Amazing things that come from Hungary

Hungary could be rightfully called the country of inventions and clever minds. We might be a small country, but the best of the nation contributed to the development of the world in a big part. We don’t even realise how many of the things we use every day were invented by Hungarians. It would be impossible to list all of these, but we attempted to give an overview 🙂

We have written several articles about great Hungarian inventions, but they are all different. This time, we were inspired by a post on 9gag, which collected some of the most important Hungarian inventions in a witty way. It’s basically a long infographic, which was a reaction to a comment saying that Hungary is a small country and nobody cares about it. But the creator of the post thinks that the world needs to be reminded about the importance of our country. Listed below are the bullet points that back up this statement:

If you had an accident and you need to get to the hospital right away, or if there was a destructive forest fire…then Oszkár Asbóth’s invention, the helicopter will come to your relief.
If you want to call your friends and family to inform them about the accident…then your call will go through the telephone exchange, which was invented by Tivadar Puskás.
When in the hospital, you won’t see dead new-borns thanks to Ignác Semmelweis, “the saviour of mothers”, who initiated regular sterilisation for doctors.
Regarding the topic of curing and health, vitamin C was discovered by Albert Szent-Györgyi.
To help you recover, the doctor will probably give you prescriptions written with a ball-pen, invented by László József Bíró.
When you have fully recovered, you can get home from the hospital in many ways: you could go with a car (Ford Model-T: József Galamb) or take a bus (articulated bus: Gábor Lassú, László Rózsa, Béla Színi), but none of these could operate without a carburetor, invented by Donát Bánki and János Csonka. Moreover, you could also choose to take the train (electric locomotive: Kálmán Kandó) or rush home with an airplane (high-altitude engine: Albert Fonó). However, the most environmentally-friendly option would be the bicycle. Remember to turn on your lights at night (dynamo: Ányos Jedlik).
Once you’re home, you’ll need to get back into the swing of things. You may want to turn to the computer for some help, which was first created by János Neumann. Programs like Word and Excel, created by Károly Simonyi, could also help you out.
Before going to sleep, don’t forget to turn the lights off (Wolfram-bulb: Sándor Just, Ferenc Hanaman, Imre Bródy), because it consumes energy (biogas reactor: Péter Kiss).

A nice story, right? It’s just as witty as this one. The story and the list could go on for ever if we wanted to add other inventions like the Rubik’s cube, binoculars, transformer, safety match, soda water etc. until the list would bust due to the hydrogen bomb ;).

If you’re visual type, you might like the following two videos, which illustrate the most significant Hungarian inventions in a similarly enjoyable way 🙂