Born in the USA....

I made some guesses.. the only one I'm positive about is Chop Suey

None?

These I know: Baseball, Chop Suey, Powered Flight.

These I'm guessing: Hamburgers, Computer, Steam engine

I'm thinking beer was first made in England or something. They really like their brew!

Chop Suey for sure, Pizza - although 'Italian' food is actually American, Powered flight ala Wright Bros, probly baseball, computer

Baseball was invented in England, and it was called 'Rounders', before Doubleday modified it and it and named it Baseball.

I don't know about beer, but chop suey is Chinese and pizza is Italian.

Time to show my ignorance...Baseball (as far as I know, as it is played now), Chop Suey (San Fran for those working on the RR ) Powered Flight, Comps, The web (military and collegiate use only, though it was more like an INTRAnet)

Those are the only ones that I know for sure, or close too.

is this a msgman survey?

I know Pizza was made for some figure-head in Italy, actually designed like the flag, green (peppers) white (cheese) red (sauce/tomatos)...who made it, I don't know

Then there is some story about the King of Hamburg (hamburger) but I don't really recall how it went

If the game was altered, then wouldn't it be a new game? It's like taking kickball and saying that it's the same as baseball. Cricket is baseball too?

I don't really know about most of these. I know beer wasn't invented in the US. I'm fairly certain the Internet was.

Baseball and the Web.

Baseball
Powered flight
Computer
The web (as on the Internet, not other types of web!)
Steam engine
Hamburgers
Internal Combustion Engine
Pizza
Jet engine
Diesel engine
Radar

Erm, the web?
Don't think any of the others were.

Are you thinking of the Earl of Sandwich? He was in the middle of a card game, got hungry and decided to put his meat between slices of bread, thus the sandwich was born. Ta Daa!

I should point out that by "the web", I mean the web itself, not the Internet as a whole.

You made me double think myself, so I looked it up. Here's the link, it's the second listing that I was thinking of.

http://www.whatscookingamerica.net/History/Hamburg...

Baseball, The Web, Internal Combustion Engine?

Pizza...american???



you're all crazy...

whats the answer?

I'll leave it a couple more days before I give the correct answers. I'm sure they'll provoke some debate...

I'm not sure, but I think the web, baseball, hamburgers, and the jet engine.

The salad is spelled Roquette!

I think Chop Suey was. Powered flight if that means aeroplanes. The web, I'm guessing. Most of the others seem less likely.

See the links I posted in qual, in response to your comment there.

That doesn't make it right - That's like saying; Chicken in the Pot is the same as Potted Chicken. Chicken in the Pot is a Frenchman's translation of Poulet au Pot - it's a bad translation. Rocket is pronounced like the firecracker it is but "roquette" is pronounced like Arquette (as in Rosanna). Anyway, this is pointless - to me; it's always been arugula!

The usual spelling in British English is "rocket", and pronounced the same way as the firecracker.

The only one I'm sure of is chop suey

William Seward Burroughs born in Rochester, NY invented the first computer.

Here's my best guess or factual knowledge on each option:

1. Baseball

This is almost impossible to determine. If you mean Baseball as it is played today, yes, it is American. However, similar games were played in other nations long before the United States existed. I didn't pick this.

2. Chop Suey

"As American as Chop Suey." Yep! The story goes that Chinese labourers "invented" this dish trying to mimic Mom's home cooking. When the white guys tried it, liked it and asked what it was, they were told (in Chinese) "a bunch of stuff mixed together". I picked this.

3. Hamburgers

No. Hamburg is a city in Germany. Chopped beef, fried in a patty is of German origin. Putting it in a sandwich originated in Canada among the lumberjacks. I didn't pick this.

4. Pizza

Italian in origin, the delivery-style pizza with lots of cheese melted on it is American. I didn't pick this.

5. Powered flight

The Wright brothers, Kitty Hawk, about 100 years ago...I picked this.

6. Radar

Invented by the US military I believe. I picked this.

7. Computer

This is another one that is a little hard to determine due to the question of "What makes something a computer?". By my own definition, I'm willing to give this one over to the Americans. I believe the first one was created in the late 1940s. I picked this.

8. Jet Engine

American I believe. I picked this.

9. The Internet

Another US military development I'm told. I picked this.

10. Steam Engine

Invented by James Watt, a Scotsman. I didn't pick this.

11. Diesel Engine

Invented by Rudolf Diesel, in Germany. I didn't pick this.

12. Internal Combustion Engine

Also German. I didn't pick this.

13. Beer

So ancient as to be lost in antiquity. It is known that the ancient Egyptians made beer. Whether or not they invented it will likely never be known. I didn't pick this.

