You never really stop to think about how the invention of the wheel or the spear changed everything for mankind forever.  If the Native Americans had invented wheels a thousand years before the Spaniards arrived in America things might have gone differently.  Because Europeans had the wheel they were able to move great loads across long distances.  But having the wheel led to many other innovations, too.

For example, without the wheel we probably never would have invented metallurgy.  Wagons and carts need metal fixtures and fastenings in order to stay together.  We don’t know why ancient people first started using metals but there is a pretty good chance that improving wagons and carts was part of the reason they did so.  We also learned to use metal to make dishware and artwork and great machines.  Early metallurgists were not just trying to make swords and knives.

Innovation leads to innovation.  Once a new idea has been adopted it spreads quickly and people start experimenting with ways to improve on the idea.  So when you read a story about someone who has changed the way the world works, remember that their achievements are just one of many steps toward the future.

It’s all a bit like clockwork.  You start this piece moving here and another piece is moved over there.  Things fall into place and new logical applications for old ideas emerge.  Of course there is a hodge podge of experimentation that fails.  Thomas Edison supposedly failed to make a light bulb around 2,000 times before he developed the incandescent device many of us have grown up with.  And yet now we have entered the age of LED lighting and in a few more years children won’t recognize the old incandescent bulbs.

History is filled with innovations that led to innovations.  Water filtering systems have been in use for generations but because it is so expensive to filter water we don’t use filtration systems where we need them most, in dry and arid lands that have little water.  But that is changing as new scientists and inventors come up with clever ideas for purifying water inexpensively and to scale.

We honor innovation even though we often don’t know who made those great devices that changed our lives.  This article looks at ten inventors whose ideas transformed modern American life.  The bent straw may be the longest lasting invention in the group.  We just don’t realize how much innovation and invention surrounds us.

Literally everything in your home and office was invented by someone who was trying to solve a problem, often a very simple problem.  The changes will never stop coming!