Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess (25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937), was an Italian radio engineer, inventor, and politician. He is known for developing a practical system for sending messages using radio waves. This work earned him recognition as a key inventor of radio.
Elisha Graves Otis was an American inventor and the founder of the Otis Elevator Company. In 1853, he created a safety device that stops elevators from falling if the cable that lifts them breaks. On March 23, 1857, he put in place the first elevator with this safety feature for people to use at the store of E.V.
Lewis Howard Latimer was born on September 4, 1848, and died on December 11, 1928. He was an American inventor and a person who created detailed drawings for patents. His inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, a better method for making carbon filaments used in electric light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars.
George Mortimer Pullman (March 3, 1831 – October 19, 1897) was an American engineer and business leader. He created and built the Pullman sleeping car and established a town in Chicago where workers who made the cars lived and worked. This situation eventually caused the Pullman Strike because the company charged high rent costs for housing and paid low wages to workers.
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He was one of the first people to create a working incandescent light bulb. He also developed the first use of incandescent lights to light homes and public buildings, such as the Savoy Theatre in London, in 1881.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer best known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She was the first to recognize that the machine could be used for purposes beyond simple calculations. Lovelace is often called the first computer programmer.
Charles Babbage (pronounced /ˈbæbɪdʒ/; December 26, 1791 – October 18, 1871) was an English person with many talents. He was a mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and mechanical engineer. Babbage created the idea of a computer that could be programmed with numbers.
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born on March 27, 1845, and died on February 10, 1923. He was a German scientist who discovered and studied a type of radiation called X-rays, which are also known as “Röntgen rays” in many languages. In 1901, Röntgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of X-rays.
James Prescott Joule ( / dʒ uː l / ; 24 December 1818 – 11 October 1889) was an English physicist. He studied how heat works and found how it connects to mechanical work. This discovery helped create the law of conservation of energy, which later led to the first law of thermodynamics.
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American-born British inventor most famous for creating the first self-loading machine gun, the Maxim gun. He held patents for many mechanical devices, including hair curlers, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Maxim claimed to have invented the lightbulb.