14. Rocket

No. Again, it depends how you define the word. The Chinese were making fireworks long before the US existed. Modern rockets were developed in Germany. I didn't pick this.

15. Guns

North African in origin, circa 1000 AD. I didn't pick this.

I'll give the answers shortly - or, at least, as close to correct as it's possible to get. But first, here's a brief philosophical digression.

Determining where, when and by who something was invented is not always easy, particularly when it was more of a discovery than an invention or where it was developed from something else rather than being completely new. Also, where something is independently invented by different people at around the same time, it's not always easy to say who was the first - is it the first to have the idea, or the first to put it into practice? As a general rule, this is usually taken to be the first to make a working demonstration - not necessarily a fully functioning product, but something functional enough to prove that the concept works. And when something is invented in two different forms, but only the later form remains today, does the earlier form count as the first invention? An example of this is TV (which I didn't include in the survey, mainly for this reason) - the earliest method of transmitting pictures electronically used a mechanical device to project them onto a screen, but this was soon superseded by the cathode ray tube version on which all modern TVs are based. Do we count the mechanical device as a TV, despite it not being anything like TV as we know it? In the area of sports and foodstuffs (and there are some of these in the survey ), it's extremely rare for anything to be completely new - what happens is that things are developed from something that already existed. So do we take the moment of invention as being when it was given the name by which we now know it, or the point at which it acquired the form in which we now know it? And, of course, there is the matter of definition - does a "hamburger" mean specifically a beef patty in a bun, or does it just mean the patty? If it's just the beef, does it have to be flat and round? "The web" doesn't mean the Internet, but many people who have answered this survey already have assumed that it does. Does an invention include the concept of usage - is a rocket used as a firecracker a different invention to a rocket used to propel a missile? If one person invents something, but never develops it, while another subsequently invents it independently and then develops it into a product which achieves widespread use, who is the real inventor?

Whatever answers I give to the quiz, therefore, each and every one of them is subject to at least some dispute. In practice, though, it's possible to group them into three classes: "Yes", "no" and "maybe". The "yes" options are those where it's generally accepted (with varying, but mostly small, amounts of disagreement) that the thing in question was invented in the USA. The "no" options are those where it's generally accepted (with varying, but mostly small, amounts of disagreement) that the thing in question was not invented in the USA. And the "maybe" options are those where either it's essentially a matter of definition, or where there is genuine dispute about the timing and location of the invention. And I bet that most of you will disagree with at least half of my classifications

It's still arugula to me!! The translation of roquette in my French to english dictionary is arugula. Rocket is an English pronunciation of the French word just like boudoir. There was never an English word for a "pouting room" so they borrowed the French one. "Rocket" made the English dictionary in the same way as did the (borrowed from the Italian word) arugula. Maybe because I live in a country with two official languages, the English don't use roquette for arugula since it sounds so French and rocket sounds like a blast off! (Although rocket is a good word to describe the flavour! What a blast from such an innocuous looking green!)

There were no significant modifications to the original game. The modifications did not come about until later. The original version of baseball played in this country was 'Rounders.' Sure we made it our own (much like the Panama Canal, but the French started it).

So are you going to tell us the answers or what?

Just heard on Jeopardy today that the jet engine was invented in Germany, by BMW. I think, anyway.

I'm not sure about a few of them

OK, here are the answers. Please take my previous philosophical digression into account when reading these answers - I've tried to indicate where the origin of something is dubious or disputed, and, if so, why it's in dispute. But people will still disagree!

1. Baseball - Probable "yes".

If you consider a sport to have been invented when its rules were first formulated, then Baseball is definitely American in origin. There are other games (notably Rounders) which have similar characteristics, so you could say that Baseball is a development of these rather than a new invention. But the originator of Baseball was deliberately setting out to create a sport that borrowed from several others, so it deserves to be recognised as a new hybrid in its own right rather than a simple modification of an existing game.

2. Chop Suey - Definite "yes".

It's hard to say where or when a food was first originated, especially if it's clearly a development of something that already exists, but the name "Chop Suey", and the ingredients of it, originated in New York.

3. Hamburgers - Definite "maybe".

This one depends entirely on definition. The "Hamburger Steak", as the name suggests, originated in the German city of Hamburg (just as Frankfurter sausages originated in Frankfurt), and travelled to the US with German immigrants. But the hamburgers sold in McDonalds, etc, bear little resemblance to these Hamburger steaks - what seems to have happened is that a food seller took the name and applied it to a similar concoction of his own making, which eventually led to the hamburger as we know it. If he hadn't called it a hamburger then it would definitely count as an American invention, like Baseball or Chop Suey - but, by using the existing name, it seems that the intention was to suggest to his customers that it was a development of the Hamburger steak rather than being new.

