What was the greatest invention in history? 9 experts share their opinions
Our team of historians, broadcasters and authors name the discoveries that have transformed our world over the centuries
Writing
Spreading the word – and nationalism
Were it not for the invention of writing, I would be offering this answer via megaphone. Writing is nowhere near as old as humanity’s 300,000-year history, but it is old: the first writing system emerged in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC. Separate systems developed in Micronesia in the 1800s BC, Shang Dynasty China around 1300 BC, and
in Mesoamerica after 900 BC.
Although writing did not supplant oral tradition, it did dramatically extend the reach of communications, and allow groups to write down and diffuse their histories, ideas, lore and laws. The invention and refinement of writing changed the relationship between memory and record, as well as people’s sense of the reachable world.
Complex societies existed before and apart from the development of writing, but writing made societies easier to administer over distance. For better or worse, it allowed the development of bureaucracy.
The esteemed political scientist Benedict Anderson saw it as fundamental to how communities understood themselves in place and time. He argued that the emergence of print media in the modern era – writing circulated fast and far – produced a simultaneity of experience that allowed people to see themselves as part of a cohesive community even when they could not encounter everyone in it. In other words, as set out in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983), it allowed for the emergence of nationalism. That has had global consequences.
Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University
Roman concrete
Mixing things up to build bigger and better
The Pantheon in Rome should not exist. Or, at least, not in the form we see today. Its perfect concrete dome, spanning 43 metres and pierced by a great oculus ‘eye’, still stands almost two millennia after it was poured, and remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. Step inside and you confront not only Roman architectural brilliance, but the single most transformative invention in Roman history: Roman concrete.
Concrete itself was not a Roman discovery. Nabataean builders were using early forms of it as far back as 6500 BC. But around 300 BC, Roman engineers revolutionised the material by mixing volcanic ash (pozzolana) with lime and water, often transported from the Bay of Naples. This created a hydraulic concrete that could set underwater and, remarkably, grow stronger over time. The Pantheon’s immense, unsupported dome is the most dramatic advertisement of this achievement. It’s a structure that has resisted earthquakes, fires, invasions and centuries of continuous use, all thanks to the material’s durability. The material is even able to ‘self-heal’ when exposed to water.
Once armed with concrete, Roman builders were no longer bound by the limitations of cut stone. They created vast basilicas, monumental bath complexes, sweeping amphitheatres such as the Colosseum, and harbours. Concrete turned Rome into a vertical metropolis of multi-storey insulae (apartment buildings), housing tens of thousands of residents. It also enabled the construction of aqueducts, bridges and warehouses to create infrastructure that stitched the empire together. Roman concrete was the foundation of an architectural revolution, one that shaped the physical world of the Romans and continues to astonish and inspire us today.
Jess Venner, ancient historian, presenter and author
Antibiotics
Antibacterial life-savers that transformed medicine
Of all the incredible inventions that have benefited humanity over the centuries, none has been more important, or saved more lives, than the creation of antibiotic medicines. Before antibiotics you could die from even the smallest of infections: a paper cut could kill you. Women routinely died in childbirth, often from infection.
Their children fared no better. In 1900, one in five children in the UK died before they were five years old. Many diseases had no cure. The biggest killer in the late 19th century was tuberculosis. It infected up to 90 per cent of the urban population in Europe and North America, and the only treatment for it was fresh air.
All of this changed with the invention of antibiotics. After sulphur-based antibiotics were first introduced in the US in the 1930s, deaths during childbirth dropped by a third, and deaths from scarlet fever by two thirds. The mass production of penicillin in the 1940s had even more impressive results. For the first time, silent killers such as tuberculosis could be completely cured – along with a whole list of other diseases too long to mention.
According to one study, antibiotics have added an average of 20 years to our life expectancies across the globe. But one can have too much of a good thing. Because antibiotics were so effective, they were over-prescribed right from the start. Some bacteria are now developing resistance to our drugs. Unless we are careful, we risk a return to the days when a simple cough or a paper cut could be the prelude to something much, much worse.
Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017)
The steam engine
Hot stuff! History’s most pumped-up changemaker
The invention of steam power was in many ways iterative, but the production of a steam engine by Baptist preacher and ironmonger Thomas Newcomen in 1712 was a transformative moment.
Born in Devon, Newcomen was acutely aware of the problems of flooding in tin mines in the south west, and the first steam engine was designed to pump water out of the mines. In 1765, his design was refined by James Watt, who added a separate vessel for condensation. This meant an engine’s main cylinder could remain hot while steam condensed in a separate, cold chamber. As a result, machines could be both scaled down and made more powerful. Over the next 150 years, refinements were made and the principles of thermodynamics came to be further understood, paving the way for modern engineering and cosmology.
The steam engine, of course, powered the industrial revolution. Factories, trains and ships were all driven by steam power, and it ushered in political, social and cultural transformations. In many ways, steam facilitated Britain’s global dominance.
Patterns of labour were turned on their head, and many courageously protested as they found wages lowered, inequalities exacerbated and capital concentrated in the hands of those who owned the technology.
Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford
The World Wide Web
The brainchild of Britain’s greatest surfer dude
The most important invention of my own lifetime has been the World Wide Web. At university in the early 1990s, it was essentially the preserve of computing enthusiasts and science students. By the end of the decade, even the most dry-as-dust history professors had been persuaded of the benefits of Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s big idea.
It’s easy to see why. As more of the world’s archives have been put online, research has been transformed out of all recognition. The most obscure book or article can be located in seconds. Voluminous texts that would have taken months to wade through can be searched in an instant. Information and ideas can be shared in real time between scholars working on opposite sides of the globe.
