The semiconductor is what enables computer microchips, which turned computers from huge collections of vacuum tubes into smaller and smaller machines that now fit easily in our pockets. The secret lies in using the right semiconductor materials to build tiny electrical circuitry that sends signals in order to operate.

Sputnik was the beep heard 'round the world, but the technology itself rivaled the satellite's international security threat. Today, satellites form a mesh that blankets the world for communications, navigation, and more.

Nuclear fission discovered in the 1930s quickly led to the idea of the nuclear power plant, the first of which appeared in the United States in 1958, just a few years after similar plants in Russia and Europe. Plants grew larger and larger with subsequent generations, providing power for entire cities.

Today we use Google to find single words from the entire internet; however, that technology dates back to both compiled databases and the idea of full text search. Instead of human eyes scanning entire printed documents, computers consider documents as collections of characters that are scannable one at a time for keywords.

The first semblance of modern computer aided design, or CAD, was 1960's revolutionary Sketchpad software. Like a computer-boosted Etch-a-Sketch, the program let users see what they were drawing and carefully control an image for the first time.

The overall computer network we call the internet dates back decades to a government-built network. Like telephones, the internet is enabled by a physical web of cables that blanket the nation, and at first they connected sites like government labs and university computers.

The World Health Organization considers contraception access to be a human right, but the first reliable chemical contraceptive pill didn't become widely available until the 1960s. Today, there are dozens of varieties with different formulations.

Project Mercury put the first Americans in space. Over several years and half a dozen trips, astronauts mostly drafted from test pilot programs rode in tiny capsules positioned on the nose of single-use rocket boosters.

Before the invention of the reliable home pregnancy test, only a doctor could run the blood test that identifies pregnancy. Putting that power in the hands of families in their own homes reduced cost, increased access, and gave people a lot more decision-making power over their own bodies.

Unlike the bulky research and government computers found in labs around the world, the personal computer had to be small enough to fit into a home setting and be used by a civilian. From there, technology rapidly evolved, from huge floppy disks to CD-ROMS and beyond.

Sequencing the human genome is a complex mix of computing, microscopy, and of course the very DNA itself. With the ability to search and identify patterns, scientists have unlocked secrets, repetitions, and genetic "switches" that reveal health and even human nature.

Cryptography dates back thousands of years, but public key cryptography, where the scramble comes in the form of complex math rather than secrecy and hidden information, changed the game for computing over brand-new public networks. For now, the math has stayed ahead of the most powerful computers trying to hack it.

The ancestors of the phone you carry around today date back to the early 1970s. What was initially a glorified walky-talky transformed into the bulky portable phones spotted in '80s movies and then Zack Morris's hand on "Saved by the Bell." Better batteries and computer chips continue to both shrink and expand the "cell phone."

The U.S. Space Shuttle was a groundbreaking reusable spacecraft that operated for decades. It took off vertically as a rocket but landed horizontally like an airplane, creating a blueprint that other spacecrafts still follow.

What will the next invention be that changes America forever? The roots of the things changing our lives today date back years or even decades. But in 2019, Google made headlines when they claimed to have reached quantum supremacy. That's the hypothetical state where quantum computers reach the warp-speed promise that scientists have suggested since the notion of quantum computing began decades ago.