4. Pizza - Definite "no, but...".

Pizza originated in Italy. Most pizzas eaten today are nothing like Italian pizzas.

5. Powered flight - Definite "yes"

The first powered flight by the Wright brothers is so well known that I'm surprised that anyone didn't pick this. Did you think it was a trick question or something?

6. Radar - Definite "no".

The history of Radar is a little complex as, like many such things, it was developed over time by many different researchers rather than having a single clear origin. But some facts are certain: Heinrich Hertz came up with the original concept in Germany in the late 19th century, and the first working radar system was developed by the National Physical Laboratory in England and patented in 1935.

7. Computer - Probable "no, but...".

The term "computer" was first applied to a mechanical calculating system by the British inventor Charles Babbage in the 19th century. His device was never fully implemented as it was too advanced for the technology of the time, but it did lead indirectly to mechanical cash-register style machines. The earliest programmable electronic computers were built during WWII by codebreakers trying to decipher German radio transmissions, and were developed independently by both British and American researchers. The British machine was the first to be built, and therefore counts as the first electronic computer. However, secrecy laws meant that its existance was not (at the time) revealed to the public, so it was never developed further as a commercial product (it only came to light in the 1970s when papers from the wartime period were finally released). The American version, on the other hand, was publicised and then commercially developed after the end of the war. So all modern computers are descendants of the American version, not the British one - except, maybe, some more codebreaking machines hidden away in British Intelligence HQ that we still don't know about

8. Jet Engine - Definite "no".

The jet engine was invented independently in both Britain and Germany. Frank Whittle was the first to patent the propulstion system itself, in 1930, but Hans Von Ohain was the first to build a jet-powered aircraft, which flew for the first time in 1939.

9. The Web - Definite "no".

The web (as opposed to the Internet as a whole) was developed by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working for CERN in Geneva. A lot of people picked this because they thought I meant the Internet. I didn't - the web and the Internet are not the same thing.

10. Steam Engine - Definite "no".

The fact that steam could be used to provide power was known to the Romans, but they never invented anything capable of actually using it. The first steam-powered system was patented in 1698 by the English military engineer Thomas Savery. The first steam engine, as we would recognise it, was built in 172 by Thomas Newcomen, and further modified by James Watt into what became the basis for all subsequent steam engines.

11. Diesel Engine - Definite "no".

Invented in Germany by Dr Rudolph Diesel. Incidentally, Dr Diesel was one of the few inventors who became financially successful as a result of his inventions - his patent on the diesel engine made him a millionaire.

12. Internal Combustion Engine - Definite "no, but...".

The history of the internal combustion ("gas") engine is lengthy, but it's generally agreed that the first practical demonstration of the concept was by Francois Isaac de Rivaz of Switzerland in 1807 (who used hydrogen as fuel!), the first gasoline (petrol) powered vehicle was built in 1864 by Siegfried Marcus in Austria, and Gottleib Daimler and Karl Benz (working at the same time, but independently) developed the prototype of the modern internal combustion engine in the 1880s. However, as a sidenote, the first practical oil-burning engine (using kerosene as fuel) was developed in 1873 by the American engineer George Brayton. His invention, however, was never commercially viable and was soon superceded by the work of Daimler and Benz.

13. Beer - Definite "no".

Beer has been around for as long as mankind. Both beer and wine are mentioned in all ancient literature. Beer as we know it today, using malted grain as the source of alcohol and hops for flavouring, was developed in Europe during the middle ages.

14. Rocket - Definite "no, but...".

The concept of rocket propulsion was known to the ancient Chinese kingdoms, and have been used for military and recreational (fireworks) purposes for centuries. However, the first liquid-fueled rocket, on which all modern military and commercial rockets are based, was developed by the American scientist Robert Goddard.

15. Guns - Definite "no, but...".

The earliest records of hand-held firearms date from the 15th century. The matchlock, wheel-lock and flintlock firing mechanisms were all developed at various times across Europe. The percussion cap firing mechanism, which is the basis of all modern guns, was invented in 1805 by John Forsyth in Scotland. Samuel Colt developed and patented the revolver, using Forsyth's percussion cap mechanism, in 1836 - the first commercially viable multiple shot handgun. The first machine gun was invented in 1718 by James Puckle, of London, but it wasn't until Richard Gatling in 1861 and Hiram Maxim in 1885 developed the weapons named after them that machine guns were practical to make and use. The first handheld machine gun was developed by American General John T. Thompson. So America didn't invent guns, it just made them vastly more lethal.