Alas, in the past decade or so, we have seen the downsides. A tool designed for the sharing of information can also be used to spread misinformation. Algorithms are tweaked so that the truth is suppressed and propaganda is promoted. Malevolent actors can rig elections, distort polls and even topple governments. The internet has led to measurable increases in division, racism and fascism.
Will the good outweigh the bad? Right now, as was famously, but mistakenly, said of the French Revolution, it is too soon to tell. Either way, when historians of the future are asked to name transformative inventions, the World Wide Web will be towards the top of their lists.
Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster
The printing press
How movable type moved the world’s discourse
The invention of the printing press by a German goldsmith, Johannes Gutenberg, around 1440, changed the world forever. Modelled on the humble screw press, an innovation from the Roman era initially used to crush grapes and olives, the new, movable printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per day, compared to 40 by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying.
This sparked a printing revolution that spread from Gutenberg’s workshop in Mainz to more than 200 cities across Europe. By 1500, more than 20 million books had been produced by the new printing presses, and during the 16th century their output rose to an estimated 150–200 million copies.
The invention of the printing press coincided with a sharp rise in learning and literacy among the middle classes, which in turn led to an increased demand for books. Traditional medieval scribes simply couldn’t have kept up.
Arguably the greatest impact of the printing press was the democratisation of knowledge. People across society now had ready access to ideas and information. Debate and dissent followed. From 1518–20, 300,000 copies of Martin Luther’s tracts were distributed, sparking the Reformation. The English Civil War, American and French revolutions, industrial revolution and the spread of the scientific method had their roots in the dissemination of ideas and information that printing facilitated.
Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster
The Socratic method
The philosophical creation of a questioning mind
A mode of philosophical enquiry may not sound too exciting, but the Socratic method was a new way of seeking knowledge. As pioneered by the man who gave the approach its name, the fifth-century BC Athenian philosopher Socrates, it involved one person outlining a belief or assumption, and then another person asking questions about the belief in order to ascertain its truth or nature as fact.
By asking questions, the elements of the original belief or assumption could be challenged, updated, refined and reissued – leading to a better, more factual and more truthful understanding of an issue.
It sounds pretty straightforward, but the Socratic method was a game-changing approach to enquiry. It defined philosophical approaches to the nature of knowledge and truth for centuries – and still does today.
Not that his method did Socrates himself much good. His habit of always asking questions annoyed the great and the good of Athens – often because those questions showed them up as not knowing much about what they claimed to know about. He was put on trial for moral corruption and impiety.
According to Plato, part of Socrates’s defence was that he was the mýops or ‘gadfly’ of Athens. Yes, he was irritating and easy to swat, but his constant questioning helped guard Athens against complacency. Socrates, history records, was sentenced to death.
Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick
The railway
The future comes down the tracks
Historians of the 19th century are spoiled for choice when it comes to world-changing inventions. Technologies such as the telegraph, phonograph, camera, light bulb, bicycle and internal combustion engine all transformed everyday life. Yet one development stands above the rest: the railway.
The world’s first standard gauge, steam-hauled public railway, between Stockton and Darlington, opened to passengers in 1825. Over the following decades, Britain was gripped by ‘railway mania’, as enormous sums of money were invested in rapidly laying thousands of miles of track. Other countries quickly followed suit.
The arrival of the railway had a huge economic impact. It propelled the industrial revolution by allowing goods, raw materials and people to be transported both more quickly and more cheaply. It also accelerated the spread of news and information, carrying letters and newspapers across the country at unprecedented speeds. Its impact even extended to timekeeping, leading to the adoption of standardised national ‘railway time’, replacing local sundials.
The effects were not limited to industry and commerce. Railways enabled people to travel further for leisure, fuelling the growth of seaside resorts such as Brighton, Blackpool and Scarborough, whose beaches filled with legions of day trippers. At the same time, the rise of railway commuting reshaped patterns of living and created new markets for publishers. Some enterprising magazines even targeted regular travellers by offering free life insurance schemes, paying out to families of readers killed in railway accidents, provided they were carrying that week’s paper when they died.
In short, the railways didn’t just change the way we travelled, they transformed how we lived.
Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University
The mouldboard plough
A farming tool pulled by animals
There can only be one choice and it’s the sexiest invention imaginable: the mouldboard plough. You’re probably getting hot under the collar already, but try to control yourself. Simple scratch ploughs were fine for the light, gravelly soils of the Middle East and around the Mediterranean. But it was the mouldboard plough, first developed in China more than 2,000 years ago, that would revolutionise farming.
There are strong arguments for connecting the mouldboard plough to the population growth and urbanisation in northern Europe, especially between 900 and 1300 AD. The advantage of the mouldboard plough was that it could cut long strips of soil and turn them over as it moved along the field. In the wet, heavy soils of northern Europe, this was hugely beneficial. The new ploughs improved drainage and buried weeds deep. This led to increased productivity and economic growth.
The mouldboard plough was also heavy, and needed a large team of animals – oxen, horses – to pull it. This eventually led to more community-based farming. This in time would lead to the manorial system, which might be summarised as one bigwig at the top, many smallwigs below.
Today, it’s still possible to see evidence of the mouldboard plough’s impact in fields that are no longer used for crops: the ghostly outline of lines and dips known as ‘ridge and furrow’. Being married to a fellow early medieval historian, our road trips are an absolute riot. We squeal, “RIDGEANDFURROW!” whenever we clock that distinctive corrugated pattern, while our children groan in the back of the car.
Eleanor Barraclough, historian, broadcaster and author of Embers of the Hands (Profile, 2024)
This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine