Inventors & Inventions
·
The Direct Action Committee, a group pushing for nuclear disarmament,
invented the peace symbol in 1958. The forked symbol is actually a composite of
the semaphore signals "N" and "D," to stand for nuclear
disarmament.
·
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the
soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float.Customers wrote and
told how much they loved that it floated,and it has floated ever since. [It
floats in gasoline, too.]
·
Fortune cookies were invented in America in 1918 by Charles Jung.
·
The Frisbee originated in the 1950s, when Yale students started the
practice of playing catch with the pie-tins put out by the Frisbie Baking
Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The company went out of business in 1957,
but a few of their "5 cent deposit"pie-tins remain and are being
hoarded by avid Frisbee collectors.
·
Diet Coke was only invented in 1982.
·
Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck,
Connecticut.
·
As of 1940, total of ninety patents had been taken out on shaving mugs.
·
It took three years of constant printing to complete Johann Gutenberg's
famous Bible, which appeared in 1455 in two volumes, and had 1,284 pages. He
reportedly printed 200 Bibles, of which 47 still exist.
·
Madame Alexander dolls were the creation of Beatrice Alexander Behrman,
the daughter of Russian immigrants. Mrs. Behrman, whose father operated New
York's first doll "hospital," started making dolls in 1923, and her
creations soon became famous for their molded heads and limbs, lifelike eyes,
rooted hair and elaborate costumes. Mrs. Behrman sold the company to several
New York investors in 1988, two years before she died at age 95. But America's
first and only remaining doll manufacturer has not compromised her high
standard of quality and unique craftsmanship. Today, most of the company's
manufacturing is still done in Harlem, New York, and more than 500,000 dolls a
year are sold.
·
Dr. Samuel Langley was able to get many model airplanes to fly, but on
December 8, 1903, Langley's "human carrying flying machine", the
aerodrome plunged into the Potomac River near Washington D.C., in front of
photographers who were assembled to witness the event. Reporters around the
country made fun of the idea that people could fly and nine days later, Wilbur
and Orville Wright proved them wrong.
·
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for
automobiles. At that time the most known player on the market was the Victrola,
so they called themselves Motorola.
·
Self-made millionaire Cyrus Field championed the idea of a telegraph
from England to Newfoundland. Britain quickly agreed to subsidize. Congress
went along by a one-vote margin. That was in 1856. Laying cable was tough. It
kept breaking.
·
The first line - two years later - died almost immediately. But 10 years
later, there were two working lines. Communications changed forever.
· The first lightweight luggage designed for air
travel was conceived by aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
·
Donald F. Duncan, the man who made the yo-yo an American tradition, is
also credited with popularizing the parking meter and introducing Good Humor “ice
cream on a stick.
·
Eastman Kodak's Brownie camera cost $1.00 when it was introduced in
1900.
·
Sylvan N. Goldman of Humpty Dumpty Stores and Standard Food Markets developed
the shopping cart so that people could buy more in a single visit to the
grocery store. He unveiled his creation in Oklahoma City on June 4, 1937.
·
Frederick Winthrop Thayer of Massachusetts and the captain of the
Harvard University Baseball Club received a patent for his baseball catcher's
mask on February 12, 1878.
· The first coin
operated machine ever designed was a holy-water dispenser that required a five-drachma
piece to operate. It was the brainchild of the Greek scientist Hero in the
first century AD.
· Ornithologists often use Scotch tape to cover
cracks in the soft shells of fertilized pigeon eggs, allowing the eggs to
hatch. Scotch tape has also been used as an anti-corrosive shield on the
Goodyear Blimp.
· The power lawn mower was invented by Ransom
E. Olds (of Oldsmobile fame) in 1915.
·
The shoestring was invented in England in 1790, Prior to this time
all shoes were fastened with buckles.
·
The single blade window cleaning squeegee was invented in 1936 by
Ettore Sceccone and is still the most common form of commercial
window cleaning today.
·
The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was
albino.
