FRANCE
Cinematography Imagine a world without cinema! You might not be aware of this, but we owe the invention to the French! The Lumière brothers are generally considered as the inventors of cinema. But at the end of the 19th century, other genius inventors had found processes capable of projecting moving images or photographs. In France the Praxinoscope attracted a large audience at the Grévin Theatre, while in the US, Thomas Edison tried to launch his Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. However none of these machines would encounter the success of the Cinematograph presented by the brothers on the 28th of December 1895 at the Grand Café in Paris. |
ICE LAND
Power Transformer
Iceland has been pioneering in transmission grid and power transformers. Chester Hjortur Thordarson (1867 – 1945) was an Icelandic-American inventor who was instrumental in the development of the modern energy transmission grid with his work on transformers. Thordarson’s first opportunity of distinction came through his association with universities. An order came from Purdue University that requested building a half-million volt transformer to be exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis Fair — it was slated to be used for experimental purposes at Purdue thereafter. Eleven years later, Thordarson built a million volt transformer, and received a gold medal for the accomplishment.
Iceland has been pioneering in transmission grid and power transformers. Chester Hjortur Thordarson (1867 – 1945) was an Icelandic-American inventor who was instrumental in the development of the modern energy transmission grid with his work on transformers. Thordarson’s first opportunity of distinction came through his association with universities. An order came from Purdue University that requested building a half-million volt transformer to be exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis Fair — it was slated to be used for experimental purposes at Purdue thereafter. Eleven years later, Thordarson built a million volt transformer, and received a gold medal for the accomplishment.
UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone
If the invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by many individuals, the history of which involves a collection of claims and counterclaims, we commonly credit to the Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell the invention of the first practical telephone. The classic story of his crying out “Watson, come here! I want to see you!” is now well-known in the history of the telephone. Bell was the first to obtain a patent, in 1876, for an “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically”, after experimenting with many primitive sound transmitters and receivers. |
NETHERLANDS
Telescope
Who invented the telescope? The answer is still a mystery. It is highly probable that as lens-grinding techniques improved in the late 1500s, someone held up two lenses and discovered what they could do. However, it is commonly acknowledged that the first person to apply for a patent for a telescope was a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey. In 1608, he tried to lay claim on a device with three-times magnification. His telescope had a concave eyepiece aligned with a convex objective lens. One story goes that he got the idea after observing children in his shop holding up two lenses that made a distant weather vane appear close. |
BELGIUM
World Wide Web
Can you believe it? The World Wide Web is half Belgian! The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his British colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system for access to the many forms of documentation at and related to CERN. During this time, Cailliau co-authored a proposal for funding for the project for which he even designed the first WWW logo… |
ESTONIA
Skype
This is probably the most modern and well known Estonian invention in the World today. Skype, a system of peer-to-peer telephone was invented and written by Estonian software developers Ahti Heinla and Priit Kasesalu. The program is widely popular because it allows users to communicate by video using a webcam or by voice chat using a microphone. With its name derived from the words “sky” and “peer and originally named Skyper, the inventors had to register domain names Skype.com and Skype.net as Skyper.com was not available. The very first version of Skype was released in August 2003, but it is now owned by Microsoft. |
ALBANIA
Poplar Airplane
“Look at this my son, this is the best book that I’ve ever read”, said Hasan Masurica to his son Fehmi. The book was about Leonardo da Vinci, written in Arabic. The idea of constructing an airplane which would fly had come exactly from reading about various inventions of Da Vinci. Hasan Masurica expressed his will of building such a device to members of the community, but always complained he lacked the materials and elements of realizing this idea. One day, he bought poplar and fabric which he softened with wax in order for air not to pass through. One windy summer day in 1899, Hasan called his neighbors and his admirers to come and see him lift the airplane |