These days, you can’t look at much on the Internet without seeing a reference to the term, “OK, Boomer.” It’s a funny, yet strained response Millenials give to members of the Baby Boomer generation when they don’t want to bother trying to convince them of something or sway opinion their way.

The Millennials are simply tired of trying, and the Boomers get a lot of flack and blame for many of the world’s problems. While it’s true that financial issues and costs of various things can be attributed to Boomers, the generation has done a great deal Millenials can be thankful for.

See Also: 10 Ways Young Generations Are Better Than Their Parents

10 They Won The Cold War

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the world was in the grips of the Cold War. The main participants were the Soviet Union and the West, which included the United States and Europe’s NATO allies. That conflict lasted 44 years, and it was fought by members of the Silent Generation all the way through to Generation X, but it was the Baby Boomers who finally brought it to an end, and nary a shot was fired.^[1]

For most of the conflict, the Boomers butted heads across the pond through proxy wars and the advancement and manufacture of bigger, deadlier nuclear arms, but they finally put a stop to it through reinforcement of economic instability and the democratization of political and social life in the Soviet Union. The USSR fell for a number of reasons, but it ultimately came to an end through economic pressure and social upheaval coming from a generation that protested the Vietnam War in the west and Soviet Boomers who grew less and less interested in Communist norms.^[2]

9 The Beatles, Steven Spielberg, & Erin Brockovich

While the Beatles fall just behind the line denoting the year Boomers were born, they grew to prominence as the Boomer generation came into adulthood. There’s no denying the influence The Beatles had on music and society as a whole, but the band also inspired a vast majority of Rock and Pop singers/songwriters in and out of the Boomer generation.^[3] Music aside, another form of entertainment, specifically, movies, has largely been shaped by a man who essentially created the summer blockbuster: Steven Spielberg.^[4]

Spielberg is often cited as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, and his resume stands for itself. Finally, Erin Brockovich is more than a movie; it’s the name of a Boomer who decided to stand up and fight for the little guy, but we’re not talking about litigants, we’re talking about the environment. Her lawsuit, which was detailed in the eponymous film about her, helped bring attention to the damage being done by large corporations, and she has helped mold the public outcry revolving around environmental damage and climatology.^[5]

8 They Helped Establish A Worldwide Network Of Telecommunications

Baby Boomers grew up as America and the Soviet Union fought the Space Race, and many of the young men and women who watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the Moon grew up to become scientists and engineers who would work for NASA and the ESA. The Boomers who began working at NASA in the 1970s helped to create something you are using to read this article: a global telecommunications network.^[6] The importance of global telecommunications can not be overstated, as it has brought the entire world together in a way never seen previously.

With global communications, people all over the world can take part in things going on pretty much everywhere there are phones and/or computers. NASA and the U.S. Government began filling Earth’s orbit with satellites, which have linked all of humanity in a way never seen in previous eras, and most of the people working tirelessly to make it happen were Boomers. That work has been expanded by subsequent generations, but the Boomers helped make it a reality through the 1970s, ‘80s, and beyond.^[7]

7 They Made Men’s Willies Work Again

It may seem like a silly notion to anyone who hasn’t experienced erectile dysfunction, but it was once a serious problem. Millions of men and their partners around the world owe a great deal of thanks to Dr. Gill Samuels, a Boomer from Bury, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Dr. Samuels joined Pfizer as a research scientist in 1978, and from there, she went on to become one of the leading developers of a wonderous, little blue pill called Viagra.^[8]

Viagra launched in 1998, and while there are more than enough jokes and memes regarding the effects of the drug, it’s hard to discount its importance on society. Dr. Samuels has spoken about receiving letters from men on the verge of suicide, but thanks to her invention, they were living longer happier lives. She even mentioned how the men who participated in the clinical trial begged to continue taking the drug when it concluded. There are more options these days to solve a man’s little problem in the bedroom, but it all started with that little blue pill Dr. Samuels helped bring into the world.^[9]