·
Edison improved the incandescent lamp in 1879, but he didn't
actually invent it. Sir Humphrey Davy is reputed to be the true inventor
of the electric light. He passed electricity through a platinum
wire and caused an arc lamp to glow as early as 1802. However, Davy did
not pursue the discovery. By the time Edison entered the scene, arc
lamps had been burning for several decades, but were limited by short
life spans. Edison developed a long-lasting filament light in 1877,
and in 1879 produced the first long-lasting light bulb.
·
The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf.
·
Because he felt such an important tool should be public property,
English chemist John Walker never patented his invention — matches.
·
The hypodermic needle was invented in 1853. It was initially used
for giving injections of morphine as a painkiller. Physicians
mistakenly believed that morphine would not be addictive if it
by-passed the digestive tract.
·
Thomas Edison’s first major invention was the quadruplex telegraph.
Unlike other telegraphs at the time, it could send four messages at
the same time over one wire.
·
Inventor Gail Borden, Jr. invented condensed milk in the 1850's.
·
After his death in 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the
wireless telegraph was honored by broadcasters worldwide as they let
the airwaves fall silent for two minutes in his memory.
·
Pez was invented in 1927 by Eduard Haas, an Austrian anti-smoking
fanatic, who marketed peppermint-flavored PEZ as a cigarette
substitute. The candy gets its name from the German word for peppermint,
Pfefferminze. Haas brought the candy to the U.S. in 1952. It
bombed, so he reintroduced it as a children's toy, complete with cartoon
heads and fruity flavors. One of the most secretive companies in
the U.S., PEZ won't even disclose who currently owns the company.
·
The Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred
Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a
propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.
·
Alfred Nobel used a cellulose adhesive (nitrocellulose) as the chemical
binder for nitroglycerin, which he used in his invention of dynamite.
·
Germany holds the title for most independent inventors to apply
for patents.
·
Noxema, the skin cream invented in 1914 by Baltimore pharmacist
George Bunting, was originally sold as "Dr. Bunting's Sunburn
Remedy." Mr. Bunting changed the name to Noxema after a customer
enthusiastically told him the cream had "knocked out his eczema."
Thus, the cream that "knocks eczema" became "Noxema".
·
George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, hated having his
picture taken.
·
Root Beer was invented in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1898 by Edward
Adolf Barq, Sr.
·
Because Napoleon believed that armies marched on their stomachs,
he offered a prize in 1795 for a practical way of preserving food.
The prize was won by a French inventor, Nicholas Appert. What he
devised was canning. It was the beginning of the canned food industry of
today.
·
Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first
three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San
Francisco in 1899.
· More than 5,000
years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For
about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor
people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky.
Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed
it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called
"chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling
something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality.
·
Incan soldiers invented the process of freeze-drying food. The process
was primitive but effective — potatoes would be left outside to freeze
overnight, then thawed and stomped on to remove excess water.
·
The first wooden shoe comes from the Netherlands. The Netherlands have
many seas so people wanted a shoe that kept their feet dry while working
outside. The shoes were called klompen and they had been cut of one single
piece of wood.
·
Today the klompen are the favorite souvenir for people who visit the
Netherlands.
·
When airplanes were still a novel invention, seat belts for pilots were
installed only after the consequence of their absence was observed to be fatal
- several pilots fell to their deaths while flying upside down.
·
The first Bowie knife was forged at Washington, Arkansas.
·
The supersonic Concorde jet made its first trial flight on January 1,
1969.
·
Duffel bags are named after a town of Duffel, Belgium, where they were
first made.
·
The commercial wireless phone was first introduced in Chicago in 1982 by
Ameritech.
·
The safety pin was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. He sold the patent
rights for $400.
·
The first Fords used Dodge engines. Many ford vehicles now use Nissan
engines, especially in Mini-vans.
·
The first portable calculator placed on sale by Texas Instruments
weighed only 2-1/2 pounds and cost a mere $150. (1971)
·
In 1937 the emergency 999 telephone service was established in London.
