100 Inventions That Shaped World History

By Bill Yenne

Fascinating stories behind 100 of the most important inventions in history, for kids 8 and up

This fast-paced journey through the most vital developments and inventions of all time features:

• 100 easy-to-read stories: Find out how each invention came to be!
• Illustrations: Each entry includes an illustrated image of the invention to help bring history to life!
• A timeline, trivia questions, project ideas and more: Boost your learning and test your knowledge with fun activities and resources!

From the compass to the printing press, television to virtual reality, readers will learn about 100 of the most important inventions, advancements, and discoveries that have changed the course of human history. Organized chronologically, this fast-paced journey through the history of technology will help kids understand how their favorite modern conveniences came to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781464220517

Bill Yenne

Bill Yenne is the author of ten novels and more than three dozen non-fiction books, his most recent being America's Few: Marine Aces in the South Pacific (Osprey, 2022). His work has been selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Reading List. He is the recipient of the Air Force Association's Gill Robb Wilson Award for the “most outstanding contribution in the field of arts and letters [as an author] whose works have shaped how thousands of Americans understand and appreciate air power.” He lives in California, USA.

Book preview

The front cover for 100 Inventions That Shaped World History. The main image is an illustration of reuseable crewed spacecraft, amid a collage of illustrations of other inventions.The title page for 100 Inventions That Shaped World History by Bill Yenne, published by Sourcebooks Explore.

Copyright © 1993, 2023 by Sourcebooks

Text by Bill Yenne

Cover design by Will Riley

Internal illustrations by Westchester Publishing Services

Cover and internal design © 2023 by Sourcebooks

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

All rights reserved.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. —From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

Published by Sourcebooks eXplore, an imprint of Sourcebooks Kids

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Originally published in 1993 by Bluewood Books, a division of The Siyeh Group, Inc.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Trivia Questions

Project Suggestions

Index

INTRODUCTION

We humans have distinguished ourselves with our ability to think, to reason, and to fashion tools and build machines that help us in our work—in other words, we invent. We use tools to extend or expand our capabilities. Over the centuries, such tools have been devised by both individuals and groups, and most have led to other inventions based on the principles of their predecessors.

This book is a capsule of some of the most important milestones in the history of technology, and the selections were based on the following criteria: 1) What kind of impact did the invention have on civilization after it was put into widespread use? 2) Did it change the way we see ourselves as a species? 3) Did it open the door to other inventions? 4) Did it affect our daily lives in a ubiquitous way?

The goal is to present these milestones in their historical context and to give you some basic information about how they came to be, who made them possible, and why they were important. Some inventions have evolved into more advanced versions while others remain more or less in their original form today. Some of the experiments that led to certain inventions can be duplicated at home, but in other cases, the inventions still seem amazingly complex. Many of the most basic inventions were created simultaneously throughout the world. Production and use of fire was achieved in many places on Earth before the earliest recorded history. The same is true of tools such as knives used for hunting. Other inventions that we take for granted existed for centuries in one place, but strangely, were never discovered elsewhere. One good example is the wheel, which had been used in numerous applications from turning pots to moving vehicles for nearly five thousand years in the Eastern Hemisphere. However, when the first European explorers crossed the Atlantic, they discovered that no one in the Americas—not even the highly evolved Aztec and Inca cultures—had yet invented the wheel!

The wheel (turning on its axle) is one of what are known as the six simple machines. These are the basic components upon which countless other machines and engineering projects of greater complexity are based. Three involve linear motion, and three involve circular motion. The first three are the inclined plane, the wedge (which is an extension of the inclined plane concept), and the lever. The rotating machines are the wheel, the pulley (which evolved from the wheel), and the screw. Each of these inventions increased the power and capability of its inventor and their successors, and each is partially or wholly present in the machines we use daily. Imagine how different the world would be today without the six simple machines.

A glance into the future suggests that many exciting technologies will add new milestones to this list. Over a century ago, someone said that everything that could be invented had already been invented. But nothing could have been further from the truth. While forecasting the future is difficult, one thing we can count on is that the centuries to come will be filled with countless wondrous inventions.

1. STONE TOOLS

3.3 million years ago

An illustration of stone tools.

♦   Today, saying something is from the stone age suggests that it is incredibly crude or outdated. However, the beginning of the Stone Age , the Paleolithic Period , was the time when humans first distinguished themselves from virtually all other animals. When our earliest ancestors first learned how to use and make stone implements to help make their work easier, humankind started down the road toward civilization.

Exactly where and when humans first made stone tools will probably never be known as archaeologists continue to discover tools that are older than those previously recorded. The oldest known purposefully edged tool—literally the oldest knife blade—was discovered in Africa in 1969 and is estimated to be 2.6 million years old.

It seems likely that people in widely separated places in Asia, Africa, and Europe discovered how to make tools independently of one another, and this may have happened in numerous places 2.4 million years ago.

The earliest stone tools were probably used for hunting and food processing. They included knives, spear points, scrapers, and simple composite grinders for grain—a round rock used in a shallow hole inside of another larger rock. Such a tool was the precursor of the mortar and pestle, which was commonly used to grind grain at home up until the nineteenth century. It is still used in the pharmaceutical industry today.

Stone knives and scrapers were the forerunners of the metal implements that are so familiar to us today. Their shapes are recognizably related, and a sharp flint or obsidian knife is still a useful tool and a dangerous weapon.

2. THE INCLINED PLANE

2.4 million years ago

An illustration of the inclined plane.

♦   The inclined plane , believed to have been in use longer than any of the other basic machines, is based on a simple concept: When an object must be moved from a lower elevation to a higher one, more power is required to move it up a steeper slope than a shallow one. This is true whether we are moving our own bodies when climbing, pushing a solid object, propelling a wheeled vehicle, or driving a motorized one. The shallower the slope, the less power is required.

Ancient humans discovered that it was easier to drag objects up a slope than to pull them straight up a cliff. Eventually, they realized that if a slope did not exist, they could build one by leaning logs or poles against a steep incline to make it shallower. They also discovered that they could pile dirt or rocks against a cliff and create a permanent inclined plane. Egyptian builders used such inclined planes in major construction projects, such as the pyramids.

Planes built at specific inclinations, or grades, have been utilized in road building for centuries, and they are still used today. Staircases are also a form of inclined planes, as are accessibility ramps for people who use wheelchairs to bypass staircases.

3. THE WEDGE

2.4 million years ago

An illustration of a wedge.

♦   One of the six basic machines , the wedge is a version of the inclined plane. The wedge can be described as a double inclined pla ne whose narrow end is inserted into another substance in order to split it into two parts.

Stone knives were possibly the first wedge-type tools. Wedges for splitting wood are the simplest ones, and axes and chisels are variations on this principle. Shovels are wedges, and nails are also based on the wedge principle. A shovel breaks up a solid mass of gravel or dirt, just as a traffic divider splits the fluid mass of individual vehicles. Thus, a traffic divider can also be considered a type of a wedge.

4. PRODUCTION AND CONTROL OF FIRE

500,000 BCE

An illustration of a man sitting beside a campfire.

♦   It has been said that civilization began when human beings were first able to produce and control fire for their own benefit. Before that time, fire must have been seen as a terrible and frightening destroyer.

Somehow, in the distant mists of time, prehistoric humans in widely scattered parts of the world learned that fire had the power to warm as well as harm. Eventually, humans determined that small, controlled fires could make their environment more comfortable when it was cold and enable them to see in the dark. This made it a gathering place.

The