6 They Shattered A Significant Glass Ceiling

Prior to and following WWII, women were mainly limited to employment in traditionally female jobs, and while that norm stood for some time, it would be the Boomer generation who would put an end to it. As families moved from the cities to the suburbs to raise their Boomer kids, the makeup of the so-called nuclear family began to change. Divorce rates increased as women realized they didn’t have to remain in otherwise loveless marriages. This brought more and more women into the workforce, and they soon realized there was a glass ceiling keeping them on the lower rung of the corporate ladder.^[10]

Pioneering women like Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Dr. Leona Fulani, the first woman to appear on the ballots of all 50 states in a Presidential election, and Carly Fiorina, the first woman to be named CEO of a Fortune 20 company are just a few examples of Boomers who broke through the glass ceiling.^[11] Hillary Clinton recently broke the ceiling by becoming the first woman to become a serious contender for the office of the President of the United States.

5 Civil Rights & The ADA

The Civil Rights movement in America began while most Boomers were still bouncing on their daddy’s knee, but as those kids grew up, they saw the various injustices of the world and opted to fight against them. Baby Boomers were the ones who fought in and protested against the Vietnam War. They argued for equality, and many of them marched alongside some of the most important activists of the previous generation.^[12] The Boomers learned from these events and pushed for numerous reforms to civil rights and the rights of disabled people.

In 1990, the United States passed The Americans with Disabilities Act, and while there are plenty of people who argue that the Act was unnecessary and costly for businesses, it afforded access to every American, regardless of their situation. This was something that had never been done before, and as a result, people who couldn’t work previously were able to do so while the deaf and hearing impaired were guaranteed access to a nationwide system of interstate services to help them communicate over the phone.^[13]

4 They Ended The Draft

If there’s one thing pretty much all Millennials can and should thank the Boomers for, it’s the elimination of the military draft in 1973. Prior to the creation of the All-Volunteer Force, all American men had to serve in the Armed Forces, and following the loss of 58,220^[14] American Servicemembers in Vietnam, public sentiment towards compulsory service was at an all-time low. The Department of Defense decided to let the Military Selective Service Act expire in June of 1973, and from that point forward, no American was forced to serve in the military.^[15]

The United States used conscription for every major conflict up to and including the Vietnam War, but thanks, in large part, to the protests led by Baby Boomers who were tired of seeing their generation marched off to war, it came to an end. Since that time, the U.S. Military has risen as one of the best trained, best equipped, and most feared militaries on Earth and every single person serving in uniform does so by choice.^[16]

3 They Gave The World The Personal Computer

When computers were first invented, they took up entire rooms, and cost more money than anyone could afford. They were also mainframe systems subject to oversight by whatever corporation or government agency built them. The advent of the personal computer changed all that, and with the introduction of PCs into the home came the democratization of computing. If you’re reading this on a computer or your smartphone, you owe a huge thanks to Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, two Boomers born in 1950 and 1955, respectively.^[17]

Granted, those two men weren’t the only pioneers in the field, and they owe a thank you to the men and women who built the first microprocessors, many of whom were Boomers as well. The invention of personal computers arguably changed the world. They enabled the average person to enter the digital age in much the same way Gutenberg’s printing press helped make the world literate. It’s one of the most important inventions of all time, and it was made by Boomers.^[18]

2 They Invented The Internet

The Internet. It’s something few people can go without in modern society, and it’s the only way you’re reading this article! The Internet was a game-changer for humanity, and it’s all thanks to the Baby Boomers. The beginnings of what would become the Internet stemmed from the ARPANET,^[19] which wasn’t started by Boomers, but it was used as a framework for the iterations of packet-switching networks, which would ultimately become the Internet. There were a lot of people who worked on the Internet as it grew into a worldwide web of information, but one man, in particular, can be called the father of the Internet.

