20th century[edit]

Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first.[40]

Mass production brought automobiles and other high-tech goods to masses of consumers. Military research and
development sped advances including electronic computing and jet engines. Radio and telephony improved
greatly and spread to larger populations of users, though near-universal access would not be possible
until mobile phones became affordable to developing world residents in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Energy and engine technology improvements included nuclear power, developed after the Manhattan
project which heralded the new Atomic Age. Rocket development led to long range missiles and the first space
age that lasted from the 1950s with the launch of Sputnik to the mid-1980s.
Electrification spread rapidly in the 20th century. At the beginning of the century electric power was for the most
part only available to wealthy people in a few major cities such as New York, London, Paris, and Newcastle
upon Tyne, but by the time the World Wide Web was invented in 1990 an estimated 62 percent of homes
worldwide had electric power, including about a third of households in[41] the rural developing world.
Birth control also became widespread during the 20th century. Electron microscopes were very powerful by the
late 1970s and genetic theory and knowledge were expanding, leading to developments in genetic engineering.
The first "test tube baby" Louise Brown was born in 1978, which led to the first successful gestational
surrogacy pregnancy in 1985 and the first pregnancy by ICSI in 1991, which is the implanting of a single sperm
into an egg. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis was first performed in late 1989 and led to successful births in
July 1990. These procedures have become relatively common.
The massive data analysis resources necessary for running transatlantic research programs such as the Human
Genome Project and the Large Electron-Positron Collider led to a necessity for distributed communications,
causing Internet protocols to be more widely adopted by researchers and also creating a justification for Tim
Berners-Lee to create the World Wide Web.
Vaccination spread rapidly to the developing world from the 1980s onward due to many successful humanitarian
initiatives, greatly reducing childhood mortality in many poor countries with limited medical resources.
The US National Academy of Engineering, by expert vote, established the following ranking of the most
important technological developments of the 20th century:[42]

1. Electrification
2. Automobile
3. Airplane
4. Water supply and Distribution
5. Electronics
6. Radio and Television
7. Mechanized agriculture
8. Computers
9. Telephone
10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
11. Highways
12. Spacecraft
13. Internet
14. Imaging technology
15. Household appliances
16. Health technology
17. Petroleum and Petrochemical technologies
18. Laser and Fiber Optics
19. Nuclear technology
20. Materials science