Wilbur and Orville Wright were American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight (1903) and built and flew the first fully practical airplane (1905).

Thomas Alva Edison was the quintessential American inventor. He invented the phonograph, the carbon-button transmitter for the telephone speaker and microphone, the incandescent lamp, a revolutionary generator of unprecedented efficiency, the first commercial electric light and power system, an experimental electric railroad, and key elements of motion-picture apparatus, as well as a host of other inventions.

Isaac Newton's life can be divided into three quite distinct periods. The first is his boyhood days up to his appointment to a chair. The second period  was the highly productive period in which he was Lucasian professor at Cambridge. The third period saw Newton as a highly paid government official in London with little further interest in mathematical research.

In November of 1999 Randice-Lisa "Randi" Altschul was issued a series of patents for the world's first disposable cell phone. Trademarked the Phone-Card-Phone®, the device is the thickness of three credit cards and made from recycled paper products.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was a Russian research scientist in aeronautics and astronautics who pioneered rocket and space research and the development and use of wind tunnels for aerodynamic studies. He was also among the first to work out the theoretical problems of rocket travel in space.