More than 13,000 genuine calls were made in the first month.
·
In 1889, the 1st coin-operated telephone, patented by Hartford,
Connecticut inventor William Gray, was installed in the Hartford Bank.
·
In 1977, according to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company,
there were 14.5 telephone calls made for every 100 people in the entire world.
·
Humphrey O'Sullivan invented the rubber heel because he was tired of
pounding the pavements of Boston looking for a job.
·
Hungarian brothers George and L"szlo Biro invented the ball point
pen in 1938.
·
Seating on the first scheduled inter-city commuter airplane flight
consisted of moveable wicker chairs. There were 11 of them on the first Ford
Tri-Motors. After several years, Ford replaced them with aluminum framed
leather chairs.
·
The first man-made item to exceed the speed of sound is the bull whip or
leather whip. When the whip is snapped, the knotted end makes a
"crack" or popping noise. It is actually causing a mini sonic boom as
it exceeds the speed of sound.
·
Cornelius van Drebel, a Dutch physician, built and successfully
demonstrated the first submarine in 1620. It was a wooden framework covered
with greased leather. The propulsion was provided by oars worked from the
inside. It was tested in the Thames River in London.
·
Venetian blinds were invented in Japan.
·
Henry Waterman, of New York, invented the elevator in 1850. He
intended it to transport barrels of flour.
·
John Greenwood, also of New York invented the dental drill in
1790.
·
The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn, also of New York, in
1860.
·
Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R.
Hutchinson, who was (you guessed it) from New York.
·
Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio in 1952, in New
York.
·
The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph
were, "Mary had a little lamb."
·
In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie
Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and
weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a
string of cards.
·
Gutenburg invented the printing press in the 1450's, and the first
book to ever be printed was the Bible. It was, however, in Latin
rather than English.
·
The toothbrush was invented in 1498.
·
The waffle iron was invented August 24, 1869.
·
The alarm clock was not invented by the Marquis de Sade, as some
suspect, but rather by a man named Levi Hutchins of Concord, New
Hampshire, in 1787. Perversity, though, characterized his invention
from the beginning. The alarm on his clock could ring only at 4 am. Rumor
has it that Hutchins was murdered by his wife at 4:05 am on a very
dark and deeply cold New England morning.
·
Craven Walker invented the lava lamp, and its contents are colored
wax and water.
·
In 1916, Jones Wister of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania invented a rifle
for shooting around corners. It had a curved barrel and periscopic
sights.
·
The same man who led the attack on the Alamo, Mexican Military
General, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, is also credited with the
invention of chewing gum.
·
The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515.
·
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
·
Lazy Susans are named after Thomas Edison's daughter. He invented
it to impress a gathering of industrialists and inventors.
·
Cyano-acrylate glues (super glue) were invented by accident. The
researcher was trying to make optical materials, and would test
their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining
light through them. When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the
prisms apart.
·
A device invented as a primitive steam engine by the Greek
engineer Hero, about the time of the birth of Christ, is used today as
a rotating lawn sprinkler.
·
A machine has been invented that can read printed English books
aloud to the blind, and it can do so at speed half again as fast as
normal speech.
·
Games Slayter, a Purdue graduate, invented fiberglass.
·
Teflon was discovered in 1938.
·
Alfred Nobel used a cellulose adhesive (nitrocellulose) as the
chemical binder for nitroglycerin, which he used in his invention
of dynamite.
·
At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Richard Blechyden, and
Englishman, had a tea concession. On a very hot day, none of the
fairgoers were interested in hot tea. Blechyden served the tea cold—and
invented iced tea.
·
The first known item made from aluminum was a rattle—made for Napoleon
III in the 1850s. Napoleon also provided his most honored guests with knives
and forks made of pure aluminum. At the time the newly discovered metal was so
rare, it was considered more valuable than gold.
·
Hale's 100 inch lens built in the early 1900s was the largest solid
piece of glass made until then. The lens was made by a French specialist who
poured the equivalent of ten thousand melted champagne bottles into a mold
packed with heat maintaining manure so that the glass would cool slowly and not
crack.
