Creative immigrants who made America greater

Hedy Lamarr, a beautiful and likable actress, who fled Nazi Germany and came to America in 1938, is also known for her monumental contribution to the advancement not only of America but of countries around the world. This is because in 1942 when Lamarr was just 26 years old she and her business partner, George Antheil, who was both a Hollywood composer and a former weapons inspector, patented an invention for a "Secret Communications System," later known as Spread Spectrum Technology (aka broad spectrum frequency-hopping), which she offered to the U.S. government for free to fight the Nazis by blocking their torpedos. They declined it then, but later used it in the Cuban missile crisis. In the meantime, her invention became the foundation for cell phones, wi-fi, gps, fax machines, etc., all things for which she never received a dime. She was, however, finally inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2014 - fourteen years after she died.

Hedy Larmarr's frequency-hopping invention (Please listen to the interview available here; it's great!)

Hedy Lamarr - The National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee