Top Innovations that have changed the world in last Century

Optical lenses
Refracting light through glass is one of those simple ideas that took a
mysteriously long time to catch on. “The Romans had a glass industry,
and there’s even a passage in Seneca about the optical effects of glass
bowl of water,” says Mokyr. But it was centuries before the invention
of eyeglasses dramatically raised the collective human IQ, and
eventually led to the creation of the microscope and the telescope

The Personal Computer
The first computer was invented by Charles Babbage (1822) but was
not built until 1991! Alan Turing invented computer science. The
ENIAC (1945) was the first electronic general-purpose digital
computer, it filled a room. The Micral N was the world's first
“personal computer”(1973).

The Electric Light
It was Edison and Swan who patented the first
long-lasting light bulbs in 1879 and 1880, liberating society from a
near-total reliance on daylight. Electric lights went on to be used in
everything from home lighting and streetlamps to flashlights and car
headlights. The complex networks of wires erected to power early
light bulbs also helped lead to the first domestic electrical wiring,
paving the way for countless other in-home appliances

Refrigeration
“Discovering how to make cold would change the way we eat—and
live—almost as profoundly as discovering how to cook.” — George
Dyso

Vaccination
The British doctor Edward Jenner used the cowpox virus to protect
against smallpox in 1796, but it wasn’t until Louis Pasteur developed
a rabies vaccine in 1885 that medicine—and government—began to
accept the idea that making someone sick could prevent further
sickness

Pencillin
Launched a social revolution

Printing Press
Developed around 1440 in Mainz, Germany, Gutenberg’s machine
improved on already existing presses through the use of a mold that
allowed for the rapid production of lead alloy-type pieces. This
assembly line method of copying books enabled a single printing press
to create as many as 3,600 pages per day

The Telegraph
The telegraph was the first in a long line of communications
breakthroughs that later included radio, telephones, and email.
Pioneered by a variety of inventors in the 18th and 19th centuries, the
telegraph used Samuel Morse’s famous Morse code to convey
messages by intermittently stopping the flow of electricity along
communications wires.