·
When Alexander Graham Bell Was working on the telephone in 1876, he
spilled battery acid on his pants and called out to his assistant,
"Watson, please come here. I want you." Watson, who was on another
floor, heard the call through the instrument he was hooking up, and ran to
Bell's room. Bell's words became the first ever successfully communicated using
a telephone.
·
Dutch engineers have developed a computerized machine that allows
a cow to milk itself. Each cow in the herd has a computer chip in
its collar. If the computer senses that the cow has not been milked
in a given period of time, the milk-laden animal is allowed to enter
the stall. The robot sensors locate the teats, apply the vacuum
devices, and the cow is milked. The machine costs a mere $250,000
and is said to boost milk production by 15%.
·
Out of the 11 original patents made by Nikola Tessla, for the
generation of hydroelectric energy, 9 are still in use, (unchanged)
today.
·
The windmill originated in Iran in AD 644. It was used to grind
grain.
·
Russian submarine designers are building military submarines out
of concrete. Because concrete becomes stronger under high pressure,
(C-subs) could settle down to the bottom in very deep water and wait for
enemy ships to pass overhead.
·
Concrete would not show up on sonar displays (it looks just like
sand or rocks), so the passing ships would not see the sub lurking
below.
·
The first umbrella factory in the U.S. was founded in 1928 in
Baltimore, Maryland.
·
In the early 1950's, Denver architect Temple H. Buell, often called
the Father of the Mall, conceived of and built one of the first
shopping malls in the U.S.: the Cherry Creek Mall.
·
During one four-year period, Thomas Edison obtained 300 patents,
or one every five days.
·
The Wright Brothers spent time observing the flight of the buzzard
to help them solve the mystery of flight. They realized that the
bird retained balance in the air by twisting the tips of it's
wings. By creating a wing warping method based upon this observation,
the brothers were able to obtain a remarkable degree of
maneuverability.
In 1832 the Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of
improving patients' comfort.
·
In 1769 the British designer Edward Beran enclosed wooden slats in
a frame to adjust the amount of light let into a room. These became
known as venetian blinds from their early use over Italianate windows.
·
George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four
years later, George sold the rights for $200,000.
·
Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972), the mother of 12 children,
had good reason to improve the efficiency and convenience of household
items. A pioneer in ergonomics, Gilbreth patented many devices,
including an electric food mixer, and the trash can with step-on lid-opener
that can be found in most households today.
·
Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M.
Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in
Alameda, California.
·
Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks.
·
G.I. Joe was introduced at the annual American International Toy Fair in
New York on Feb. 9, 1964.
·
George Hancock invented a new game on November 30, 1887. It was played
like baseball, except a broomstick was used for a bat and a boxing glove was
the ball. Since the game was played indoors, it was originally called
"indoor." Walter Hakanson later renamed it "softball."
·
The City and South London Railway opened the world's first deep-level
electric railway on December 18th, 1890, from King William Street in the City
of London under the River Thames to Stockwell.
·
Today, the London Underground Limited (LUL) is a major business with 2.5
million passenger journeys a day, nearly 500 trains, serving over 260 stations,
around 16,000 staff and vast engineering assets.
·
Dr. Samuel Langley was able to get many model airplanes to fly, but on
December 8, 1903, Langley's "human carrying flying machine", the
aerodrome plunged into the Potomac River near Washington D.C., in front of
photographers who were assembled to witness the event. Reporters around the
country made fun of the idea that people could fly and nine days later, Wilbur
and Orville Wright proved them wrong.
·
In the year 1886, Herman Hollerith had the idea of using punched cards
to keep and transport information, a technology used up to the late 1970's.
This device was constructed to allow the 1890 census to be tabulated. In 1896
the Tabulating Machine Company was founded by Hollerith. Twenty-eight years
later, in 1924, after several take-overs the company became known as
International Business Machines (IBM).
·
Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is
because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would
climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was
holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs.
Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could
never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the
devil.
