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Inventors and engineers

Alberto Santos-Dumont

Brazilian aviation pioneer

Alessandro Volta

Italian chemist and physicist (1745–1827)

Alexander Graham Bell

19/20th-century scientist and inventor best known for his work on the telephone

Soviet firearm designer

Swedish chemist, innovator, and armaments manufacturer (1833–1896)

American aviation engineer and industrialist (1889–1969)

André Citroën

French industrialist and Citroën car brand founder

Soviet aerospace engineer (1888–1972)

Anousheh Ansari

Iranian-American engineer and entrepreneur

German automobile engineer, founder of Audi

American inventor

Chinese inventor of moveable type (972–1051)

American engineer

American science communicator (born 1955)

Chinese Han dynasty official, credited with inventing modern paper

American publisher, activist, and inventor of the bra

Automotive and engine designer and manufacturer

Carl Wilhelm Siemens

German-British engineer and businessman (1823–1883)

Charles Algernon Parsons

Inventor of the steam turbine

Charles F. Kettering

American inventor, engineer and businessman

Charles Wheatstone

British scientist and inventor

American World War II flying ace and test pilot

French inventor and engineer

Constance Tipper

British metallurgist and crystallographer

Cornelis Drebbel

Dutch engineer and inventor

Cyrus McCormick

American inventor and businessman

Daniel B. Wesson

American gunsmith

Indigenous Australian inventor and writer

French physicist, mathematician and inventor (*1647 – †1713)

American engineer and inventor (1903-1990)

Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville

18/19th-century American inventor of the cotton gin and the idea of interchangeable parts

American inventor

19th-century American industrialist and inventor of the Otis Elevator

German-born American inventor of the phonograph

Eric Brown (pilot)

Royal Navy test pilot, author (1920–2016)

Étienne Oehmichen

French engineer and helicopter designer (1884-1955)

Étienne-Jules Marey

French scientist and chronophotographer

American firearms designer (1922–1997)

Russian and Soviet weapons designer (1871-1968)

German mechanical engineer (1902–1988)

Ferdinand Porsche

Austrian-German automotive engineer, inventor and Nazi who founded the Porsche car company

Ferdinand von Zeppelin

German general and airship pioneer

American inventor and engineer

French personal watercraft pilot (born 1978)

French parachuting pioneer (1878–1912)

Frederick Scott Archer

English inventor of the photographic collodion process

Frederick Terman

Father of Silicon Valley and Stanford's Dean of Engineering

Frederick Winslow Taylor

American mechanical engineer

German engineer and senior Nazi figure

American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor

British aeronautical engineer (1773–1857)

American entrepreneur, inventor, and photographer

American statistician

Engineer and businessman from the United States (1831-1897)

George Safford Parker

American businessman (1863-1937)

George Stephenson

English mechanical and civil engineer, described as the "Father of Railways" (1781–1848)

George Washington (inventor)

Belgian-born American inventor and businessman

George Washington Goethals

United States Army general (1858–1928)

American aviator and industrialist (1878–1930)

Glenn L. Martin

Aviation pioneer (1886-1955)

Godfrey Hounsfield

English electrical engineer (1919–2004)

Gottlieb Daimler

German businessman

Guglielmo Marconi

Italian electrical engineer, inventor, and politician (1874–1937)

French civil engineer and architect

German aviator and test pilot

Austrian biologist, film-maker, and underwater diving pioneer

Austrian-American actress and inventor (1914–2000)

Heinrich Vollmer

German firearm designer

Hendrik Wade Bode

American scientist and engineer (1905–1982)

English inventor

Henry Fox Talbot

English photography pioneer (1800–1877)

English engineer and car designer (1863–1933)

Henry Sutton (inventor)

Australian inventor (1855–1912)

Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and rocketry pioneer (1894–1989)

American-British inventor (1840–1916)

Japanese physicist, engineer and inventor

Horace Smith (inventor)

American gunsmith, inventor, and businessman

Hubert Cecil Booth

British engineer

Hugo Schmeisser

German firearm designer

Ignacy Łukasiewicz

Polish pharmacist, engineer, businessman, inventor and philantropist

Russian-American aviation pioneer

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

British mechanical and civil engineer (1806–1859)

Japanese engineer

American electrical engineer (1923–2005)

American rocket engineer

Russian-born American tailor

James Hargreaves

English inventor of the Spinning Jenny

British inventor, mechanical engineer and chemist (1736-1819)

Jean-Pierre Blanchard

Late 18th-century French inventor

Jethro Tull (agriculturist)

English agricultural pioneer, who assisted the Agricultural Revolution

Johannes Gutenberg

German inventor and craftsman (c. 1393–1406 – 1468)

