50 Fun Facts About Everyday Things

Which packing material was created by two inventors who were trying to make three-dimensional plastic wallpaper?

Bubble wrap flopped on walls, but found its purpose in 1960 when IBM began shipping its new 1401 computers in it.

Which kitchen appliance did Percy Spencer develop after a snack reportedly melted in his pocket near a radar set?

Microwave oven pioneer Percy Spencer went on to test popcorn, and then an egg that exploded in a colleague's face.

Which fastener did George de Mestral devise after burrs clung to his dog's fur on an Alpine hunting trip?

Velcro blends the French words velours and crochet, meaning velvet and hook, after its soft side and its gripping side.

What was the first product ever scanned with a UPC barcode, at a supermarket checkout in Troy, Ohio?

A pack of gum, Wrigley's Juicy Fruit, made history at 8:01 one June morning in 1974, and a facsimile of it went on show at the Smithsonian.

Which technology for linking gadgets is named after Harald, a tenth-century king who united the tribes of Denmark?

Bluetooth was a code name proposed by Intel's Jim Kardach, who meant it to unite communication protocols the way the king united his people.

Which popular fruit counts as a berry in botany, even though strawberries and raspberries do not?

Banana fruits qualify because each grows from a single flower with one ovary, a test that tomatoes, grapes and cucumbers also pass.

Which children's modelling compound was first made in Cincinnati as a cleaner for wiping coal residue off wallpaper?

Play-Doh got its second life in the mid-1950s, when the fading cleaner was reworked and marketed to Cincinnati schools.

Which food gave unwanted bulk email its name, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant menu?

Spam turns up in almost every dish in the sketch, just as junk messages later flooded every corner of early online newsgroups.

Which style of shoe was first worn by Persian cavalrymen to keep their feet secure in the stirrups?

High heels reached Europe with Persian emissaries in the early 17th century, and only later did the trend spread to women's fashion.

Which toy brand's name comes from a Danish phrase meaning 'play well', coined by a carpenter from Billund?

Lego began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, who was making wooden toys years before the first plastic bricks.

Which office product grew from a weak, reusable adhesive that 3M scientist Spencer Silver created by accident?

Post-it Note history turned on a colleague, Arthur Fry, who used the weak glue to anchor a bookmark in his hymn book.

Which mineral, found in a huge deposit at Borrowdale in England, forms the writing core of a pencil?

Graphite was thought to be a form of lead when the deposit was found in the 1500s, which is why pencil cores still carry that metal's name.

Which lunchtime staple is named after an 18th-century English earl said to have eaten it during card games?

Sandwich was the title of John Montagu, the 4th Earl, who is said to have ordered roast beef between toast so he could stay at the gaming table.

Which hard-wearing fabric takes its name from the French city of Nîmes, where it was first produced?

Denim is a contraction of serge de Nîmes, and Levi Strauss was the wholesaler who supplied bolts of it to the tailor Jacob Davis.

Which keyboard layout did newspaper editor Christopher Latham Sholes devise for his typewriter in the early 1870s?

QWERTY is named after the first six keys of its top letter row, and it caught on with the success of the Remington No. 2 typewriter.

Which sweet food, too sugary and acidic for most microbes, has been found still edible after thousands of years?

Honey holds only about 18% water, far less than the 70 to 80% in the nectar that bees collect to make it.

Which day of the week takes its English name from a Roman god rather than a Germanic one like Thor?

Saturday keeps the Roman god Saturn, while Germanic peoples put their own gods, such as Tiw, Woden and Frigg, in place of other Roman deities.

Which word, from an Old French term for a needle, names the hard tip on the end of a shoelace?

Aglet tips stop the fibres of a lace from unravelling, and their firm, narrow shape makes the lace easier to feed through each hole.

Which food was first sold ready-sliced by machine in Chillicothe, Missouri, thanks to inventor Otto Rohwedder?

Bread slicing took Rohwedder years to crack: a fire destroyed his 1912 prototype, and he had no fully working machine until 1928.

Which kitchen appliance did Josephine Cochrane invent and show off at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago?

Dishwasher design sprang from Cochrane's frustration that her servants kept damaging her good china when they washed it by hand.

Which fastener got its everyday name from a brand of galoshes sold by the B.F. Goodrich Company?

Zipper boots could be closed with a single zip of the hand, and the catchy name soon passed from the galoshes to the fastener itself.

Which office item did Norwegians wear on their lapels as a quiet symbol of resistance to German occupation?

Paper clip wearers were getting round a ban on flag pins and on badges showing the cipher of the exiled King Haakon VII.

Which writing tool did Hungarian newspaper editor László Bíró develop after noticing how quickly printing ink dried?

Ballpoint pen ink had to be thick, so Bíró worked with his brother György to develop a viscous ink that a rolling ball could carry onto the paper.

Which nonstick coating did DuPont chemist Roy Plunkett discover by accident while working on a new refrigerant?

Teflon gave itself away when a pressure bottle of gas stopped flowing even though its weight showed it was far from empty.

Which car part did Mary Anderson patent, reportedly after seeing a New York streetcar driver struggle with snow?

Windshield wiper buyers never came for Anderson: firms saw no commercial value, and her patent expired in 1920 before mass production began.

