooo…nothing really significant then.

Pasteurization.

Steam engine?

Are Einstein’s discoveries American?

Most of his important work was done before 1910. He moved to the US in 1933.

@jaykay I wonder how many inventors and people who made incredible discoveries who were American weren’t born in America. Even if they did their discovery work in America.

It’s like how Jews will talk about our high stats for Nobel prize winners. I’ve always wondered how those stats break down by nationality rather than religion. Einstein was Jewish for that matter. Was his brilliance about being Jewish? German? American?

In the end I think what does it matter? Is all that just a matter of having some sort of bragging rights?

@JLeslie – Actually I think it does matter. The society that creates more and better innovation, may be something to emulate. I would argue that a communist society will be much less innovative than a capitalist one. Measuring the inventions from different societies may be quite difficult however since everything builds on previous discoveries.

Disposable syringes

Pharmacist and veterinarian, New Zealander Colin Murdoch was an inventor, with 46 patents to his name. Aware of the risks of infection of glass syringes, he designed and patented the disposable hypodermic syringe. Initially the Department of Health felt it was “too futuristic”. It took a few years before it was adopted and used by millions around the world.

Chinese Checkers, Double Dutch, and Stairway to Heaven.

Matter, space, time.

A lot of people are missing the post-1776 requirement but definitely some great answers so far. Still though, everyone is either naming an invention that I don’t know the inventor of or they are explaining who the inventor was, which makes the point that most known inventors (at least to me) were at least American-influenced. Whether they did their work here or were born here is another issue. In other words, what would have been invented and introduced to the world in the same way if America had never existed? The car would be a good example if I could name the inventor off the top of my head. Maybe that’s just me but I think very few people could name the car’s inventor compared to the early American inventions. Einstein probably counts even though he came to America but it’s hard to say.

@intro24 “Still though, everyone is either naming an invention that I don’t know the inventor of or they are explaining who the inventor was, which makes the point that most known inventors (at least to me) were at least American-influenced.”

Because you are American, it’s not surprising that your own understanding of which inventors are “known” (i.e., famous) is limited to those that you learned about from your biased school curricula. Many of us who have answered here are not American, and so do not share this bias. We all have biases of our own, as I mentioned earlier.

You could as easily ask “What would have been invented and introduced to the world in the same way if Germany had never existed?” Or any other country. The first car was built in China by a Flemish man. But you don’t ask how the world would be different if there were no China or no Flanders. You just assume that America had the greatest influence.

I’m not saying that the question you’re asking is not interesting. But I think that if you look at the question from a broader perspective, it would be easier for you to imagine many of the things we have being invented in different ways, by different people, even if the actual people responsible were erased from history.

Typical crass American :D

@Jaxk Fair enough, maybe it does matter. Maybe it is an interesting study to find out what societal and cultural conditions promote invention and discovery.

Somehow I doubt communism is a huge negative if we looked around the world. I’m betting Russia back in the day had a lot of science and technology going on, but I don’t know for sure. Communism usually provides education for everyone. Maybe it’s the theocracies? The impoverished nations? Or, maybe it’s something more complicated.

So are a country’s major points of pride generally common knowledge to it’s citizens? For those of you that aren’t US citizens I’d love to hear how you were taught history. Would you say there’s facts and figures from your country’s history that most everyone there is aware of? If so, is it because it was taught in school?

Russia had the first satellite, the first man in space, the first space station, the first space probe to land on another planet.
And they did not have a German PoW in charge of their space programme.

Good point about the space program in Russia. I also can’t help thinking that a lot of Jews who were inventors probably were Russian citizens, I’m sure many probably were German, Israeli and American too.

I think the culture carries over somewhat from the mother country to America for at least a couple of generations. Americas white population I think still is majority German descent. I could be wrong. I would think in America we need to consider the subcultures within our country. I don’t know. I think @Jaxk point is people can flourish in America with their ideas.

Well this has become a very patriotic thread. So allow me to point out:
– Refrigerators
– Underwater torpedos
– Electric drills
– Notepads
– Froth floatation
– Battle tanks
– Atomic absorption spectrophotometers
– Black box flight recorders
– Cochlear implants
– CPAP masks
– Wi-Fi
– The scramjet
– The cervical cancer vaccine

All Australian inventions. All very important. Many very famous. I’m sure you all own a fridge, or have flown on a plane with a black box flight recorder, even if you don’t own a main battle tank.

@intro24 I don’t know how US people are taught history, but here history are divided into two parts: world’s history and the country’s history. World’s history is just “general history”: how people evolved and society developed, major events that affected the whole world… The country’s history is exactly what you think it is: what happened in the country from the beginning of history. Generally both are taught with the equal quantity, no part is taught more than the other.