American physicist (1908–1991)

American firearms designer

John Deere (inventor)

American blacksmith and manufacturer

American automobile engineer and executive

English clockmaker and horologist

19th-century English polymath, mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and photographer

American inventor

John Joseph Montgomery

American inventor, engineer and professor

John Logie Baird

Scottish inventor, known for first demonstrating television (1888–1946)

John Philip Holland

British engineer

John T. Thompson

United States Army officer (1860-1940)

John Wilkinson (industrialist)

English industrialist

Joseph Bazalgette

19th-century English civil engineer

Player of the Hawaiian steel guitar

Josephine Cochrane

American inventor (1839–1913)

German inventor

Kenjiro Takayanagi

Japanese pioneer in the development of television

Kia Silverbrook

Australian inventor, scientist, and serial entrepreneur

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Russian and Soviet rocket scientist

LaMarcus Adna Thompson

American businessman (1848–1919)

László Bíró

Hungarian-Argentine inventor (1899–1985)

Lawrence Hargrave

Australian engineer

American inventor

19/20th-century Belgian chemist famous for inventing Bakelite

American military officer (1896–1970)

French photographer, inventor of Daguerrotype (1787–1851)

Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard

French photographer

Louis Le Prince

French inventor and Father of Cinematography (1841–1897)

German physicist (1875-1953)

Malcolm Lockheed

American engineer

Margaret E. Knight

American inventor (1838–1914)

French inventor and pioneer in underwater breathing apparatus

Mikhail Kalashnikov

Soviet and Russian small arms designer

Montgolfier brothers

French inventor siblings

Nicéphore Niépce

French inventor and photographer (1765–1833)

German inventor

Serbian American inventor

Nikolay Makarov (firearms designer)

Soviet firearms designer

Nikolay Zhukovsky (scientist)

Russian scientist (1847–1921)

French-American aviation pioneer

Oliver Heaviside

English electrical engineer, mathematician and physicist (1850–1925)

Oliver Winchester

American businessman and politician (1810-1880)

Otto Lilienthal

German aviation pioneer

Ottomar Anschütz

German inventor and photographer

French engineer

Paul Moody (inventor)

American inventor (1779-1831)

Pavel Schilling

Russian inventor (1786-1837)

British aviator

Philo Farnsworth

American inventor

French blacksmith

Reginald Fessenden

Canadian-American electrical engineer and inventor (1866–1932)

Richard Arkwright

Textile entrepreneur; developer of the spinning frame (known as the water frame)

Robert Esnault-Pelterie

Pioneering French aircraft designer and spaceflight theorist

American engineer and inventor (1765–1815)

Robert H. Goddard

20th-century American physicist and aerospace engineer

Roger Béteille

French aeronautical engineer

British automotive engineer

Devisor of the Postal system, inventor and teacher (1795–1879)

German inventor and mechanical engineer (1858-1913)

Japanese inventor and industrialist

American inventor and painter (1791–1872)

Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer (1907–1966)

Inventor of the blue LED, 2014 Nobel laureate in physics

Shunpei Yamazaki

Japanese inventor

Stephanie Kwolek

American chemist; invented Kevlar

American electrical engineer and programmer (born 1950)

Sylvester H. Roper

American inventor and builder of vehicles

Tanaka Hisashige

Japanese rangaku scholar, engineer and inventor

Theodore von Kármán

Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer and physicist

American inventor and businessman (1847–1931)

Thomas Harris MacDonald

American civil engineer

Thomas Newcomen

English inventor, Baptist preacher and ironmonger

Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason

Italian explorer and engineer

Valerian Abakovsky

Russian inventor (1895-1921)

American electrical engineer and science administrator

Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov

Russian and Soviet weapons designer (1874-1966)

Vladimir Komarov

Soviet cosmonaut, aeronautical engineer and test pilot (1927–1967)

Vladimir Shukhov

Russian engineer-polymath, scientist and architect (1853-1939)

Wallace Carothers

Early 20th-century American chemist and inventor

Wang Zhen (inventor)

Officer and inventor

Werner von Siemens

German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist (1816-1892)

Wernher von Braun

German-American aerospace engineer (1912–1977)

Wilhelm Maybach

German businessman

William Kennedy Dickson

British-American inventor (1860–1935)

William Mulholland

Engineer and builder of the Los Angeles Aqueduct

William Rankine

Scottish mechanical engineer

William Shockley

American physicist and inventor

American inventor (1876–1950)

Willy Messerschmitt

German aircraft designer and manufacturer (1898-1978)

Wright brothers

American aviation pioneers, inventors of the airplane

Yevgeny Dragunov

Soviet inventor

French naval officer and inventor of a free-flow scuba system