In James May's 20th Century, the urbane Top Gear presenter explores seminal inventions that forged the world in which we now find ourselves. If one trend characterised the 20th century it was the way in which the planet seemed to shrink. Journeys that took days in 1900 could be completed in a few hours 100 years later. In 1919, the world got a lot smaller when John Alcock and Arthur Brown made the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a converted Vickers Vimy bomber. The pair left Newfoundland at 1613GMT on June 14 and crash-landed 16 hours and 12 minutes later in a bog near Clifden, County Galway, Ireland. Here, the aircraft is pictured under guard, hours after its landing.