In 1965, chemist Stephanie Kwolek was looking for a light fibre to reinforce tyres. She produced a cloudy, runny solution so unusual that a technician at first refused to spin it, fearing it would damage his machine. She insisted, and the resulting fibre proved, weight for weight, about five times stronger than steel. It is now found in bulletproof vests, cables and helmets.
In 1843, inventor Alexander Bain patented a way to send images over telegraph wires using synchronized pendulums. By the 1860s, a commercial fax service was already linking cities. The telephone wasn't patented until 1876, more than three decades after that first fax patent. The fax is really a child of the telegraph age.
On 8 October 1958, in Stockholm, 43-year-old Arne Larsson received the very first implanted pacemaker. The device, designed by engineer Rune Elmqvist and implanted by surgeon Åke Senning, worked for only a few hours and had to be replaced. Larsson went on to receive more than twenty pacemakers in his lifetime. He died in 2001 aged 86, outliving both the engineer and the surgeon.