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Can you name a famous non-American invention?

Asked by intro24 (1434points) December 10th, 2014

I can name countless examples of of inventions that were made by Americans or that involved America. The internet, airplanes, cotton gin, steam engine, etc. I understand that now everything is so global that it’s difficult to pin inventions to individual people or countries. Still though, it seems like all the important/fundamental/revolutionary inventions had roots in America. And even Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, and other globally-recognized, world-changing ideas are American.

I’ve been thinking for awhile and the only one I can name is Marconi. Has America really been that influential or are people from Europe and other countries less familiar with these inventors and the origins of these inventions? Maybe I’m biased being an American myself but I have difficulty imagining that people in other countries haven’t heard of the Wright brothers. Surely they know about the early American inventors.

I know it’s not entirely fair but I’m not counting before ~1776 because America wasn’t around to have influence on inventions.

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