Penicillin

The Internet, because now, because of the Internet, you can access nearly all the information in the world, find the best route from your house to anywhere, keep in touch with friends and family, apply for jobs, renew your library book, buy just about anything and see the latest news. One day I learned about spoonbill bow steamboats and another day I learned about whipping cream biscuits. Not sure what I will earn tomorrow on the Net. It is an amazing invention.

Air conditioning.

Microchips.

The birth control pill. Enovid in 1960 became the 1st birth control pill approved by the FDA. It freed women of the burden of constant pregnancies & men of the responsibilities they could not possibly meet. It reduced the amount of abandoned families, infantacide, deaths from toxic abortions, malnutrition, abandoned children, orphan trains, crime from lawless child gangs, the homeless, the destitute, poverty related death, & much poverty itself as folks were able to limit the size of their families. Contraception was illegal until 1965. The Supreme Court ruled in Griswald vs Conneticut that the government had no right to prevent parents from using birth control

Antibiotics have saved millions of lives, and still counting, since it's invention.

P.S. The wheel has been around since 3,500 B.C.E. So that would mean the wheel has been with us for about 5,500 years.

The Salk vaccine.

Cupholders on everything.

Definitely the banana slicer, hands down!

Just kidding. Without a doubt, Computers.

Home refrigeration.

The internet... Absolutely.

The repository of true knowledge, false knowledge, cat photos, spun news, and porn.

Women's lib

Facebook! It has given the man in the street a powerful voice, allowed people to group together and stand against oppresion.

Powered flight which led to the space program and our much deeper understanding of the universe.

Probably one vaccine or another objectively speaking but I’d like to think it’s the DARPA network that evolved into the internet. It’s certainly been the most influential invention on society, with some good and bad aspects but the net outcome remains to be seen. I still think it’s doing more good than harm so far, in connecting us all and allowing us to break out of provincial world views, express and educate ourselves relatively freely. For now.

Not universal, but Air Conditioning is the only invention that has made the mass colonization of this mosquito-infested sack of humidity called Florida possible. As to whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, that's a much broader topic. But here's to you, Dr. Carrier. I <3 your invention!

The automobile. Revolutionized our lifestyles, moved goods around better and faster, faster communication, (mail), faster medical assistance, fresher foods, gave more personal space, (suburbs) and numerous other modes of transportation.

Computers?

The personal computer, which allowed Google search to come about.

It allows all people to leap frog over the gate keepers and find things out for themselves

The remote control just think of all the needless back injuries saved by not leaving the sofa LOL J/K. My real answer is the safety belt.

Microwave oven. Less energy used.

Edit.. I dunno... There's so many things

Contraception

Hypertext

The transistor