"You left off, Gutenberg and..."

Yep, I left off an awful lot of potential candidates, 350 words and all that. I guess each of us would have his own list and each would have valid cases.

And not just people but also events can be inflexion points. I've always thought of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to have been one of the most important events in history and the marker for the rise of European dominance of the planet.

I agree Gates didn't invent the PC. But MSDOS turned a machine that only interested enthusiasts into a household product. Equally Jobs took the technology behind cell phones and put it in the hands of billions.

By the same token, Stephenson didn't invent steam engine but he did put it into a locomotive and that changed the world.

I was looking more at people and events that changed the world. The invention of the PC didn't change the world. Putting MSDOS in a PC did.

" The Americans claim the Wright brothers as the inventors of the aeroplane, many would not agree."

Yeah, the evidence is pretty good that some Italians got there first. The difference is that the Wrights turned their flight into an industry, the Italians not so much.

The difference is that the Wrights turned their flight into an industry, the Italians not so much.
mhaze,
Yes, the English speaking World has always & still is relying on excessive hype to get a feel of relevance !