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7.1 9. UK History - Some Great British Inventions of The 20th Century
7.1 9. UK History - Some Great British Inventions of The 20th Century
Britain has given the world some wonderful inventions. Examples from the
20th century include:
The structure of the DNA molecule was discovered in 1953 through work
at British universities in London and Cambridge. The discovery contributed to
many scientific advances, particularly in medicine and fighting crime. Francis
Crick (1916-2004), one of those awarded the Nobel Prize for this
discovery, was British.
The jet engine was developed in Britain in the 1930s by Sir Frank Whittle
(1907-96), a British Royal Air Force engineer officer.
1
Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-99), a British inventor, invented the
hovercraft in the 1950s.
The Harrier jump jet, an aircraft capable of taking off vertically, was also
designed and developed in the UK.
In 1996, two British scientists, Sir Ian Wilmot (1944- ) and Keith
Campbell (1954 – 2012), led a team which was the first to succeed in
cloning a mammal, Dolly the sheep. This has led to further research into the
possible use of cloning to preserve endangered species and for medical
purposes.
2
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee (1955- ), is
British. Information was successfully transferred via the web on 25 December
1990.