Sir Tim Burners-Lee^[20] is credited as being the inventor of the World Wide Web in 1989, and it’s because of him that we have URLs, HTTP, and HTML. Burners-Lee was born in 1959, which lands him right in the middle of the period claimed by the Baby Boomers. He continues to help shape and define the WWW as the director of the World Wide Web Consortium,^[21] an organization that oversees the continued development of the Web we call the Internet.

1 They Created Video Games

The first video game was programmed into an oscilloscope by physicist William Higinbotham^[22] in 1958, and while it was an important achievement in the history of video game development, it wasn’t until the early 1960s that a few pioneering MIT employees programmed Spacewar! On the PDP-1 during their spare time. This achievement led to an exponential growth in the number of people interested in programming games, as well as playing them. When the 1970s came around, video games were a burgeoning commercial industry, and with games like Pong, created by Allan Alcorn, a Boomer, the industry began to take off.

Through the late 1970s and well into the 1980s, the video games coded in and outside of the United States were done almost entirely by Baby Boomers. These were the people who wanted to play games, and they figured out how to make them.^[23] While the bulk of the industry moved overseas to Japan, it has remained one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. If nothing else on this list describes something a Millenial should be thankful to a Boomer for, you can rest assured they are thankful for the video game industry.

The American Revolution may have guaranteed our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But for better or worse, America and the rest of the world still owes a great deal to the French Revolution.

Many of the ideas and ideals on which our societies are based were born in the rebellious fervor that accompanied the French Revolution. But it also influenced changes in less critical areas like food, fashion, and zoos.

10 The Idea Of Equitable And Humane Capital Punishment

Championed by Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the head-chopping machine was adopted in 1792 as the sole method of execution approved by the state. And it was, truly, a huge improvement over other methods of execution, such as death by hanging, drowning, or burning. Worst of all was the wheel, which broke the arms, legs, and backs of the condemned as their bodies were draped over wheels with their faces “turned to Heaven, to remain until it pleases God to dispose of them.”

Promoted for its effectiveness and efficiency by French surgeon Antoine Louis, the guillotine was first nicknamed the louisette or louison. Later, it became known as the national razor.^[1]

Though the number of lives taken by the guillotine is impossible to confirm, the machine was truly a national phenomenon. Records estimate the number of executions by the guillotine to be between 520,000 and 650,000. In Paris alone, 1,376 counterrevolutionaries were beheaded between June 10 and July 28, 1794.

Another revolutionary nickname for the guillotine was “the widow” because 88 percent of the decapitated were men. Post-revolution and until its last use in 1977, less than 1 percent of those who found their necks under the blades of the louisette were women. Comparatively, just 3.6 percent of those executed in the US are women.

9 The Metric System

In 1793, the meter was invented to standardize and unify the over 800 measurement units that were used in France prior to the revolution. Based on the distance from the North Pole to the equator along the Paris meridian, the new system replaced a panoply of units often based on the extraordinarily variable human body, such the foot (pied) and thumb (pouce). Other measures included the bushel (boiseau) and the acre (arpent or septier).

As the Englishman Arthur Young wrote when he was traveling in France from 1787–1789, “[In] France, the infinite perplexity of the measures exceeds all comprehension. They differ not only in every province, but in every district and almost every town.”

So it was a helpful innovation to have measures that crossed town borders and were used by everyone. Still, the new democratic system was not immediately embraced and did not become the law of the land until 1799.^[2]

All things considered, the French transition was nonetheless a rapid success. On the other side of the Atlantic, Thomas Jefferson gave conversion to the metric system a shot in 1789. Alexander Graham Bell tried again in 1906, and the US government has written act after act to encourage its adoption—in 1866, 1968, 1975, 1988, 1996, and 2004.

Nothing doing. The US general population is very attached to its feet and yards.

8 The Baguette (‘Equality Bread’)

In 1793, an official government decree stipulated that all bread must be created equal. No more heavy round balls of bread (the boule) for the poor and light, flaky loaves for the rich. Everyone would eat the same staple.

