Is there a precedent for inventing a new technology many years before anyone else?

History shows that most inventors of groundbreaking new technologies, for example, the light bulb or the telephone were not actually the first to invent this technology and that there were actually lots of teams in the world working on the same problem at the same time. For example Elisha Gray filed a patent application on the exact same day as Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone.

My question is: is there any historical precedent for someone inventing a new technology many years before anyone else?

I have searched for an example of this for quite a long time but can only find the opposite.

The example directly from my world is a mega corporation secretly inventing genetically modified super humans 50-100 years before anyone else (a plot device design to keep the number of genetically modified humans small).

Is this plausible with reference to any examples from our own history on Earth?

Many worldbuilders, myself included, wish to create worlds that are plausible to our human audience. This is made easier if there is evidence of some point in human history that is the same as our world's claim.

posted about 8 years ago

Josh‭

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