Famous Australian Ideas and Innovations

You're going to be very surprised at some of the great inventions Australians have been responsible for...

Heck, Aussie are even responsible for turning dishwater and beer into electricity, AND running cars on nothing but water!

This page presents a variety of those for your perusal - please REFRESH to see a different selection of ten Aussie innovations.

To find out more, can I suggest you visit
The Power House Museum and Questacon

• It wasn't the first Australian rotary clothesline with a winding mechanism which allowed the frame to be raised and lowered, but the Hills Clothes Hoist (developed by Lance Hill in Adelaide in 1945) was certainly the most successful.
  
  
• The Pop Top Can idea of press-buttons on cans (where the button is hinged to the can) so it does not cause a litter problem, was developed by Sir Ian McLennan of BHP in 1973
  
  
• The CSIRO developed a snake antivenom in 1968 which acted against the poison from most Australian snakes.
  
  
• Penicillin was trialled successfully on humans by Howard Florey, and went into production in 1941 to help victims of World War II.
  
  
• The original heart pacemaker was invented by a doctor in 1926 from the Sydney Crown Street Women's Hospital.
  
  
• In 1906, the story about the Kelly Gang was the world's first feature length film.
  
  
• Developed by Dr Saul Weiner, Redback Spider Antivenom was released in 1956.
  
  
• The orbital internal combustion engine was developed in 1972 by engineer Ralph Sarich of Perth, Western Australia.
  
  
• Modems the size of a shoebox led the NetComm company to develop in 1985 the Smart Modem - a string of Australian-designed, faster and smaller modems with better features.
  
  
• The Victa Mower, a revolutionary two-stroke petrol lawnmower with rotary blades was much easier to use than its older push/pull cousins. It was invented in 1952 by Mervyn Victor Richardson, a salesman from Sydney.
  
  

Hit REFRESH to reload the page to see another random selection of more Aussie ideas :)

Written by coais

About Stephen Spry

Stephen Spry is a freelance web designer and Internet publisher. He has been working online, full-time, since 1995 after an 18-year career as a high school Careers Adviser. Stephen operates several websites and web directories in a variety of niches. His main web design business can be found here » Come On Aussie.