Whenever somebody gets up in front of a room full of people and says that they had invented something, I check to see if that’s really true. All too often, I discover that somebody had invented the same thing before that person “invented” it.
This happens so often that I am tempted to organize a seminar on this odd quirk in invention timelines. In my seminar, I would map out the actual sequence of events that led to various inventions, which often significantly differs from the official sequence.
In most cases, I think people would be surprised to find out who really invented something first. But I also quite sure that they would be entertained.