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Louis Braille (1809-1852) -

Blinded by an early age, Louis Braille was actually a teacher, who invented a reading and writing system for the visually impaired. His system remains virtually unchanged to this day, and is known worldwide simply as braille.

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Thomas Edison (1847-1931) -

From selling candy, vegetables, and newspapers, Edison was a self-made man who used his earnings on a chemistry set.

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Thomas Edison (1847-1931) -

He went on to develop many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures.

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Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) -

Considered one of the greatest American presidents in history, Lincoln was also an inventor. He developed a device for lifting boats over shoals and other obstacles in rivers, which earned him a patent.

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Socrates (470-399 BCE) -

Credited as the founder of Western philosophy, the Greek philosopher was also a sculptor. Some even say he made a famous sculpture of three goddesses, called The Three Graces, which stood at the entrance to the Acropolis.

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Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) -

Gutenberg was a goldsmith who changed the world forever after he invented the printing press. The groundbreaking machine allowed for the mass printing of books, which made them cheaper and more accessible for the masses.

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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) -

One of the greatest minds of the Renaissance, da Vinci worked for almost 17 years in the service of Duke Ludovico Sforza in Milan. He worked there as a military engineer, creating many machines and devices.

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Isaac Newton (1643-1727) -

Widely recognized as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of all time, Isaac Newton was once forced by his mother to become a farmer. Luckily, he left that world and went on to develop the field of science.

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Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) -

Not only was Benjamin Franklin a prolific inventor, but he also had several day jobs. Apart from being one of the Founding Fathers of the US, he also served as the Postmaster of Philadelphia.

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Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) -

Additionally, he was the Ambassador to France and the President of Pennsylvania. Plus, he invented bifocal glasses and the Franklin Stove, to name a few inventions.

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Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) -

The third US president was also another Founding Father who worked as an inventor. Some of his notable inventions were the Jefferson plow, a macaroni-making machine, a wheel cipher, and the great clock.

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Samuel Morse (1791-1872) -

Samuel Morse was an American artist whose notable work included portraits of John Adams, James Monroe, and French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette. But on top of that, he also invented the single-wire telegraph system and co-invented the now famous Morse code.

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John Deere (1804-1886) -

John Deere is the man that gave the world the tractor. But before inventing the agricultural machinery, Deere worked as a blacksmith.

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Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913) -

Rudolf Diesel was a German-French thermal engineer who invented the diesel internal combustion engine. He was also a linguist and a social theorist.

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Marie Curie (1867-1937) -

The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, for her work on radioactivity, Marie Curie was mainly self-taught. With limited funds and education, she worked early on as a governess, taking care of a family in a village north of Warsaw, Poland.

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Albert Einstein (1879-1955) -

In 1902, Einstein started working as a technical expert for a patent office in Bern, Switzerland. An undemanding job, it ended up being good for him, as he could focus on his scientific pursuits as well.

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Cai Lun (50–62–121 BCE) -

Also known as Ts'ai Lun, he's widely credited as the inventor of paper and the modern papermaking process. But on the side, he worked as a political administrator during the Eastern Han dynasty in modern-day China.

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John Harrison (1693-1776) -

While working as a carpenter and watchmaker, Harrison invented one of the most important devices for ships, the marine chronometer. The device enabled ship navigators to accurately know their longitude.

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Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) -

Starting out as a wigmaker, Arkwright became a textile industrialist and inventor of the spinning frame. His organizational skills earned him the title "father of the modern industrial factory system."

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James Watt (1736-1819) -

Watt was an instrument maker who became one of the world's most important inventors. The Scottish inventor improved the Newcomen steam engine and produced the first modern steam engine.

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Robert Fulton (1765-1815) -

Fulton was an apprentice at a Philadelphia jeweler, where he started painting miniature portraits on ivory for lockets and rings. He went on to invent the first commercially successful steamboat, putting his miniature paintings on the shelf.

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George Stephenson (1781-1848) -

Stephenson was an English miner who changed travel forever. He single-handedly established the world's first public inter-city railway line and built the first railroad locomotive.

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Peter Cooper (1791-1883) -

Known for being the oldest person to be nominated by a political party to run for President of the United States, Cooper as actually a very important inventor as well. He designed and built the very first American steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb.

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Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) -

Talbot was a British pioneer of photography, who invented the first negative from which several prints could be derived. He also worked as a linguist and archaeologist, while serving Parliament.

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Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1812-1878) -

Kirkpatrick Macmillan was a Scottish blacksmith who is credited with inventing the modern pedal bicycle.

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Francis Galton (1822-1911) -

Galton was a highly prolific polymath who is said to have had an IQ of around 200. Having made many contributions to geography and genetics, he also invented finger identification as a means to identify criminal suspects.

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Edwin Land (1909-1991) -

Best known today as the inventor of the Polaroid Camera and film, Land started out working in a lab studying light polarization. The lab would later become the Polaroid Corporation.

Sources: (Interesting Engineering) (Big Think)

See more: The greatest inventions of the 19th century

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