The biggest invention the year you were born

• 1962: Audio Cassette
• 1963: Computer Mouse
• 1964: Integrated Circuit Computer
• 1967: Automated Teller Machine (ATM)
• 1970: Video Cassette Recorder (VCR)
• Their emails are curt
• 1972: Hacky Sack
• 1973: Cell Phone
• 1975: Digital Camera
• 1976: Word Processing
• 1977: Post-It Notes
• 1978: Cabbage Patch Kids
• 1979: Sony Walkman
• CD cases
• 1983: Lotus Spreadsheet
• 1984: First Personal Computer
• 1987: Disposable Contact Lenses
• 1993: Web Browser
• 1995: USB Cable
• 1999 : Star Wars LEGOs

1985: Windows

Do you know what inventions came out during your birth year? You might be surprised! Here is a list of what entered the market—or appeared online—between 1960 and 2000.

1960: Pacemaker

While the first pacemaker was implanted in 1958 in Sweden, the first completely internal pacemaker was implanted two years later. It ran on batteries and lasted three to five years.

1961: Skateboard

Skateboards first appeared in California in the 1950s, but surfers Mickey Muñoz and Phil Edwards gave them the shape and style we still see today.

1962: Audio Cassette

The good old audio cassette was invented in 1962 and quickly became a very popular and practical way to record sound.

1963: Computer Mouse

It’s thanks to Douglas Engelbart from the Stanford Research Center in the United States that we now have this indispensable device. Did you know that the very first mouse was made of wood?

1964: Integrated Circuit Computer

The arrival of the first computer with integrated circuits, or electronic chips, made it possible to perform much more complex operations.

1965: Kevlar

Stephanie Kwolek, a scientist at DuPont, created this bulletproof material in 1965 with liquid-crystal polymers. Today, Kevlar is used in all sorts of applications.

1966: Doritos

What luck! If you were born in 1966, you share your birth year with this game-day snacking staple. Doritos have been popular from the start. Nevertheless, Frito-Lay completely redesigned them in 1994 for the astronomical cost of US$50 million.

1967: Automated Teller Machine (ATM)

In this photo, you can see the very first automated teller machine installed by Barclays, a London bank, on June 27, 1967.

1968: Sailboard

When Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer, two Californians (of course), decided to mount a sail onto their surfboard, they also created a new sport.

1969: ARPANET

The origins of the internet can be traced back to the ARPANET, a network used to share information within the American Army. It was the very first network to implement the TCP/IP protocol.

1970: Video Cassette Recorder (VCR)

These large noisy machines were sometimes decorated with wooden panelling and could be quite heavy, but they revolutionized the way we watched films and television. It’s too bad the cassettes took up so much room.

Their emails are curt

Surprised? The first email was sent in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, the father of the internet. Prior to this, messages could only be sent to the computer… from which they came. Tomlinson also originated the use of @.

1972: Hacky Sack

The Western version of this sport was invented in 1972 by Mike Marshall and John Stalberger. The company Wham-O bought the rights to the product in 1983.

1973: Cell Phone

They were big, heavy, and expensive, but we can’t live without them today. Motorola employee Martin Cooper had the honour of making the first call on April 3, 1973. Whom did he call? The Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey.

One of the most popular toys in modern history was the brainchild of Erno Rubik, an architecture professor in Hungary. He used it as a teaching tool with no idea of what it would become.

1975: Digital Camera

Steve Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak, is credited with inventing the very first digital camera in 1975. A bit like Doctor Frankenstein, he reconfigured parts from other cameras. The resulting Cromemco Cyclops weighed an imposing 3.6 kg (8 lbs)!

1976: Word Processing

The first word processor wasn’t WordPerfect or WordStar, but rather Electric Pencil. After it entered the market in December 1976, its ease of use made it quite popular.

1977: Post-It Notes

Talk about a mistake that has really paid off! 3M employee Dr. Spencer Silver was attempting to create a very strong glue, but actually invented the exact opposite. Today, his reusable sticky notes are found in offices worldwide.

1978: Cabbage Patch Kids

Love them or hate them, but when Xavier Roberts’ Cabbage Patch Kids dolls first appeared in toy stores, they were literally met by mobs of shoppers. The dolls’ round faces were seen everywhere, from album covers and games to animated cartoons.

1979: Sony Walkman

This small item inspired a major revolution in the way we listen to music…and increased social isolation on buses and subways. Sony’s Walkman became the de facto name for all types of listening devices.

