A secret Pentagon project, the Internet served as a communication network that would remain intact, even if several of its strands were broken. While your parents were celebrating Woodstock, two computers in southern California exchanged information.
http://www.internet.com

Best invention before the Internet :)
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/lightbulb.htm

"You can have any color as long as it is black," boasted Ford at the turn of the Century. Automobiles have come a long way. They permitted rapid transportation of people and goods. The next challenge lies in developing environment-friendly automobiles.
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/Car_History.htm

Bicycle manufacturers, the Wright brothers, accomplished the first motorized flight in 1903 while British engineer Frank Whittle filed the first patent for a jet engine in 1930. Parallel tests in Germany made that country the first to fly a jet-powered plane, the Heinkel He 178, in 1939.
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blairplane.htm

John Logie Baird filed his first patent in 1923, for a device that yielded an eight-line image. Years later this was followed by the sale of the first television set, a device that he baptized a "televisor." In 1932, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) launched the world's first regular TV broadcasts. Today, the jury is still out on whether it serves an educational benefit or is a cultural curse.
http://www.tvhistory.tv/