While flying machines had been dreamt up since Leonardo da Vinci's time, and likely long before, and thanks to the work of countless inventors over several centuries, the Wright Brothers became the first people to achieve controlled, powered flight. Beginning with their work on gliders, the duo's success laid the foundation for modern aeronautical engineering by demonstrating what was possible.

Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch first described the use of antibiotic drugs in 1877.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming identified penicillin, which is derived from mold.

Throughout the 20th century, antibiotics spread rapidly and proved to be a major living improvement, fighting nearly every known form of infection and protecting peoples' health. 

Electric lights were pioneered in the early 19th century by Humphry Davy, who experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires between his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. His invention was known as the electric arc lamp. 

Over the next seven decades, other inventors also created “lightbulbs” but these were not capable of commercial application. 

In 1850 an English physicist named Joseph Wilson Swan created a “light bulb” by enclosing carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. But without a good vacuum, his bulb had too short a lifetime for commercial use. However, in the 1870’s, better vacuum pumps became available and Swan was able to develop a longer-lasting lightbulb.

The invisible was made visible in 1895. X-ray is undoubtedly one of the epoch-making advancements in the field of medicine.

All credits to physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. While testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass, he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. Because of the unknown nature of the rays, he named them X-rays. Through his observation, he learned that X-rays can be photographed when they penetrate into human flesh.

In 1897, during the Balkan war, X-rays were first used to find bullets and broken bones inside patients. In 1901, he received the Nobel prize in physics for his work.