Whether this new loaf was truly the baguette is open to debate. Several legends circulate and are difficult to prove. But it is incontestable that the baguette was born in the revolutionary period.

One theory attributes the invention of the baguette to tax evasion. In 1790, there was talk of levying both an indirect and a direct tax on bread—on the boule. By changing both the flour used and the form confected, boulangers could sell what they liked, tax-free.

Another theory is that the baguette was introduced by a young Viennese officer–turned-baker who arrived in Paris around the time of the Second French Revolution in 1830, bringing with him recipes for beer-leavened, vapor-baked bread in an elongated form.^[3]

Those who want to hang on to the Frenchness of the baguette might prefer to attribute it to Napoleon’s Great Army. The baguette’s cylindrical shape and lighter weight was so much easier for soldiers to pack and transport, especially since the average boule weighed 1–3 kilograms (3–6 lb).

7 The Fabulous Restaurant Scene In Paris

Prior to the revolution, the French population, estimated at 26 million, included some 400,000 nobles. After the revolution, about 15,000 remained. So there were multitudes of excellent cooks and serving staff out of work, looking for something to do. Many opened a new sort of restaurant where diners could sit at their own tables rather than common ones. They could also eat their choice of dinner on fine china and served with flourish and grace.

The word “restaurant” originally designated a restorative bouillon of concentrated meat juices. By the middle of the 18th century, just before the political turmoil, the term had come to represent the place that provided such restauration. The first restaurant to offer choices beyond the restorative bouillon opened in Paris in 1872.

With the flight of the aristocracy, 1789 saw the appearance of some 100 Parisian restaurants in the modern sense.^[4] By 1819, there were over 3,000 of them.

6 Standardization Of Language And The Invention Of ‘Canadian French’

Fashioned in China in the early 16th century, the toothbrush made its way to Europe 200 years later. The first toothbrushes appeared in England in 1780. They were precious sorts of objects, made of silver or ivory and often embedded with jewels.

Dental hygiene was certainly not foreign to France prior to the revolution. But the toothbrush was looked upon with suspicion and was not popularized in the Hexagon until Napoleon favored it during the First Empire.

In Louis XVI’s day, the mouth was not a pleasant place. As such, vowels were kept closed. Moi was pronounced “moy,” with only a slight opening of the mouth. Peasants, who had a few other worries, pronounced the word “mwa” with little concern for whatever odors they might be releasing to their company.

In 1789, not many peasants actually spoke French, though. With 30-odd dialects, French was a foreign language to the majority of its population. Unifying the country linguistically was a big deal.

In 1793, “linguistic terror” imposed French on the entire population of the territory. Popularization of the language, though not immediate, was a priority. The country would no longer speak the king’s French. Instead, it would open its mouth for greater inclusion.^[5]

Although the Treaty of Paris in 1763 had effectively put an end to France’s presence in North America, Canadians remained attached to the French monarch. They felt no need to abandon their accents for the popularized version being promoted in Paris. Thus, Canadian French was born.

5 Fashion For All

Goodbye culottes. No more tights for men!

Under the Old Regime in France, clothing was dictated by one’s rank in society. At the National Assembly, for example, nobles wore cloaks and vests embroidered with gold and hats adorned with feathers. The clergy wore ecclesiastical robes in red, purple, and gold.

Both of these privileged classes also wore culottes (breeches). The rest of the representatives, the Third Estate, dressed in plain black suits with white ties and simple hats. This mandated dress code was a visual demonstration of inequality.

By 1792, revolutionaries were flying banners criminalizing culottes. True republicans were “free and without breeches.” Dressing according to the mandates of the Old Regime could be life-threatening for a nobleman, whose feathered hat risked permanent removal from his breeches.^[6]

Fashion was also revolutionized and democratized for women. A noblewoman in Old Regime France would have been hard-pressed to get dressed without help. By the time Josephine took the throne beside Napoleon, fashions had changed.

