1947

Industrial tools and equipment manufacturer Atlas Copco launches the Swedish Method –a pioneering rock drilling technique.

1950

Sweden’s Inge Edler and Germany’s Carl Hellmuth Hertz carry out the first ultrasound examination of a heart, ECG.

Rune Elmqvist produces the first implantable pacemaker and Åke Senning carries out the first pacemaker operation.

Aina Wifalk hands in her first sketches for the walking frame, or walker. Production starts a couple of years later.

Swedish anti-ulcer drug Losec is granted a patent.

The threepoint seatbelt is launched by Volvo.

IKEA launches its first line of self-assembled, flat-pack furniture.