Metalurgy, Gunpowder, Penicillin, Radar and Nuclear Power. In no particular order, five inventions that have come about or have been sped along their way by the event of War. Has anything else important or influential been created in the heat of war?
Airplanes. They weren’t invented for war, but the army was the Wright Vrither’s first customer. Had it not been for warfare air travel would still be in its infancy today.
Make that the Wright Brothers.
The Maxi-pad.
The basic component of the stuff was developed for use in bandages during WWI.
Also, IIRC the idea of using a Hot Air Balloon was floated 
during the Civil War.
How about the Cold War? We might not be posting here now if it never happened, as the Internet was initially a military venture to prevent communication breakdown in the event of a nuclear war…
Rocketry was sped along by war as well, without which we wouldn’t have GPS or communication satellites, along with all the other interrelated technology.
And IIRC, a “computer” used be a job–people worked for hours computing ballistics trajectories for artillery. Many of the first computers were built for this type of task.
You might find that James Burke has some really interesting perspectives on how inventions are historically related to each other.
Thanks to the heroism of untold leigions of veterans, I am able to live in a free country that is rapidly leading the world into an era of unrivaled liberty and economic prosperity.
Thanks Baloo, Crunchy, Chief Scott and all the other SD armed services personnel.
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::salutes and wanders off mumbling something about Thanksgiving::[/sub]
For those of us who live in Western Europe ,the most obvious thing is that war saved democratic civilisation from destruction by the Third Reich and others.
I believe casdave served in the Royal Navy; no doubt there are some grateful sheep farmers somewhere in the South Atlantic.
The microwave oven principle, accidentally discovered by Raytheon engineers when they noticed the candy bars in their pockets melted when they stood in front of the radar tubes :eek:
The hot air balloon was invented some 70 years before the Civil War. What they used in the Civil War were hydrogen balloons.
But the hydrogen balloon was not invented just for the Civil War, any more than penicillin and radar were discovered/invented just for WWII.
I think we should separate things into those invented during and for a specific war (fission bomb, armored tank, possibly the submarine and napalm) and those that just had accelerated development because of a war (penicillin, radar, airplane, rocketry, computers, etc.).
Discovered in 1946, after the war.
This is a fairly common misconception, but it simply is not true. I started out to write a school paper on the subject, but kept running into too many facts that argued the other way.
During WWI, the need to produce better performing engines may have given a small boost to airplane development, but nearly every airplane manufacturer put development of civilian-use planes on hold until 1919. Similarly, the military did do tests on high-altitude flying in the 1920s, however, advancements such as pressurized cabins to allow genuine high-altitude flight were already in development for the civil aviation field in the late 1930’s, but were put aside for improved bomber production until they were given a second look for planes like the B-29.
In fact, when I set out to show the great advancements that WWII had brought forward for aircraft use and production, the only actual invention or development that had not been retarded by WWII was the jet engine. Every other feature associated with aircraft development had already been developed before the war or was put on hold during the war.
It was one of the great articles of faith among the Victorians that warfare spurred civilization. I suspect that there are darned few developments that are truly attributable to war. (One of the few is the packaging of food in ways to keep it (more or less) fresh for longer periods without refrigeration. Can you say C-Ration, K-Ration, or MRE?)
If you believe this M&M’s came from the war(s).
There may be many good inventions that have come out of wars. I for one blame WW2 for the development of one of the most horrid torture devices known to man. Nylon panty hose.
My belief may not be true, but leave me with my fantasy of I’m wrong.
Well shoot! I was going to say Spam, man! But I checked and it hit the market in 1937.
I do believe wartime experiences have contributed to the practice of trauma medecine.
I think sporks we’re a byproduct of the occupation (I didn’t check that).
Dried blood plasma was developed during WWII.
Scuba equipment was also developed for the war effort in WWII.
Interesting, Tom. Did your research indicate anything about WWI era planes in regards to control, stability, reliability, and airframe strength? Comparing designs from 1914 to 1918, I’m curious if you think designs would have progressed faster without the war. (I can’t say I know either way–too hypothetical for my knowledge on the subject.)
Most of the great technological breakthroughs of the last century have been government funded. War ends up being a big driving force, but the transistor came along post-war, the internet was a university-military collaboration, as was the GPS network.
The government is certainly more willing to fund research when it has a military application, of course. If you drop a few trillion on a dubious nuclear shield, there’ll probably be some trickle-down technology.
That would depend on what you define as a “great breakthrough”. I’d argue that while government funding is often instrumental in helping develop a technology into a useful form, much (if not most) of the time it is not responsible for the initial invention. Of course, any given modern technology builds off so many previous technologies that it’s pretty difficult to hypothesize with any accuracy what would have happened if X had not occurred.
Don’t forget that computers were around before transistors. While the first analog computers were not directly influenced by war, much of initial digital computer development (using vacuum tubes) coincided with the beginning of WWII, and these computers were used heavily for code-breaking efforts and computing artillery firing tables.
IIRC, much of our knowledge of the ocean floors came from top-secret maps created for the submarine fleet. And, of course, submersibles in general, while still primarily used by the military, have become important scientific instruments in oceanography and marine biology.
I have a cold right now, and so I am thankful for… tissues!!
After WWI (I think it was I…) factories were filled with this cotton stuff that was used as filling for gas-mask filter, and other uses… what to do with it? They decided to cut it up into squares and sell it to women as a make-up remover. It did OK, but women started writing in to the manufacturer and saying that their husbands were using all of their make-up remover sheets to blow their noses! It was soon marketed as disposable handkercheifs (sp?), and the rest is history!
I’m off to blow my nose again (314th time today), and oddly enough I’m out of tissue! Fortunately, I have paper towels…
Off-topic, slightly, but important!
To all the US military personnel (former or present) who might look at this:
Thank you!