Technological inventions of the last 60 years have been considered in different ways: ingenious, ambitious, irreverent. But whatever you choose to call them, they represent our heritage and the springboard to new discoveries.
They wrote songs, textbooks and even poems about the fabulous 1960s, which became an icon of change, transgression, the desire for freedom, equality and social justice. They were also the years of great social revolutions, with the development of feminism, anti-racial struggles and pacifism, but also - and above all - of the economic boom.
The protagonists of these changes were young people, with their desire to break the old patterns of the past. And it is precisely from these years that we must start to consider the most important technological inventions of recent years.
It started with medical-scientific discoveries, such as the invention of the laser and the first human heart transplant, and then came the digital revolution, which began in the early 2000s, when the Internet was born, with the first search engines, up to the birth of social networks. Here is a list of the most important technological inventions.
10 important technological inventions
The birth of the laser
Although the study of laser technology began with Albert Einstein in the early 1900s, this technology evolved further in 1960, when the first laser was built at Hughes Research Laboratories.
In fact, on 16 May 1960, Theodore Maiman operated the first working laser in his laboratory in Santa Monica, California. Today, the invention of the laser is considered one of the most important technological inventions of the 20th century, due to its applications in many fields, from medicine to telecommunications.
The first interactive video game
From science to entertainment is a short step. At least that's what three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thought in 1962: Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Alan Kotok.
The trio were responsible for the game Spacewar!, considered to be the first interactive video game: for the first time, players were able to shoot at each other from spaceships, with the first joysticks, earning them a place in the 'league table' of the most important technological innovations of recent times. coolinventions
The first human heart transplant
On 3 December 1967, the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed what was then considered a 'miracle': he made Louis Washkansky, a 53-year-old man suffering from severe heart failure, 'the first man with a young woman's heart'.
After the heart transplant, the patient was able to speak again 33 hours later, saying he was feeling much better - according to reports at the time - but died 18 days later of pneumonia. His heart was fully functional, but his immune system was weakened by immunosuppressive drugs.
Professor Barnard became world famous, and died in 2001 at the age of 79 after a severe asthma attack. Today there are around 6,000 heart transplants a year worldwide.
The first fixed telephone
"Come here Watson, please. I need you!" These were the words uttered by Alexander Graham Bell when he made the first official telephone call in history, in Boston. It was on 10 March 1876.
Bell, of Scottish origin, was a professor of speech psychology and diction at the University. His telephone model consisted of a microphone (transmitter) and a loudspeaker (receiver), connected by an electrical circuit with a battery in series.
On 7 March 1876, Bell filed his project for a patent - with the number 174,465 - but the matter is more complex than that: the Florentine Antonio Meucci, who had emigrated to New York, had already built the first prototype, the telephone, in 1854, which he used at home to communicate with his wife who was confined to bed with deforming arthritis, then in 1871 he managed to file a temporary patent at the price of 10 dollars a year, as he could not afford the definitive one. He could only pay twice, and no telegraph company agreed to finance him. So Alexander Graham Bell, who had probably seen his design, filed the patent and for many years was considered the inventor of the telephone.
One of the most important technological inventions was the smarphone, which beat off the competition.
There are also different schools of thought regarding the authorship of the smartphone. Many people, especially the younger ones, are used to thinking that Steve Jobs was the primary creator of this technology in 2007 - of course there is no doubt that the iPhone is one of the most important technological innovations - but in reality we have to go back to 1992, when BellSouth put Simon, the first smartphone ever, on the market.
Designed by IBM, Simon had many innovative features that may seem trivial today, including email and notepad, but were by no means taken for granted at the time.
Although Simon is therefore the grandfather of all the phones we use today, the main brands we know all arrived between 2006 and 2008: Nokia, Android and finally, of course, Apple.
The birth of the video recorder
The very first commercial VCR in history was the VRX-1000 introduced by Ampex in 1956. However, it was Ray Dolby, an American engineer and inventor, who in 1967 invented the first silent VCR, with sound without the annoying hissing noise that had existed before this important milestone in the history of home entertainment, that made VCRs a big part of the household scene.
This discovery, together with Sony's production of the U-matic, the first system to replace bulky reels with the first compact videotapes, drastically changed people's lives and habits.
The love for videocassettes and pizza dinners with friends on Saturday nights is undoubtedly due to Blockbuster, which arrived in Italy in 1994.
This chain, now closed for years, allowed you to rent videotapes of films, from the most recent to cult films, which had to be strictly rewound, out of politeness and respect for the next renter.
For the nostalgic, there is good news: 7 June has been declared VCR Day, in memory of the VCR.
The birth of the Walkman, music in your pocket
The Walkman was almost forgotten after the iPod conquered the hearts of the whole world, but then, there it was, in one of the most watched Marvel films of all time, Guardians of the Galaxy, the inseparable travelling companion of Star Lord, played by the American actor Chris Pratt.
The first Walkman came to light on 1 July 1979, when Sony produced the first silver-blue TPS-L2 model. The idea came to Sony engineers when they analysed the Pressman, a tape recorder for journalistic use.
They immediately removed the recording device and added a simple set of headphones to create their first prototype portable music player. Sony released products with similar names, including the Discman (a CD player) and the Watchman (a portable TV), in an attempt to replicate the enduring success of the Walkman, which is considered to be one of the most important technological inventions.