Which car safety feature did Volvo's Nils Bohlin develop, with Volvo then letting rival carmakers use it for free?

Three-point seat belt design followed Bohlin's earlier work on ejection seats at Saab, and he proved its worth with a study of 28,000 Swedish accidents.

Which tissue brand was launched in 1924 as a way to remove cold cream, not to blow noses?

Kleenex grew out of a crepe filter made for gas masks in the First World War, and it was pitched at colds and hay fever only later.

Which household repair staple was developed in World War II on a waterproof cloth backing to seal ammunition cases?

Duct tape spread thanks to ordnance worker Vesta Stoudt, who wrote to President Roosevelt fearing that poor box seals cost soldiers time in battle.

Which medicine-cabinet staple did Earle Dickson devise for his wife, who often cut and burned herself cooking?

Band-Aid prototypes were strips of gauze on a long sticky surgical backing, which let her dress her own wounds without any help.

Which household spray was first developed to protect the outer skin of the Atlas missile from rust?

WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, 40th formula, a name suggesting that its makers needed forty attempts to get the recipe right.

Which frozen treat did Frank Epperson say he made at eleven by leaving a drink and stirring stick out overnight?

Popsicle was not his first choice of name: Epperson patented it as the Epsicle, then renamed it, supposedly at his children's insistence.

Which fairground sweet was co-invented by a dentist, William Morrison, and launched at the 1904 World's Fair?

Cotton candy sold 68,655 boxes at that fair under the name Fairy Floss, a label that Australians still use for it.

Which baked treat is generally credited to Ruth Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts?

Chocolate chip cookie fame spread through a tie-in with Nestlé and through batches sent to American troops in World War II.

Which kitchen item did New York importer Thomas Sullivan popularise around 1908, shipping his in small silk pouches?

Tea bag legend says the idea was an accident: customers were meant to empty the pouches, but brewed with the leaves still inside.

Which popular snack 'nut' is really a legume, with pods that ripen underground rather than on a tree?

Peanut pods form below the soil, a habit so odd for a legume that Linnaeus named the species hypogaea, Greek for under the earth.

Which metal, with the highest melting point of any, forms the glowing filament in an incandescent light bulb?

Tungsten melts only at 3,422 °C, so a filament made of it can glow white-hot at temperatures that would turn other metals liquid.

Which stretchy material got its English name after Joseph Priestley found it was good at erasing pencil marks?

Rubber had been shown to French scientists in 1736 as caoutchouc, a South American name, before its knack for rubbing won out in English.

Which greeting did Alexander Graham Bell use to answer his new telephone, before Thomas Edison's 'hello' caught on?

Ahoy was borrowed from the call used on ships, and Bell said it twice, while Edison proposed hello in a letter in August 1877.

Which month's name comes from the Latin for seven, because the oldest Roman calendar began the year in March?

September was the seventh month in the calendar of Romulus, and it kept the name even after sliding to ninth place.

Which American founding father is generally credited with inventing bifocal glasses by having his lenses cut in half?

Benjamin Franklin, by one account, split his lenses so that he could follow French speakers at court by reading their lips.

Which coin-operated device was first described by Hero of Alexandria, an engineer in 1st-century Roman Egypt?

Vending machine history begins with Hero's dispenser of holy water: a coin fell on a pan, tipping a lever that opened a valve until the coin slid off.

Which kitchen tool arrived decades after the thing it opens, which early buyers attacked with hammer and chisel?

Can opener patents came only in 1855 in England and 1858 in America, though the Dutch had been sealing food in tins since at least 1772.

Which symbol was once taught to children as the 27th letter of the alphabet?

Ampersand is a slurring of 'and per se and', the way pupils ended the alphabet, and the symbol itself began as a scribes' ligature of the Latin word et.

Which word did two Australian researchers coin in 1964 for the earthy scent of rain falling on dry soil?

Petrichor joins the Greek for stone with ichor, the golden fluid said to run in the veins of the gods.

Which nerve, the largest in the body unprotected by muscle or bone, gives the jolt of a knocked 'funny bone'?

Ulnar nerve fibres pass behind a knob of the upper arm bone at the elbow, where a knock sends an electric shock-like feeling down the arm.

Which metal is added to steel to make it stainless, by forming a thin film that heals itself in air?

Chromium makes up at least 10.5% of stainless steel, and the protective film it forms can repair itself whenever it meets oxygen.

Which word, paired with 'jot' in the King James Bible, names the small dot above a lowercase i or j?

Tittle is thought to lie behind the phrase 'to a T', because the saying 'to a tittle' was in use long before the shorter version.

Which word, from the Greek for 'love charm', names the vertical groove between the nose and the upper lip?

Philtrum grooves in most mammals may carry scents from the nose pad into the mouth, but in humans the dip has no apparent function.

What is the name for the dimple in the base of a wine bottle?

Punt dimples have no agreed purpose: one common explanation is that indenting the spot where the glassblower's pontil was attached kept its scar from scratching the table.

Which word names the pale crescent at the base of a fingernail?

Lunula is Latin for 'little moon', and the crescent is not actually white: it only looks that way through the nail, and it shows most clearly on the thumb.