Inventions by Country #2

For each selected invention or discovery, name the country where it originated.
Guess the modern day country
Answer must correspond to highlighted box
Dates are approximate
Some answers used more than once
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: August 9, 2019
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First submittedMay 22, 2013
Times taken24,491
Average score66.7%
Rating4.19
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Invention
Year
Country
Light Bulb
(practical)
1878
United States
Explanation of
gravity
1686
United Kingdom
Ice Hockey
(modern)
1875
Canada
Photography
1826
France
Tea
1000 BC
China
Sauna
?
Finland
Atomic Bomb
1945
United States
Paper Money
1000s
China
Radio (practical)
1890s
Italy
Zumba
1990s
Colombia
Microchip
1958
United States
Penicillin
1928
United Kingdom
Compound Microscope
1590
Netherlands
CD Player
1982
Japan
Writing
3600 BC
Iraq
Discovery of
Radium
1898
France
Paper
100 BC
China
Papyrus
3000 BC
Egypt
World Wide Web
(nationality of inventor)
1989
United Kingdom
Ugg Boots
1920s
Australia or New Zealand
Tango
1890s
Argentina or Uruguay
Christmas Tree
1600s
Germany
Samba
1920s
Brazil
Periodic Table
1869
Russia
+2
Level 66
Jul 19, 2013
World Wide Web was created at CERN, which is located in Geneva, Switzerland.
+2
Level 82
Nov 9, 2013
This is true.
+2
Level ∞
Nov 9, 2013
I added a caveat for that question that we are looking for the nationality of the inventor. Thanks.
+2
Level 63
Jun 19, 2020
In reality Berners-Lee had his office in Building 31 at CERN, which is in the French side of CERN Meyrin site. So the WWW was developed in France, though ~50 m from the Swiss border.
+1
Level 67
Aug 23, 2023
Although you dont know if he made the invention in his office. Maybe he was having his epiphany while having a shit in building 01 after they served a Mexican Chili at Cern caferteria.
+1
Level 78
Mar 5, 2024
ha ha. Spat coffee on my keyboard :)
+4
Level 59
Jul 31, 2013
It would be a good idea to refer to hockey as ice hockey, as hockey usually means field hockey in many countries.
+1
Level ∞
Nov 9, 2013
Okay, changed it.
+5
Level 82
Nov 9, 2013
ugh boots...
+1
Level 77
Sep 3, 2019
No idea what they are but guessed it anyway
+1
Level 79
Mar 20, 2021
Funnily Ugh boots is what they were actually originally called! (I personally find them comfy and cute)
+1
Level 21
Nov 9, 2013
Mohenjo-Darans had saunas in the ancient Indus River Valley
+2
Level 44
Nov 11, 2013
in fact penicilin was invented first in Romania
+4
Level 83
Oct 21, 2015
Penicillin was never invented, it was discovered.
+6
Level 75
Jun 1, 2016
Penicillin - the greatest thing on sliced bread.
+2
Level 48
Oct 7, 2018
Flemming got all the glory, but the Australian Howard Florey rarely gets a mention.........

Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey, OM, FRS, FRCP was an Australian pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Sir Ernst Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for his role in the development of penicillin. Wikipedia

+1
Level 72
Nov 13, 2013
Fanboys or not, I believe Tesla should be credited with radio. Whether you clasify Tesla as American, Serbian or Croatian, that's a whole different story.
+4
Level 82
Nov 16, 2013
He was born in the Austrian Empire to Serbian parents in what is today Croatia. Though this was before the modern nation states of Croatia, Serbia, or Austria existed. He immigrated to the USA in 1884 when he was still in his 20s, did most of his most important work there, and became a naturalized American citizen while still a young man. After 1918 when Austria-Hungary ceased to exist, Tesla's American citizenship was the only citizenship left to him. He was proud of his naturalization and happy to be a citizen of the country. I would say he's American.
+4
Level 41
Jun 9, 2016
@kalbahamut

I completely agree with your first sentence.

But.... if he was "born to Serbian parents", how can you say he is American?