·
In Japan, Western Electric first sold equipment in 1890, then in 1899
helped form the Nippon Electric Company (NEC). This was Japan's first joint
venture with an American firm.
·
Northern Telecom, Alcatel N.V. and NEC all had roots in Western
Electric.
·
In 1953, Sony Corporation obtained a transistor license from Western
Electric Co. that led to its development of the world's first commercially
successful transistor radio.
·
Just like today's computers, early telephones were very confusing to new
users. Some became so frustrated with the new technology, they attacked the
phone with an ax or ripped it out of the wall.
·
In the early 1880's some well-to-do telephone owners started the unusual
trend of paying to have a theatre employee hold a telephone receiver backstage,
transmitting live plays and operas into their living rooms.
·
The famous emergency hotline, whereby the President could have immediate
contact with the Kremlin wasn't established until 1984. Prior to 1984, the only
direct contact to the Kremlin was a cumbersome teleprinter link, supplying text
messages that then had to be translated, responses drafted and sent back.
·
William Bourne, a British mathematician, drew plans for a submarine in
1578. But it was only in 1620 that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor,
managed to build a submarine. He wrapped a wooden rowboat tightly in
waterproofed leather and had air tubes with floats to the surface to provide
oxygen. Of course, there were no engines yet, so the oars went through the hull
at leather gaskets. He took the first trip with 12 oarsmen in the Thames River.
·
It has been determined that less than one patented invention in a
hundred makes any money for the inventor.
·
It was Swiss chemist Jacques Edwin Brandenberger who invented
cellophane, back in 1908.
·
James J. Ritty, owner of a tavern in Dayton, Ohio, invented the cash
register in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits.
·
The monkey wrench is named after its inventor, a London blacksmith named
Charles Moncke.
·
The pop top can was invented in Kettering, Ohio by Ermal Fraze.
·
George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four years
later, George sold the rights for $200,000.
·
You could milk about six cows per hour by hand, but with modern
machinery, you can milk up to 100 cows per hour.
·
Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie
Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in Alameda,
California.
·
Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks.
·
Bryan J. Patrie, a Stanford graduate student invented the Watercolor
Intelligent Nightlight, which informs bleary-eyed midnight bathroom-goers
whether the toilet seat is up or down... without turning on a blinding light.
Patrie introduced the device in the early 1990's. He explained, "When you
get within five feet of the dark commode, it will sense your motion. It looks
to see if the room is dark. Then it looks upward by sending out an infrared
beam. If it gets a reflection, it knows the seat is up. If it is, the red light
comes on."
·
On the first neon sign, the word neon was spelled out in red by Dr.
Perley G. Nutting, 15 years before neon signs became widely used commercially.
·
Out of the 11 original patents made by Nikola Tessla, for the generation
of hydroelectric energy, 9 are still in use, (unchanged) today.
·
The first umbrella factory in the U.S. was founded in 1928 in Baltimore,
Maryland.
·
In the early 1950's, Denver architect Temple H. Buell, often called the
Father of the Mall, conceived of and built one of the first shopping malls in
the U.S.: the Cherry Creek Mall.
·
Month after month, the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth. No
salaries were paid in full. Often, for weeks, they were not paid at all. In
Watson's notebook there are such entries during this period as "Lent Bell
fifty cents," "Lent Hubbard twenty cents," "Bought one
bottle beer—too bad can't have beer every day."
·
When Bell's patent was sixteen months old, there were 778 telephones in
use.
·
The first "Hello" badge used to identify guests and hosts at conventions,
parties, etc. was traced back to September 1880. It was on that date that the
first Telephone Operators Convention was held at Niagara Falls and the
"Hello" badge was created for that event.
·
The first underground and underwater rail system in the world, the
New York City Subway, began operating in 1904. Almost 8,000 men
participated in building the 21-mile (33.6 km) route. The project's
chief engineer was William Barclay Parsons.
