A complete list of human achievements would be very long indeed and impossible to reproduce here.
They would include small achievements that later yielded immense benefits and great achievements that changed the world forever.
They range from the scientific to the physical challenges faced by humans to know the world they live in.
All of them are lasting testaments to the human spirit.
Here are 10 iconic photos of human achievement.
First Flight, Kitty Hawk, N.C. , Dec. 17, 1903
“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who… looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space… on the infinite highway of the air.
Wilbur Wright
Though the dream of flight had been prevalent throughout history, and some flight had already been achieved, the Wright brothers have rightfully been credited with inventing and building the world’s first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight.
They were also the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.
The Wright brothers didn't just defy gravity; they rewrote the laws of what humanity thought possible.
The brothers flew a total of four flights on Dec. 17, 1903.
In the first, Orville manned the “Wright Flyer,” a glider with wooden propellers and a gas engine, traveling 120 feet at about 10 feet above the ground.
Moon Landing, July 20, 1969
Soon after the Wright Brothers’ feat, airplanes started being used for military purposes in several wars, most notably World War I.
Commercial flights followed soon afterwards and then Man was airborne.
Fifty years would pass until man could set his ambitions on space, and in 1969 the Apollo 11 mission shot out into space and sent its crew Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon.
Forget the heavens; we touched the very stars, turning celestial dreams into tangible, moonlit reality.
Once there, Armstrong and Aldrin pranced about the lunar surface, planted an American flag and collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material.
Man had reached the stars.
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Reaching the Summit of Mount Everest
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
Sir Edmund Hillary
Long considered unclimbable, the majestic slopes of the Himalayas and its highest child, Mount Everest yielded to the brave efforts of New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay when they reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world at 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953.
This historical ascent laid the groundwork for future expeditions, proving that nature's challenges can be met.
Discovering the Double Helix Structure
Inspired by Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images of DNA in 1952, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA.
Their model served to explain how DNA replicates and how hereditary information is coded on it.
Watson and Crick's discovery wasn't just science; it was the unlocking of life's most arcane secrets.
This set the stage for the rapid advances in molecular biology that continue to this day and have set the agenda in genetics for the next 100 years.
The pair won the Nobel Prize for their discovery, perhaps the most important discovery in biology ever.
Circumnavigating the Earth
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore… Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible… It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors… to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand de Magellan set sail from Spain to find a westward route to Asia and the Spice Islands in 1519 in the service of Charles I of Spain, the future Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
They set sail to reach Asia but ended up embracing the entire Earth. Imagine the profound realization.
Little did he know what would lie ahead of him: 3 years of sailing the globe’s oceans as he unwittingly circled the Earth, countless encounters with peoples hitherto unknown to Europeans, endless adventures and ultimately his own death.
The voyage was finished by Juan Sebastian Elcano almost 3 years to the date they left Spain.
Conquering the World
“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Alexander the Great
The young Alexander the Great assumed the throne in 336 BCE and died 12 years later at the age of 32.
In between, he conquered most of the known world.
He extended the Greek empire to include the whole of the Persian empire including Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the eastern boundaries that reached as far as Afghanistan and the Punjab.
Alexander didn't just capture lands; he seized imaginations, etching his legacy into the annals of both history and myth.
No small feat.
But what set him aside then and now was his idea and dream of not only integrating those he conquered with his army and subjects, but uniting the world regardless of race and religion, something still inconceivable today.
The Sistine Chapel
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”
Michelangelo
The whole ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, named after Pope Sixtus IV who built it, was painted by renaissance extraordinaire Michelangelo.
The work was commissioned by Pope Julius II, and though Michelangelo was at first reluctant because he was primarily a sculptor, in the end he was forced to accept the commission.
It's not just a ceiling; it's a sky, offering each visitor a personal dialogue with the divine.
It took the artist four years to beautify the chapel’s ceiling with 343 figures illustrating the entirety of the Catholic Church’s doctrine.
To this day, the chapel draws thousands of visitors a day to gaze in awe.
The Chunnel
The British and French embarked on this engineering adventure in 1988 and completed it 6 years later.
The 31.4-mile tunnel connects the town of Calais in Northeastern France with the region surrounding the Southeastern English city of Dover.
Engineers and workers carved through Earth's crust, making a marvel that's more than just a passage — it's a connection.
Total construction cost was £4.6 billion and employed 15,000 workers, 10 of which died.
The Chunnel boasts the largest undersea stretch of any tunnel in the world and has recorded 430 million passengers since it opened in 1994.
The Automobile
“Auto racing began five minutes after the second car was built.”
Henry Ford
The first steam engine automobile had been first built in 1769 but the world still had to wait another 117 years until German inventor Karl Benz could come up with what is now considered the world’s first modern automobile.
After that, many different types of automobiles were produced, but it was Henry Ford and his Model-T car that took the industry and the public by storm.
Ford made the auto affordable through a series of technological innovations that helped usher in an age of mass production.
The automobile: A masterstroke in engineering, or a ticking time bomb for environmental catastrophe?
By 1914, Ford had sold 250,000 Model T’s, and just four short years later, half of all automobiles in America were Model T’s.
Couple of years ago OICA (International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufactures) tried to count the total number of all registered automobiles.
It numbered 1 282 000 000 automobiles: 947 mln private cars and 335 mln commercial cars.
Nuclear Energy
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.”
Albert Einstein
The atom was first theorized in Ancient Greece by Democritus nearly 2500 years ago, but its power was only harnessed in the 20th century as a defensive weapon in World War II.
The first show of nuclear power was sadly undertaken in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with devastating effects.
The nuclear era had begun.
The duality of nuclear energy is staggering—it can both light up cities and annihilate them.
Not all is nefarious with nuclear energy.
The splitting of the atom has also given us energy to power homes, submarines, ships of all kinds and spacecraft.
Less than perfect and highly dangerous, the future of atomic energy is promising as scientists try to change the current atomic fission to the safer atomic fusion.
Onward to the next “Eureka!”
The indomitable human spirit—always pushing boundaries, breaking barriers, and occasionally blowing things up in the name of progress.
From the Wright brothers’ aerial adventures to the audacity of harnessing atomic energy, humanity has proven itself a species that simply can’t sit still.
Skies have been conquered, mountains scaled, and even the art of ceiling painting has been mastered.
As the world stands on the precipice of even more unimaginable feats—like perhaps inventing a smartphone battery that lasts more than a day—it’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge these milestones.
After all, if history serves as any guide, the next “Eureka!” moment for humanity is just around the corner, waiting to be memed, tweeted, and eventually taken for granted.
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