Josephine was as interested in fashion as Marie Antoinette was, but much of what Josephine wore could be slipped on single-handedly. Skipping forward a couple of centuries, Coco Chanel, an impoverished, orphaned child raised by Catholic nuns, would dominate the Paris fashion world for nearly six decades.

4 The Public Zoo

Although the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes dates back to the end of the 16th century, it did not become a modern zoo until the animals of exiled or guillotined aristocrats needed a new home.

In November 1793, three private collections of live, exotic animals that had been seized by the government from aristocratic families found a home in the Jardin des Plantes. That same year, a decree was passed outlawing the presence of wild animals in the streets of the capital. They, too, made their way to the Jardin des Plantes.

Finally, in 1794, the surviving animals from the royal collections in Versailles and Raincy joined the others and a true zoo with 58 animals was officially opened by a decree passed by the Convention.

Today, the zoo is home to more than 1,200 animals in the heart of Paris.^[7]

3 The Democratization Of Gastronomy

The Almanach des Gourmands, first published in 1803, refers specifically to the culinary revolution that necessarily followed the political one. With such a sudden and dramatic redistribution of wealth, the Almanach was something of a how-to guide for fine dining.

The first edition was dedication to a famous gourmand, Monsieur d’Aigrefeuille, and mentions Jean-Jacques-Regis de Cambaceres specifically as having the most distinguished table in all of Paris.

Cambaceres and d’Aigrefeuille were revolutionary figures from Montpellier in the south of France. As Napoleon’s Second Consul, Cambaceres spent exorbitant amounts on cuisine. A full third of his official budget was spent in his kitchen.

He sent for regional specialties from across Europe and beyond. His ox came from Hamburg, his hams from Westphalia, and his wines from Oporto, Madeira, and Malaga. Promoting good food was definitely on his revolutionary agenda.

Today, France’s Gastronomic Encyclopedia includes the entry “a la Cambaceres” as a method of cooking certain delicacies including lobster, pigeon, and foie gras. Cambaceres’s most lasting contribution to the world of cooking, though, undoubtedly lies in his popularization of it.^[8]

2 Revolutionary And Modern Medical Techniques

Under the Old Regime, medicine in France was as stratified as the rest of the society. Physicians had authority over surgeons. Not just anyone could become a doctor, and if you were able to become a surgeon, then you could not become a physician. The two branches of medicine were subject to different laws, different rights, and different social standings.

By 1792, the ideals of liberty and equality had spread to medicine. Wars following the revolution provided the context for surgeons to influence and change the medical world as never before.

In 1792, Dominique Larrey, a surgeon in the Imperial Guard, introduced the idea of triage, from the verb trier (“to sort”). Etymologically, trier means to separate into three, which is what Larrey did on the battlefield.

Some wounded were beyond hope (group 1), others may or may not have survived with medical intervention (group 2), and still others stood a good chance of recovery (group 3). Naturally, the last group was given priority by the triage nurse, a newly created position on the battlefield and in hospitals across the country.^[9]

1 The Implementation Of A Red Cross–Like Medical Service

Larrey and fellow surgeon Dr. Pierre-Francois Percy practiced Red Cross services three-quarters of a century before its establishment. Larrey invented the horse-pulled, “flying ambulance” (ambulance volante) that could transport up to four wounded quickly and in relative comfort to the nearest hospital. Then Percy went a step further. In 1799, he introduced the mobile surgical unit that could take the operating table onto the battlefield.

This new French mobile medicine did not take nationality or affiliation into consideration when treating the wounded. Larrey and Percy treated all without differentiation—to the extent that they could. Even if it took another few decades for the idea to catch on universally, the pilot program was successfully in place, thanks to the belief in liberty, equality, and fraternity born of the revolution.

Incidentally, the move toward universal health coverage and socialized medicine in France is largely attributable to Dr. Guillotin, who oversaw the establishment of the first health committee in parliament in 1790.^[10]

Vive la Revolution!