I can’t say the world knows much about our history. People outside my country mostly know about the last half of the 20th century, mainly because this was the time when some memorable events happened in my country. And I don’t think these events are taught at other countries’ schools, especially those countries which weren’t directly involved in the events. Maybe they get the facts through other means.

I hated history growing up so my memory of it in school is foggy. My experience k-12 was we learned mostly American history and some world history. Inventions and discoveries were often mixed in with what it related to. Like in biology we might learn about the discovery of penicillin, or learn about Galileo in astronomy, and the X-ray in another science class. So, even though I would say our world history knowledge is not great as we emerge from high school (unless you chose advanced courses in history as electives) the inventors and discoveries were taught in a fairly worldly manner. In my experience.

@intro24 Iwonder what level of education you are at. As @JLeslie says, in high school, history tends to focus more on US history and world history is given lip service. I have learned a lot of my knowledge of it on my own. Invention “smarts” were definitely not limited to the US – even post 1776.

@JLeslie & @ragingloli – I didn’t mean to imply an absolute. That nothing could be invented under communism. Only that invention would more likely flourish under capitalism. Hell, I would think that if we looked hard enough, we could find something that was invented in the Middle East over the past 100 years. I’m guessing though, I wouldn’t bet money on it.

Well, since Israel is in the Middle East we know there has definitely been discovery and invention in the Middle East. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if on Arab and Persian lands there has been some invention in the last 100 years. 100 years is a long time. Most if the people I know from Iran, Lebanon and even Pakistan are very educated or their children are. The ones I know got out and live in America. Still, their developing years were in the Middle East.

I do guess that there is less discovery in countries that limit education and access to science. There I agree the Middle East is probably behind countries and continents like Europe, Australia, North America. I would guess African countries also lag behind in stats and maybe even Latin America. I don’t know for sure though.

@JLeslie – Good point. Education would play a major role.

I think people who are brilliant simply are. As long as they can access information they educate themselves even if they don’t have good access to formal education.

The need to seek knowledge I believe is so strong at the genius level, and the ability of their minds to see things in a different way, think out of the box, and question the status quo, is truly remarkable.

Genius level minds are born on all continents. I do think our environment influences how high our IQ can be, but within a range. For instance a person might be born with the genetic ability between 120 and 130. In the best circumstances they achieve the 130. Someone born with the genius ability is likely to be within the genius range no matter what, barring severe neglect and abuse.

For these reasons I think discovery and invention can happen almost everywhere in the world, but I’m sure it is more likely in some places more than others because of access.

The life jacket was invented by Dunedin (NZ) woman, Orpheus Beaumont, it is a very interesting tale.

”The story came from a Victorian belief that pregnant women would imprint their thoughts and emotions on the soul of their unborn child.” I never knew we were magic. I just thought we were fat!

French.

Poutine.

@ragingloli Ooh, I hadn’t thought of good ol’ Sputnik. Awesome answer.

@FireMadeFlesh Good points, I was wondering about Australia. Interestingly enough, Top Gear is running an ad right now that claims Great Britain as the inventor of the tank. Maybe it’s a close call.

@Mimishu1995 @JLeslie Sorry, where are you guys from? As for history taught in the US, my experience is they cover the basics of world and US history but not in any particular order. I bet it’s lacking compared to some other nations.

@janbb I’m about half way through college, although I haven’t been exposed too much history after high school. I’m sure I’ve looked into things on my own but I guess not the inventors themselves or where they were from.

@talljasperman I need to try poutine.

@intro24 The French, British, Austrians, Russians, and Australians all have some claim to the title, as people gradually added more to the idea. But as far as I understand, the Austrian and Australian proposals were the first that could be considered a tank, and not an armoured gun.

@intro24 As I said discovery and inventions often were taught with the science. Some inventions were taught in history class though, like I think the cotton gin was. But, things like Pasteurizing, the planets circle around the sun, X-ray, gravity, even Pavlov’s dog, and so many others were taught mostly in the science class they related to.

I grew up in a suburb of NYC through 4th grade and a suburb of DC in MD 5th-12th grade. I hated history so I took the bare minimum. In high school I actually withdrew one semester I was doing so badly, and took it again the following year. Science I loved, I did well in it, and the information stuck with me. Thanks goodness they didn’t only teach discoveries and inventions in history.

@intro24 I’m from Asia. Yeah they teach things differently here. But I can’t compare the teaching quality here and that in the US since I haven’t experienced anything in the US yet.

The problem in the US is the teaching requirements vary a lot around the country. It can vary from one school district to another, and a district can be as small as a small town. Some federal standards have been introduced lately.