I think the most accurate description would be:

Serb born in Austrian Empire that lived most of his life in United States.

+3
Level 82
Jun 27, 2016
Because his parents' "ethnicity" is completely and totally irrelevant to whether or not he is an American. Barack Obama is American, not Kenyan. George Washington, when he died, was American, not British. It's possible that you could be two things at once... for example, Natalie Portman is both American and Israeli. But in the case of Tesla, if we're talking about nationality, not even that much is true. He was only American. When Tesla was born, Serbia did not exist. The country of his birth (Austria-Hungary), ceased to exist in his lifetime. His one and only nationality was American. If you choose to see Serb as an ethnicity, you could call Tesla an American and ethnic Serb. Calling him Serbian-American would be a stretch, and probably not a label he would use himself, but... okay. However, calling him Serbian (or Austrian) and denying he was American is, simply put, flat-out straight-up completely dead wrong.
+4
Level 82
Jun 27, 2016
and no doubt offensive to Tesla, who was a proud American.
+1
Level 82
Nov 17, 2013
Which also means that whether you believe Tesla or Edison should be credited with the invention of the light bulb, the answer is that it's still an American invention, even if you dislike the picture. As far as radio goes... ::shrug::
+1
Level 72
Apr 4, 2016
This quiz and its predecessor drive me nuts with all the unnecessary apostrophes: 1000's, 1890's, 1920's. As far as I can tell, none of these are intended to be possessive.
+3
Level ∞
Jun 1, 2016
Removed the extraneous apostrophe's ;)
+1
Level 67
Jun 1, 2016
This is another example of different usage across the Atlantic. British usage is "1960s." American usage is "1960's." Neither is wrong.
+5
Level 56
Jun 1, 2016
I've always been taught that "1960's" is wrong. You should never make a plural with an apostrophe, even in the US.
+1
Level 74
Jun 2, 2016
what if that plural contains a contraction too?
+2
Level 56
Jun 1, 2016
Imagine a world without gravity!
+4
Level 82
Jun 1, 2016
It's easy if you try...
+3
Level 78
Dec 30, 2019
No ground below us...
+3
Level 82
Jan 1, 2020
Floating up to the sky...
+1
Level 58
Jun 1, 2016
Several of these are not inventions, but discoveries.
+2
Level 78
Jun 1, 2016
I thought Papyrus was from Snowdin...
+3
Level 55
Jun 1, 2016
Gravity is certainly not an invention and I'm not really sure you can call it a discovery. Newton made an observation after watching an apple fall, formed a hypothesis and tested it until it was proved conclusively.
+1
Level 83
Feb 27, 2023
The apple story is a myth, almost certainly invented by Voltaire.
+3
Level 60
Jun 1, 2016
Tango... I couldn't understand why a fizzy drink was around in 1890. Face palm.
+4
Level 60
Jun 1, 2016
I remember visiting Newton's gravity workshop in the UK. I saw the very table where he spent hours sawing and hammering away on the gravity to get it to work right.
+2
Level 21
Jun 1, 2016
Did people just float away up until 1686. If so how would someone even invent gravity without floating into space. :)
+2
Level 49
Jun 1, 2016
We're lucky he did, or people would still be doing so. Floating into space, that is.
+3
Level 75
May 18, 2017
They did a lot of that in the 1960s, too.
+3
Level 60
Jun 2, 2016
Like they hadn't invented ropes yet. They weren't stupid.
+5
Level 82
Jun 3, 2016
Maybe this is why early man lived in caves and trees... something to hold on to.
+1
Level 79
Mar 20, 2021
Just because gravity had not been discovered yet does not mean it did not exist thereprior.
+2
Level 33
Jun 1, 2016
How do you invent gravity?
+1
Level 79
Mar 20, 2021
It was discovered.
+1
Level 74
Jun 2, 2016
No-one claiming Fox-Talbot (UK) for photography then? OK, I will...
+3
Level 48
Oct 7, 2018
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, better known as Louis Daguerre, was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography. Wikipedia
+6
Level 37
Jun 2, 2016
If the World Wide Web is UK, then surely radium is Poland? After all, Marie curie was Polish. Also, the title of the quiz is misleading. Lots of these were not 'invented' more 'discovered'. Apart from that, cool quiz ;)
+4
Level 83
Dec 27, 2019
Agree - Poland should be accepted for radium.
+2
Level 41
Jun 9, 2016
I believe world was really fun before 1686 when there was no gravity....
+2
Level 67
Nov 14, 2017
The Lightbulb was neither invented in 1878 nor in America. The first lightbulb presented to the public (we know of) was created by the scottish James Bowman Lindsay in 1835, the first patents were registered in 1841 and 1845. Edison just improved it and was very good with marketing and advertising.
+2
Level ∞
Nov 14, 2017
He improved it so much that lightbulbs went from being completely impractical to completely ubiquitous. I'd say he gets the credit. Of course, nothing is ever the invention of one person. As Isaac Newton said "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants."
+1
Level 62
Aug 2, 2023
I don't know if that's really a fair argument. For one thing, Improving on something that has already been invented isn't inventing. Many of the inventions listed have been improved upon, but the initial inventor is still attributed.

