Neil Alden Armstrong

Instrumental in a whole host of improvements has been the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), established by public- and investor-owned energy producers in the wake of the 1965 blackout and now including member organizations from some 40 countries. EPRI investigates and fosters ways to enhance power production, distribution, and reliability, as well as the energy efficiency of devices at the power consuming end of the equation. Reliability has become more significant than ever. In an increasingly digital, networked world, power outages as short as 1/60th of a second can wreak havoc on a wide variety of microprocessor-based devices, from computer servers running the Internet to life support equipment. EPRI's goal for the future is to improve the current level of reliability of the electrical supply from 99.99 percent (equivalent to an average of one hour of power outage a year) to a standard known as the 9-nines, or 99.9999999 percent reliability.

As the demand for the benefits of electrification continues to grow around the globe, resourcefulness remains a prime virtue. In some places the large-scale power grids that served the 20th century so well are being supplemented by decentralized systems in which energy consumers—households and businesses—produce at least some of their own power, employing such renewable resources as solar and wind power. Where they are available, schemes such as net metering, in which customers actually sell back to utility companies extra power they have generated, are gaining in popularity. Between 1980 and 1995, 10 states passed legislation establishing net metering procedures and another 26 states have done so since 1995. Citizens of the 21st-century world, certainly no less hungry for electrification than their predecessors, eagerly await the next steps.

When Thomas Edison did some future gazing about transportation during a newspaper interview in 1895, he didn't hedge his bets.  "The horseless carriage is the coming wonder," said American's reigning inventor.  "It is only a question of a short time when the carriages and trucks in every large city will be run with motors."  Just what kind of motors would remain unclear for a few more years.

• When Thomas Edison did some future gazing about transportation during a newspaper interview in 1895, he didn't hedge his bets.  "The horseless carriage is the coming wonder," said American's reigning inventor.  "It is only a question of a short time when the carriages and trucks in every large city will be run with motors."  Just what kind of motors would remain unclear for a few more years.

Of the 10,000 or so cars that were on the road by the start of the 20th century, three-quarters were electric or had external combustion steam engines, but the versatile and efficient gas-burning internal combustion power plant was destined for dominance. Partnered with ever-improving transmissions, tires, brakes, lights, and other such essentials of vehicular travel, it redefined the meaning of mobility, an urge as old as the human species.

• Of the 10,000 or so cars that were on the road by the start of the 20th century, three-quarters were electric or had external combustion steam engines, but the versatile and efficient gas-burning internal combustion power plant was destined for dominance. Partnered with ever-improving transmissions, tires, brakes, lights, and other such essentials of vehicular travel, it redefined the meaning of mobility, an urge as old as the human species.

• The United States alone—where 25 million horses supplied most local transportation in 1900—had about the same number of cars just three decades later. The country also had giant industries to manufacture them and keep them running and a vast network of hard-surfaced roads, tunnels, and bridges to support their conquest of time and distance. By century's end, the average American adult would travel more than 10,000 miles a year by car.

Other countries did much of the technological pioneering of automobiles. A French military engineer, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, lit the fuse in 1771 by assembling a three-wheeled, steam-powered tractor to haul artillery. Although hopelessly slow, his creation managed to run into a stone wall during field trials—history's first auto accident. About a century later, a German traveling salesman named Nicholaus Otto constructed the first practical internal combustion engine; it used a four stroke cycle of a piston to draw a fuel-air mixture into a cylinder, compress it, mechanically capture energy after ignition, and expel the exhaust before beginning the cycle anew. Shortly thereafter, two other German engineers, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, improved the design and attached their motors to various vehicles.

• Other countries did much of the technological pioneering of automobiles. A French military engineer, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, lit the fuse in 1771 by assembling a three-wheeled, steam-powered tractor to haul artillery. Although hopelessly slow, his creation managed to run into a stone wall during field trials—history's first auto accident. About a century later, a German traveling salesman named Nicholaus Otto constructed the first practical internal combustion engine; it used a four stroke cycle of a piston to draw a fuel-air mixture into a cylinder, compress it, mechanically capture energy after ignition, and expel the exhaust before beginning the cycle anew. Shortly thereafter, two other German engineers, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, improved the design and attached their motors to various vehicles.

• These ideas leaped the Atlantic in the early 1890s, and within a decade all manner of primitive cars—open topped, bone-jarring contraptions often steered by tillers—were chugging along the streets and byways of the land. They were so alarming to livestock that Vermont passed a state law requiring a person to walk in front of a car carrying a red warning flag, and some rural counties banned them altogether. But even cautious farmers couldn't resist their appeal, memorably expressed by a future titan named Henry Ford: "Everybody wants to be somewhere he ain't. As soon as he gets there he wants to go right back."