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History & Bios - Famous Inventions & Famous Inventors

By Mary Bellis, About.com Guide

Explore the history behind your favorite inventions and learn about the lives of the famous inventors that created them. Inventions are the ingenious gadgets and machines that have made our lives a little more fun, interesting, and useful. Real inventions are the things that we did not think were possible yesterday that we can not live without today.

Famous Inventors - Biographies
Famous Inventors - Collective Stories
Lists of Inventions
Photo Galleries & Visual Media
African American History

Famous Inventors - The Ladies
Science in the Philippines
History of Intellectual Property Law
Timelines
Future Trends - Year 2000 & Beyond

Famous Inventors - Biographies

From A to Z you can research the history and biography and photos of many famous inventors. Under current patent law, the definition of an inventor is the person, or persons, who contribute to the claims of a patentable invention. Famous inventors are those who do so and get themselves remembered in history at the same time.

Famous Inventors - Collective Stories

Collective stories written about famous inventors.

Lists of Inventions

Research the history behind an invention. The definition of an invention in legal terms is any process (way of doing or making things), machine, manufacture, design, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, or any variety of plant, which is or may be patentable under patent law.

Photo Galleries & Visual Media

Ornithopter Flying Machine Designed and Drawn by Leonardo da Vinci

Online galleries illustrating the history of invention using patent drawings, old advertisements, photos and paintings. As the expression goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words."

African American History

Famous inventors - a database list of African American patent holders and individual biographies of African American inventors. Black History month and the historic contributions of black scientists and engineers.

Famous Inventors - The Ladies

From A-Z the biographies, inventions, and photos of women inventors from Randi Altschul to Mary Walton.

Science in the Philippines

The achievements of famous inventors from the Philippines, including: biographies, photos, patents and awards.

History of Intellectual Property Law

Where did the idea of patents come from? What was patent number one? Who governs patent law? Where was the first patent office located? The first recorded patent of invention was granted to an English inventor called John of Utynam. In 1449, John was awarded a 20-year monopoly for a glass-making process. The image to the right is the registered trademark of the United States Patent and Trademark office.

Timelines

Inventions by nature are evolutionary and interdependent. The telephone would never have been invented if the telegraph had not been invented first. Use timelines to see how technology evolved thru the ages and gain an overview of the history of mankind's machines.

Future Trends - Year 2000 & Beyond

What lies ahead in the future for inventions? What are the latest and greatest must have gadgets?

Inventors