In article ,
says...


On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:12:38 +0200, Greg Farris
wrote:



BONUS QUESTION:
What nationality can legitimately claim Radio broadcasting, the Internal
Combustion Engine, and the Telephone? (ITALY)

Radio broadcasting?

Surely you aren't crediting Marconi with Tesla's invention.

Who are you thinking invented the internal combustion engine?

1680 - Dutch physicist, Christian Huygens designed (but never built)
an internal combustion engine that was to be fueled with gunpowder.
1807 - Francois Isaac de Rivaz of Switzerland invented an internal
combustion engine that used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen for fuel.
1824 - English engineer, Samuel Brown adapted an old Newcomen steam
engine to burn gas
1858 - Belgian-born engineer, Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir invented and
patented (1860) a double-acting, electric spark-ignition internal
combustion engine fueled by coal gas.
1862 - Alphonse Beau de Rochas, a French civil engineer, patented but
did not build a four-stroke engine (French patent #52,593, January 16,
1862).
1864 - Austrian engineer, Siegfried Marcus, built a one-cylinder
engine with a crude carburetor, and attached his engine to a cart for
a rocky 500-foot drive.
1873 - George Brayton, an American engineer, developed an unsuccessful
two-stroke kerosene engine (it used two external pumping cylinders).
1876 - Nikolaus August Otto invented and later patented a successful
four-stroke engine, known as the "Otto cycle".
1876 - The first successful two-stroke engine was invented by Sir
Dougald Clerk.

Not an Italian among them.



It is indeed astonishing that most succinct historical accounts mention
Christiaan Huygens, who never made a working model, but fail to mention
Barsanti and Matteucci, to whom the credit may fittingly belong.



As for the Telephone, if we don't accept the conventional wisdom that
Bell (a Scott living in Boston) invented it, the honor probably goes
to Elisha Gray, a Quaker from Ohio that started Western Electric
Manufacturing. Prior to him it would have to be Philipp Reis, a
German - though his device couldn't transmit recognisable speech.

Meucci has been recognized by the US House of Representatives, in House
Resolution 269, dated 11 June 2002, as stated, "Expresses the sense of the
House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci
should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should
be acknowledged."


Bell was Canadian.