This paper, while applauding the work of my peers and their Innovations in Structural Engineering, will take a look back into time and describe innovations which have taken place over the past two millennium. Each one would be considered an innovation in its time and each has become a part of our everyday understanding of mechanics and structural engineering. I will demonstrate that most of these innovations were not sudden bursts of genius or insight, but rather the result of many men laboring over extended periods of time advancing an idea until such experience, experiment and mathematics combined to produce the result. It is the author's observation. that in all fields of scientific and engineering practice, the most recent generation pays little attention to the work done in previous generations. In this era of rapid technological advances it is very easy to forget the contributions made by our predecessors. Sir Isaac Newton, when asked how he had accomplished so much in his lifetime, answered - "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." If the great Newton was aware of, and appreciative of. the work done by those who preceded him it is only appropriate that we, the present generation, be aware of those who founded the field of structural engineering. I have found in my writing and speaking that the current generation of college students is amazed by what early engineers accomplished without modern materials, equipment and computer assistance. Since time is short and the length of this paper limited I will remind the audience and reader of only four historic analytical innovations: Charles A. Coulomb's development of the flexure equation. Prof. Cordon's (Rankine's) development of the column equation. Squire Whipple's development of the method of joints and graphical statics to solve for the forces In a truss. and Hardy Cross's moment distribution method.

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