·
An Englishman invented Scotland's national dress - the kilt. It
was developed from the philamore - a massive piece of tartan worn with a
belt and draped over the shoulder - by English industrialist Thomas
Rawlinson who ran a foundry at Lochaber, Scotland in the early 1700s
and thought a detachable garment would make life more comfortable
for his workers.
·
It is recorded that the Babylonians were making soap around 2800
B.C. and that it was known to the Phoenicians around 600 B.C. These
early references to soap and soap making were for the use of soap
in the cleaning of textile fibers such as wool and cotton in preparation
for weaving into cloth.
·
Disc Jockey Alan Freed popularized the term "Rock and
Roll."
·
The patent number of the telephone is 174465.
·
George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
·
The Roman civilization invented the arch.
·
King Gilette spent 8 years trying to invent and introduce his
safety razor.
·
The Super Ball® was born in 1965, and it became America's most popular
plaything that year. By Christmas time, only six months after it was introduced
by Wham-O, 7 million balls had been sold at 98 cents apiece. Norman Stingley, a
California chemist, invented the bouncing gray ball. In his spare time, he had
compressed a synthetic rubber material under 3,500 pounds of pressure per
square inch, and eventually created the remarkable ball. It had a resiliency of
92 percent, about three times that of a tennis ball, and could bounce for long
periods. It was reported that presidential aide McGeorge Bundy had five dozen
Super Balls® shipped to the White House for the amusement of staffers.
·
At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit
scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an
oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100
degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to
him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale.
·
At a jet plane's speed of 1,000 km (620mi) per hour, the length of the
plane becomes one atom shorter than its original length.
·
Western Electric successfully brought sound to motion pictures and
introduced systems of mobile communications which culminated in the cellular
telephone.
·
On December 23, 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J.,
held a secret demonstration of the transistor which marked the foundation of
modern electronics.
·
Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel
automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899.
·
Dr. John Gorrie of Appalachicola, Florida, invented mechanical
refrigeration in 1851. He patented his device on May 6, 1851. There is a statue
which honors this "Father of Modern Day Air Conditioning" in the
Statuary Hall of the Capitol building in Washington, DC.
·
Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson.
·
In 1889, the first coin-operated telephone, patented by Hartford,
Connecticut inventor William Gray, was installed in the Hartford Bank. Soon,
"pay phones" were installed in stores, hotels, saloons, and
restaurants, and their use soared. Local calls using a coin-operated phone in
the U.S. cost only 5 cents everywhere until 1951.
·
The first commercial vacuum cleaner was so large it was mounted on a
wagon. People threw parties in their homes so guests could watch the new device
do its job.
·
The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515.
· Lazy Susans are named after Thomas Edison's daughter. He
invented it to impress a gathering of industrialists and inventors.
·
Cyano-acrylate glues (super glue) were invented by accident. The
researcher was trying to make optical materials, and would test their
properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them.
When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the prisms apart.
·
A machine has been invented that can read printed English books aloud to
the blind, and it can do so at speed half again as fast as normal speech.
·
The single blade window cleaning squeegee was invented in 1936 by Ettore
Sceccone and is still the most common form of commercial window cleaning today.
·
Roulette was invented by the great French mathematician and philosopher
Blaise Pascal. It was a by product of his experiments with perpetual motion.
·
The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf.
·
The hypodermic needle was invented in 1853. It was initially used for
giving injections of morphine as a painkiller. Physicians mistakenly believed
that morphine would not be addictive if it by-passed the digestive tract.
·
Thomas Edison’s first major invention was the quadruplex telegraph.
Unlike other telegraphs at the time, it could send four messages at the same
time over one wire.
·
Inventor Gail Borden, Jr. invented condensed milk in the 1850's.
·
After his death in 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless
telegraph was honored by broadcasters worldwide as they let the airwaves fall
silent for two minutes in his memory.
·
In the year 1886, Herman Hollerith had the idea of using punched cards
to keep and transport information, a technology used up to the late 1970's.