For another, Edison didn't solely improve the lightbulb. Marcellin Jobard, C. de Changy, John Wellington Starr, and Joseph Swan all created designs that improved on the initial design. Then Canadians Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans improved the lightbulb even further, designing the nitrogen filled lightbulb that allowed it to last longer and therefore become commonplace. They then sold the patent to Edison.

+1
Level 34
Mar 29, 2019
Hey, just saying, you should witch the name from "Inventions by country" to "Country by inventions".
+3
Level 32
Jul 25, 2019
Maria Skłodowska Curie was Polish so it's Polish invention not French.
+5
Level ∞
Aug 9, 2019
It was Marie AND Pierre Curie who made the discovery, and it happened in France. We explicitly ask for the country in which the discovery or invention took place. Had Marie Curie stayed in Poland she most likely would not have discovered anything.
+4
Level 82
Oct 28, 2019
I discovered a great place to get pierogi when I was in Poland.
+1
Level 71
Aug 30, 2019
Keep thinking the drink Tango (from the UK) and not the dance
+1
Level 72
Feb 4, 2021
In the US we have the drink Tang, but it doesn't fizz.
+3
Level 89
Oct 15, 2019
It could be argued that the CD player was invented by Philips, as much as by Sony. I would therefore suggest allowing the Netherlands as a correct answer.

Me being Dutch has nothing to do with that of course :)

+2
Level 53
Dec 27, 2019
Radium was discovered by Maria Skłodowska-Curie from Poland.
+3
Level 81
Dec 27, 2019
That's correct, and she discovered it while in France.
+1
Level 81
Dec 27, 2019
Al Gore is from the UK?
+1
Level 79
Mar 20, 2021
Al Gore did not in fact invent the World Wide Web.
+1
Level 80
Dec 27, 2019
I'm most proud I remembered Von Leeuwenhoek and his "wee beasties" (currently the least-guessed answer).
+1
Level 71
Dec 17, 2022
Van Leeuwenhoek. He was Dutch, not German ;)
+1
Level 74
Dec 27, 2019
So I'm banging away at Mesopotamia for writing and getting nowhere fast until I tune in and see "modern country". Arggh!
+1
Level 66
Dec 27, 2019
Some of these things don't deserve a mention as inventions, they are just variations of things which already exist.

Ugg Boots = just a type of boot

Samba and the Tango = just a kind of dance.

Ice hockey- it's just hockey, on ice.

Surely there are many more notable and interesting inventions which can replace these things in the quiz.

+1
Level 57
Dec 27, 2019
Sad days for Germany :(
+1
Level 34
Feb 25, 2020
lol kept trying to answer lebanon/syria for the lydians for the money question
+1
Level 50
Oct 19, 2022
I really spent most of the quiz wondering why UK wasn't working for Tango and then realised when I saw the answer they meant the dance :')