Key American Inventions- what's missing from the list?

The rubber glove (today nitrile?) in 1894. I shudder to think about the field of proctology, without this amazing invention.
 
The transformer (Tesla + Edison?). Thin Waisted Marianne, the first commercial transformer, I think, is in Edison's lab.
"Empires of Light" is an ABSOLUTE MUST READ for people like us.

edit:
Is there a seminal pharmaceutical?
Sliced bread (attempt at humor, forgive me)
The "Postage Due" stamp (seriously, my dad wondered if other countries had them)
Wire extrusion and possibly the 'multi strand winder' to make cable (?)
Corn (maize)
 
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One of these. Made all the above possible.


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GON said:
Lots of thought-provoking replies. I concur the microwave should be added to the list.

I am not sure the Space Shuttle is a match, as I am not sure the Reusable Orbit Rocket is a match. The reason is the those two inventions currently have very little impact on 99.9% of the world's population. One hundred years from now both the Space Shuttle and Reusable Orbit Rocket may have a mind-blowing impact on the world's population- but not as of this moment.

Love 3M products and can't imagine painting without 3Ms blue painters' tape. But I am not sure 3M products align with key U.S. inventions.

One invention I think might be a match for the list is buttonless smartphones (Steve Jobs). I can't think of a single product that has changed the U.S. so drastically over the past two decades than buttonless smartphones.
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The microwave is just one of many of the byproducts of the invention that changed the world, the cavity magnetron. This allowed for the invention of radar which won the second world war. The British came up with the initial idea but handed it over to the Americans who made it work developed it, primarily at MIT.
 
danarn1954 said:
Digital Camera was invented in 1975 by Steve Sasson at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY.
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That’s the commercially sold digital camera.

The charge coupled device (chip with light sensitive elements that makes digital photography possible) was developed at Bell labs in the late 1960s and started being used in Astronomy and in surveillance satellites by 1970. Still American, but much earlier and not a Kodak invention.
 
The list of American Inventions is very very long.

Robert Goddard invented the liquid fueled rocket engine. Many people believe the Germans invented it, but that's not so. They copied and refined Goddard's invention.

080509-F-1234P-008.JPG
 
Another invention that is one of those common things today, that few actually think about, yet was an incredibly big deal for all of us, then and now:

The Geometry Engine: Conceived, engineered and manufactured by James H. Clark and Silicon Graphics. In essence the math and chip design to render graphics. The father of modern computer graphics cards. And is not much of a stretch to say it is also the father of today's AI.

iris_chip600x313.jpg
 
The barcode was invented in 1952 by a couple Americans. It has made a significant change in everything we do.

The disposable diaper, the invention of which is actually credited to a couple Americans.
 
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