1980: Minitel

Unknown on this side of the Atlantic, Minitel anticipated the arrival of the internet for millions of French citizens in the 1980s and 1990s.

1981: Internet

In 1981, the newly coined “Internet,” once used only by the American Army, became available to a wider network of scientific and academic communities and as they say, the rest is history.

CD cases

Forget having to flip over your records and cassettes; CDs quickly outsold vinyls (starting in 1988). You can still buy them today, but many major chains have closed with the rise of digital sharing.

1983: Lotus Spreadsheet

Those who live for creating Excel spreadsheets owe a big thank-you to Lotus Software. Their Lotus 1-2-3 program paved the way for today’s tools while greatly contributing to IBM’s success.

1984: First Personal Computer

In 1984, Apple launched a marketing campaign that continues to resonate today. The first personal computer, the Macintosh, included a mouse and monitor and cost US$2,500, a veritable fortune at the time.

1985: Windows

No fewer than 10 official versions have followed the release of the first Windows operating system in 1985. It marked the moment when many users moved away from the keyboard and embraced the mouse, finding the interface more user-friendly. We’ve come a long way from MS-DOS.

Glaucoma

Used to treat people with skin diseases or severe burns, synthetic skin can be made with collagen fibres or even flexible semiconductors for prosthetic limbs and robots.

1987: Disposable Contact Lenses

Contact lenses have been around for decades, but they only became popular in the 1970s when first made with hydrogel. Then, in 1987, the first disposable versions literally flooded the market: no need to clean when you can just toss them out.

1989 : WWW

British researcher Tim Berners-Lee set the stage for the World Wide Web while working at CERN in 1989. His goal was to give researchers around the world instantaneous access to information. In fact, CERN created history’s first website.

1990 : Photoshop

What would all of our fantastic memes and photo montages be like without this marvellous invention brought to us by brothers Thomas and John Knoll. With help from Adobe, the pair launched version 1.0 in February 1990.

1991: Webcam

The very first webcam was used for a quite specific, down-to-earth purpose: helping University of Cambridge researchers working in the computer lab monitor a coffee maker located in another room. The camera installed next to the appliance provided one frame per second, keeping viewers updated on coffee levels. The experiment also produced a software program called XCoffee.

1992: Texts

The first text message, “Merry Christmas,” was sent by a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms, Neil Papworth, to Vodafone director Richard Jarvis. At the time, phones did not have keypads, so the message was sent from a PC.

1993: Web Browser

Before Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Chrome, there was Mosaic. Marc Andreessen is credited with inventing Mosaic one year before founding Netscape and launching a publicly available browser by the same name. Mosaic was the first to offer text AND images within the same window.

1994: PlayStation

Sony didn’t invent the PlayStation console, but the company’s success in attracting adults made their product a staple of mass entertainment. The console was more powerful than the family computer, and no fewer than 102 million units were sold over 15 years.

1995: USB Cable

Was it really that long ago? When Intel launched the USB cable way back in 1995, the device could transfer up to 12 Mbps.

1996: DVD

DVDs (Digital Video Disk) quickly replaced VHS tapes in millions of movie-lovers’ living rooms. Contrary to cassette technology, DVDs were nearly unanimously popular (who remembers Betamax?). No company can claim to have invented the DVD, but Toshiba is credited with producing the first player, the SD-3000.

1997 : Netflix

It’s no mistake. Netflix really did first appear in 1997, when you still had to connect to the web through a telephone line. Customers ordered DVDs from Netflix that were then delivered by mail. Today, the cinema giant produces content, earns billions of dollars, and has transformed the cinematographic and television industries. Netflix has also gifted us with binge-watching and sleepless nights!

1998 : Google

Google, now used as a verb, was coined by the co-founders of the internet search giant, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Interestingly, they wrote the code for it in their friend Susan Wojcicki’s garage.

1999 : Star Wars LEGOs

LEGO blocks had already been around for decades, but they experienced a remarkable comeback in 1999 after partnering with the lucrative Star Wars franchise. Today, some absolutely magnificent sets sell for over US$800.

2000 : Wikipedia

Okay, we’re cheating a little here. Wikipedia, an encyclopedia written by millions of its users, actually made its debut in January 2001 and has since become a source on which students and writers depend way too much. Today, you can find approximately 40 million articles in nearly 300 languages.