When you think of Austria, your mind likely wanders to alpine peaks, classical music, and perhaps a perfectly baked strudel. But this nation at the heart of Europe has a secret identity: it’s a powerhouse of pioneering invention. From the whimsical items that spark childhood joy to the foundational technologies that power our modern world, Austrian creativity has left an indelible mark. Prepare to have your mind blown as we count down ten incredible things you probably didn’t know were Austrian inventions.

1. The Snow Globe: A Brilliant Accident

These dreamy little orbs containing your favourite landmark,in the form of a pocket-sized diorama encased in a permanent magical winter wonderland, can be found in nearly every gift shop in the world. Legend has it that the inventor, Mr. Perzy I, wasn’t originally intending to make a best-selling staple souvenir; rather he was, in fact, attempting to improve the quality of the recently invented light bulb. Thank goodness he wasn’t successful. After realising the potential of his accidental invention, he set up his company Original Vienna Snow Globes (still going strong today) and mass production began in 1905. The Snow Globe Museum in Vienna, run by the Perzy family, celebrates the history and success of this other-worldly Austrian creation.

2. Slow Motion: Making Every Moment Epic

‘Slomo’is essential for enhancing suspense in action films and for capturing the details of the finest sporting moments. August Musger, an Austrian priest and physicist, is responsible for slowing time down, coming up with the film effect in the early 20th century. Musger was born in the town of Styria, Austria and went on to study mathematics and physics in Graz. Frustrated at the flickering of primitive films, Musger wanted to find a way of improving their quality and came up with slow motion. Today, it is one of the most frequently-used cinematic techniques, with many famous scenes employing it.


3. PEZ: The Sweetest Dispenser

Everyone born during or before the 90s will fondly remember popping their sweeties from a Pez dispenser.These miniature sweet vending machines with a cartoon character on the top were a huge craze and Austrian Eduard Haas III is responsible for their creation. The name originates from the German for peppermint – Pfefferminz – abbreviated to the catchy ‘PEZ.’ You will find the head of nearly every pop-culture figure of the last few decades has been sculpted in plastic to adorn the top of a PEZ dispenser – from Kate and William to the members of KISS.


4. The First Indoor Ski Slope

The world’s first indoor ski slope was also a Viennese invention.In 1927, the Schneepalast opened in the arrivals hall of the capital’s disused Nordwestbahnhof station, to become the first indoor winter sports arena the world had ever seen. The artificial snow was created using a combination of washing soda, sawdust and water. With two slopes, a toboggan run and a ski jumping hill for competition jumpers, it was the big attraction in Vienna when it opened in 1927. After the initial surge in interest, the Schneepalast was forced to close after not even a year, not least due to reports in the media of patrons facing breathing difficulties and skin irritation due to the soda. Internationally, the popularity of indoor winter sports arenas accelerated in the 1930s and never looked back.


5. The First Opera Glasses

It is hardly a coincidence that opera glasses were invented in the world capital of music.In 1823, Friedrich Voigtländer came up with the first two-lens solution for operagoers in Vienna and was promptly awarded the Imperial concession to manufacture his invention. Up until this point, theater and opera audiences had had to rely on simple single-eye scopes. These ingenious, pocket-sized visual aids are still in use today.

6. The Inflatable Bouncy Castle

Children everywhere love bouncy castles– a product that found its way out into the world from Vienna. Elisabeth Kolarik not only owns several restaurants in Vienna’s Prater park, but is also credited as inventing the bouncy castle, or, as she called it the Luftburg, in 1977. Originally, she was looking for a little inflatable mattress in the shape of a castle for her daughter to jump about on. A mix up with the dimensions meant that she ended up receiving a giant version instead. Bouncy castle hire and sales would soon come to become a mainstay of her business. Child-friendly restaurants popped up in the Prater, where her invention could also be found – chief among them Kolarik’s Luftburg, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.


7. The Kaplan Turbine: Powering the Modern World

The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades.It was developed in 1913 by Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to achieve efficiency over a wide range of flow and water level. The Kaplan turbine was an evolution of the Francis turbine. Its invention allowed efficient power production in low-head applications which was not possible with Francis turbines. Kaplan turbines are now widely used throughout the world in high-flow, low-head power production. Viktor Kaplan (1876 – 1934) was an Austrian machine engineer, constructor and inventor, who spent most of his professional life at the German Technical University in Brno. He applied for a patent for his inventions in 1913, but the procedure continued until 1918. The first Kaplan turbines were built in 1918 and, after their success, they started being used worldwide. The centenary of Viktor Kaplan’s birth in 1976 was celebrated as a UNESCO world anniversary day.

8. The Printed Circuit Board: The Backbone of Electronics

Paul Eisler,born in Vienna in 1907, made a significant contribution to the modern electronics industry with the invention of the printed circuit board (PCB) in 1936. After graduating from the Vienna University of Technology, he fled Austria to escape the Nazis and developed his idea in England. At the time, electronic devices used hand-soldered wires, an error-prone method. Eisler envisioned printing the wires on a board. He filed a patent application in 1943. His invention was first used by the United States in the proximity fuses of shells to counter German V-1 flying bombs. After the war, the technology spread; the U.S. mandated in 1948 that all airborne instrument circuitry was to be printed. Without printed circuit boards, none of the electronic devices which have become indispensable in our everyday lives would be possible.

9. The First Mass-Produced Chair

Thonet’s Viennese coffeehouse chair is the best-known example of Viennese furniture design,and ranks among the most-produced items of seating furniture in history. Invented by Michael Thonet in 1860, Model No. 14 is a success story that kick-started the era of mass furniture making. His new, modular manufacturing method and pioneering use of steam to bend solid wood made industrial production a viable possibility for the first time. The chairs could be packed flat in just six pieces for delivery worldwide. More than 50 million chairs were sold by 1930. It was the world’s first successfully mass-produced chair, and millions more have sold since.

10. The First Electric Car

Who would have thought it?The world’s first electric car was invented right here in Vienna – more than one hundred years ago. In 1899, coachmaker Ludwig Lohner and automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche produced the first electric car for the Vienna-based Lohner Werke company. A year later, this breakthrough piece of engineering was unveiled at the World Expo in Paris. The first hybrid vehicle followed in 1900. The reasons behind the invention were similar to those behind the push for electric vehicles today: Lohner believed that the air would be “inexorably damaged by increasing numbers of petrol engines”. However, crippling development costs and a legal dispute over patents spelled the end for Vienna’s Lohner-Porsche vehicle just a few years later.