Almost all the global society-altering creations i can think of FROM THE PAST 100 YEARS are from America. I highly doubt that’s true, so I’m looking for counter-examples.
To clarify, I’m looking for items on the level of:
- the internet
- rock music
- nuclear weapons
- ai
airplane flight(older than 100 years)
And clearly I’m not just including things that improved the world.
The best ones i can think of are (I think):
Rocketry (Germany)?- Cheap tech manufacturing (Asian countries)?
EDIT:
Actually rocketry has been around much longer than 100 years. Even the category of “modern rocketry” begins in the late 1800s. Source: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/TRC/Rockets/history_of_rockets.html
EDIT 2:
A further explanation of what level I’m talking about.
There has to be a clear before and after, and it has to directly and quickly effect most of the world. For example the Internet. There’s life before the internet, and there’s life after the internet, which are both very different.
As opposed to for example if someone makes a groundbreaking foundational research discovery that effects the entire realm of their field of study, but doesn’t quickly and directly create a difference in most people’s lives, then it doesn’t fit the category.
deleted by creator
Here are some.
- Antibiotics (Germany)
- Bluetooth (Denmark)
- C++ (Denmark)
- DVD (Japan)
- Electric clock (UK)
- Graphene (Canada)
- Helicopter (Russia)
- Linux (Finland)
- Penicillin (Scotland)
- TNT (Sweden)
- Wegovy (Denmark)
Penicillin IS an antibiotic. They aren’t two different things. But yes, that’s a fantastic one.
Bluetooth, although not quite on the same level as i was asking about, still is a decent one to list.
C++ was created by a dane, but was created by an American company in America - https://techhistorylab.com/complete-history-of-cpp-from-1979-to-today/
Dvd was a multi-national creation - see history section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
Electric clock is over 100 years
Graphene is a cool material with a lot of potential but so far isn’t close to changing the world - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene
Helicopter is a good one. Interestingly it was a step-wise multinational evolution, but which doesn’t seem to include the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter
Linux is made by an American as a personal project for himself while he was in Finland for a few years. Definitely not a Finnish creation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux
TNT is over 100 years
Wegovy wasn’t created by a Dane, but glp-1 was first discovered by a dane. Discovering it is obviously a crucial first step, but that’s an entirely different thing than turning it into a medication which happened decades later by other people. See history sections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Juul_Holst and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide
Linux (the Kernel) was started by Linus Torvalds. He is still Finnish citizen and holds the US citizenship since 2010. So I would clearly say it’s a Finnish invention. Or citing your source: “Linux began in 1991 as a personal project by Finnish student Linus Torvalds to create a new free operating system kernel.”


