In all seriousness, there are about a million people who claimed to be the first to fly, but the only reason the Wright Brothers get the recognition is because they were the first ones to run to the patent office and tell everyone else to suck it. As a result, aviation in this country didn't advance all that much from then until after WWI. Of course, once Boeing rolled out the 707, the skies were pretty much a one-horse-race until quite recently.
National pride aside, my country seems to be utterly unable to produce two-strokes on any sort of scale. Chrysler got kind-of close to dropping one in the Neon (which surely would've hit the ricer community like a nuclear bomb) but pulled out on that deal toward the end. Everything was perfect on that thing, and it was going to have 10% better fuel consumption than a four-stroke with the same torque. Oh, but NOx emissions were just a little bit higher than regulation, and they couldn't come up with a catalyst in time for the 1997 model-year. At the same time, the EPA assumed that no car on the planet could be produced that wasn't a four-stroke, and so they demanded that the new engine have four-stroke diagnostic equipment. After all, what two-stroke doesn't need a computer to make sure the valvetrain is operating properly! Sad story, but now that Chrysler and Fiat are together, and Fiat is big on small and efficient engines, we may see renewed interest in the knowledge they gained from the program!
http://www.allpar.com/neon/stroke.html