This device was constructed to allow the 1890 census to be tabulated. In 1896
the Tabulating Machine Company was founded by Hollerith. Twenty-eight years
later, in 1924, after several take-overs the company became known as
International Business Machines (IBM).
·
At the turn of the century, most light bulbs were hand-blown, and the
cost of one was equivalent to half a day's pay for the average U.S. worker.
·
Camel's-hair brushes are not made of camel's hair. They were invented by
a man named Mr. Camel.
·
Western Electric invented the loudspeaker which was initially called
"loud-speaking telephone."
·
Phone service was established at the White House one year after its
invention. President Rutherford B. Hayes was the first to have phone service
(1877-81).
·
Fifteen years after its invention in 1876, there were five million
phones in America. Fifteen years after its invention, more than 33 million
wireless phones were in the U.S.
·
According to U.S. law, a patent may not be granted on a useless
invention, on a method of doing business, on mere printed matter, or on a
device or machine that will not operate. Even if an invention is novel or new,
a patent may not be obtained if the invention would have been obvious to a
person having ordinary skill in the same area at the time of the invention.
·
According to Dennis Changon, spokesman for the International Civil
Aviation Organization in Montreal, Canada - if all of the commercial planes in
the world were grounded at the same time there wouldn't be space to park them
all at gates.
·
In 1931, an industrialist named Robert Ilg built a half-size replica of
the Leaning Tower of Pisa outside Chicago and lived in it for several years.
The tower is still there.
·
The first manager of the Seattle Space Needle, Hoge Sullivan, was
acrophobic - fearful of heights. The 605 foot tall Space Needle is fastened to
its foundation with 72 bolts, each 30 feet long. The Space Needle sways approximately
1 inch for every 10 mph of wind. It was built to withstand a wind velocity of
200 miles-per-hour.
·
The first revolving restaurant, The Top of the Needle, was located at
the 500-foot level of the 605-foot-high steel-and-glass tower at the Century 21
Exposition in Seattle, Washington. It contained 260 seats and revolved 360
degrees in an hour.
·
The state-of-the-art restaurant was dedicated on May 22, 1961.
·
Henry Waterman, of New York, invented the elevator in 1850. He intended
it to transport barrels of flour.
·
John Greenwood, of New York invented the dental drill in 1790.
·
The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn, of New York, in 1860.
·
Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson,
who was from New York.
· Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio
in 1952, in New York.
·
Four wheel roller skates were invented by James L. Plimpton in 1863.
·
The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were,
"Mary had a little lamb."
·
In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie Jacquard
invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk
loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards.
·
As an advertising gimmick, Carl Meyer, nephew of lunch meat mogul Oscar
Meyer, invented the company's "Wienermobile". On July 18, 1936, the
first Oscar Mayer "Wienermobile" rolled out of General Body Company's
factory in Chicago. The Wienermobile still tours the U.S. today.
·
Germany holds the title for most independent inventors to apply for
patents.
·
George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, hated having his picture
taken.
·
Because Napoleon believed that armies marched on their stomachs, he offered
a prize in 1795 for a practical way of preserving food. The prize was won by a
French inventor, Nicholas Appert. What he devised was canning. It was the
beginning of the canned food industry of today.
·
Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel
automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899.
·
Joseph Priestly is credited with discovering oxygen, ammonia, carbon
monoxide, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide, and nitrous oxide. He was also
the first to isolate chlorine.
·
Joseph Swan invented the light bulb in 1879, one year before Thomas
Edison did. However, Swan didn't patent the idea and was widely accused of
copying Edison who did patent the idea and was therefore recognized as its
inventor. Swan continued to be denied recognition until some time later when it
was shown that both light bulbs were produced using different processes. Edison
and Swan later formed a joint company using the best of both technologies.
·
Miller Reese of New York, patented the first hearing-aid.Unlike the
hearing aids that we know today - this original was not portable. Electrical
hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R.Hutchinson.
·
John Greenwood invented the dental drill in 1790.
·
The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn in 1860.
·
Four wheel roller skates - James L. Plimpton in 1863.
