What are some inventions of the Sumerians that impact our life today?

While many people have images of the caveman chipping away at stone to fashion the world's first wheel, it was actually the Sumerians that invented the wheel. They utilized wheels on carted vehicles to transport agricultural goods. The Sumerians created many new technologies to help them improve farming.  Historians credit the Sumerians for presenting writing to the world. Farmers and government officials needed a way of keeping track of records, so they devised a system that evolved into written records. Obviously, writing has been pretty important in the history of the world, as it is today.

In his book about Mesopotamia, History Begins at Sumer, Samuel Noah Kramer attributes nearly forty "firsts" that the Sumerians invented. His list includes:

The First Schools, The First Case of `Apple Polishing’, The First Case of Juvenile Delinquency, The First `War of Nerves’, The First Bicameral Congress, The First Historian, The First Case of Tax Reduction, The First `Moses’, The First Legal Precedent, The First Pharmacopoeia, The First `Farmer’s Almanac’, The First Experiment in Shade-Tree Gardening, Man’s First Cosmogony and Cosmology, The First Moral Ideals, The First `Job’, The First Proverbs and Sayings, The First Animal Fables, The First Literary Debates, The First Biblical Parallels, The First `Noah’, The First Tale of Resurrection, The First `St. George’, The First Case of Literary Borrowing, Man’s First Heroic Age, The First Love Song, The First Library Catalogue, Man’s First Golden Age, The First `Sick’ Society, The First Liturgic Laments, The First Messiahs, The First Long-Distance Champion, The First Literary Imagery, The First Sex Symbolism, The First Mater Dolorosa, The First Lullaby, The First Literary Portrait, The First Elegies, Labor’s First Victory, The First Aquarium.

The Sumerians also developed the concept of time. They tracked days and months and years. They divided the minutes and the hours into increments of sixty, the same way it is done in the present day. The Sumerians also contributed the 360-degree circle, the concept of a number system, and irrigation management. It is obvious that the Sumerians had a great effect on history because of their innovations.