25 Most Significant Inventions In Human History

Music as a form of human expression has existed for over ten thousand years, but for the majority of that period, humans lacked the ability to preserve the music they created. Even if humans could write down musical notes to remember compositions, the actual performances couldn’t be preserved for a long time…until 1877, when Thomas Edison invented the first phonograph.

Phonographs were large and cumbersome, and weren’t products that could be easily mass-produced. However, while the music players were hard to mass produce, records themselves were both easier to carry and more easily manufactured. Vinyl records became a widespread phenomenon that allowed music to be recorded easily, bought even more easily, and played almost anytime. From there, records evolved into CDs, and from there they became digital MP3 files.

Through that process, the entire music industry exploded, and countless thousands of artists and literally billions of songs could be played at one’s leisure. And the most amazing part is, this entire process, from first phonograph to gigantic music library, took less than one hundred and fifty years.

It has been said many times that humans cannot live without music. That has been true for the better part of our history, but thanks to the invention of music recording and preservation, it is now more achievable than ever.