Luke

I suppose the word “boomer” has changed meaning very quickly. It rarely gets used anymore to refer to actual boomers (people born just after WW2) and instead now can refer either vaguely to anyone older than 30, or anyone with an antiquated/problematic notion of social norms.

To be fair, that original meaning is illogical (as in, the meaning doesn’t follow from the literal words used), so it’s not surprising that people misused it to have a more logical meaning.

Since many other comments have focused heavily on technological inventions, I think it makes sense to add some notable cultural impacts on society as well. As with most of the technological inventions mentioned, cultural forces also don’t come out of nowhere and arguably have been around for a lot longer than 100 years, but I think it’s pretty obvious that society within the past 100 years has been and still is being massively affected by the following concepts that did not originate in the USA:

• feminism
• civil rights movement (usually seen through a US-focused lens, but is happening everywhere)
• gay rights movement (esp. in the 1990’s and beyond)
• gender-spectrum concepts
• widespread influence of evolutionary theory (even the word “meme” came from a British biologist’s book about evolution)

Especially considering that Yuri Gagarin’s flight inspired generations of people all over the world after him to a probably immeasurable extent. If the OP wanted “global society-altering”, then that certainly qualifies.

It does begin to feel a bit like you’re moving the goal posts for what you consider “world-changing” as you comment more on this post. If the first man in space and high speed rail are “just incremental progress”, then why do rock music and AI count for you? Everything humans have ever done is accomplished incrementally using the accomplishments of prior human ingenuity.