96 Fun Facts About Inventions

Who is widely credited with developing the movable type printing press in Europe during the 15th century?

Johannes Gutenberg printed his famous Bible, but his financier Johann Fust sued him over the loans and the court handed Fust the workshop.

Which inventor is most associated with the practical incandescent light bulb of the late 19th century?

Thomas Edison's bulb had a British rival in Joseph Swan's, and in 1883 their competing companies merged into one, nicknamed 'Ediswan'.

Who was granted the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876?

Alexander Graham Bell's patent was granted on March 7, 1876, before his telephone had carried clear speech; that came three days later.

Who is credited with inventing the first successful gasoline-powered automobile in 1886?

Karl Benz's Motorwagen got its big break in 1888, when his wife Bertha drove it 106 km to Pforzheim without telling him, winning the firm its first sales.

Which aviation pioneers made the first controlled powered airplane flight?

The Wright brothers tossed a coin to pick the pilot; Wilbur won but stalled on his try, so Orville made the historic 120-foot flight in December 1903.

Who developed the first successful polio vaccine in the 1950s?

Jonas Salk's vaccine was declared safe and effective in April 1955, and he never patented it or earned money from it, wanting it spread as widely as possible.

Who is credited with the discovery of penicillin in 1928?

Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin's antibacterial properties from a mold contamination in his lab in 1928, ushering in the age of antibiotics.

Who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989?

Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at CERN, developed the World Wide Web in 1989 to facilitate information sharing among scientists.

Which 1946 machine was the first general-purpose electronic computer?

ENIAC was built because the U.S. Army needed its artillery firing tables computed faster.

Which 1947 invention revolutionized electronics by enabling the miniaturization of circuits?

The transistor was built in 1947 by a team hunting a solid-state replacement for vacuum tubes.

Who sent the first transatlantic radio signal, from Cornwall to Newfoundland, in 1901?

Guglielmo Marconi said he heard the letter S through an earpiece on a kite-held antenna, but historians still question whether he really caught the signal.

Which broadcaster launched the world's first regular 'high-definition' television service in 1936?

The BBC alternated two rival television systems, John Logie Baird's 240-line one and an electronic 405-line one, then dropped Baird's in early 1937.

Whose 1839 photographic process produced one-off images on silvered copper plates?

Louis Daguerre's process was bought by the French state and given 'free to the world' on 19 August 1839, yet his agent had patented it in England days earlier.

What 1793 Eli Whitney invention transformed crop production in the American South?

The cotton gin made cotton so profitable that demand for land and enslaved workers soared, spreading slavery rather than shrinking it.

Which toy did engineer Richard James invent after knocking a spring off a shelf?

Slinky: the spring 'walked' down instead of just falling, and his wife Betty chose the name after leafing through a dictionary.

Whitcomb Judson's 1893 'clasp locker' for shoes was an early form of which fastener?

Zipper: Judson's clasp locker was unreliable and drew little notice, and only Gideon Sundback's later redesign made the fastener catch on.

Who is widely recognized for inventing the modern ballpoint pen, patented in 1938?

László Bíró saw that newspaper ink dried fast without smudging, but it was too thick for a fountain pen, so he gave his pen a rolling ball tip.

The Post-it Note was invented in the 1970s by scientists at which company?

3M chemist Spencer Silver was trying to make a very strong adhesive in 1968 and got a weak, reusable one; in 1974 Art Fry used it to anchor bookmarks in his hymn book.

What kitchen appliance did radar engineer Percy Spencer invent in the 1940s?

Microwave oven: Spencer found by chance in 1945 that radar microwaves could heat food, yet Raytheon paid him just a $2 token for the patent.

Who discovered X-rays in 1895?

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen called them X-rays because the rays were unknown, and he refused to patent the discovery so everyone could benefit.

Which explosive did the man whose will created the Nobel Prizes patent in 1867?

Dynamite made nitroglycerin safer by mixing it with kieselguhr earth, three years after a nitroglycerin blast in Stockholm killed Alfred Nobel's younger brother Emil.

Who invented the first true electric battery, a stack of zinc and copper discs, in 1800?

Alessandro Volta built his pile to prove Luigi Galvani wrong: the current came from different metals in contact, not from 'animal electricity' in living tissue.

Elisha Otis showed off his safety brake for which machine by having its hoisting rope cut while he stood aboard?

Elevator: at New York's Crystal Palace in 1854 the platform held after the cable was cut, and trust in safe elevators made skyscrapers practical.

Which company did microchip pioneer Robert Noyce co-found with Gordon Moore in 1968?

Intel: Noyce and Moore left Fairchild Semiconductor to start it, and because Noyce died in 1990, he could not share Jack Kilby's 2000 Nobel Prize for the chip.

Which insulin pioneer gave half his 1923 Nobel Prize money to Charles Best, who had been left out?

Frederick Banting shared the prize with lab head John Macleod, and Macleod answered by splitting his own share with James Collip, who had purified the extract.

Who is credited with inventing the first practical mercury thermometer in 1714?

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit's mercury thermometers beat the alcohol ones of his day, and he fixed 0 °F with a freezing mix of ice, water and salt.

Which execution method did a Buffalo dentist dream up in 1881, hoping it would be more humane than hanging?

Electric chair: its first use, on William Kemmler in 1890, left him alive after the first jolt, and the New York Times called it 'far worse than hanging.'

Which fibre did DuPont chemist Stephanie Kwolek discover while seeking a light, strong material for tyres?

Kevlar: her solution was thin and cloudy, unlike normal polymer solutions, but she got a technician to spin it, and the fibre now goes into bulletproof vests.

Which invention, patented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1952, revolutionized checkout?

Barcode: Bernard Silver overheard a supermarket boss asking a Drexel dean for a faster way to check out groceries, and he and Woodland set out to build one.

Which machine did Barthélemy Thimonnier see destroyed when a mob stormed his Paris uniform factory?

Sewing machine: the rioters feared his machines would cost them their jobs, and Thimonnier later died in poverty in 1857.

Which gunmaker agreed in 1873 to manufacture Christopher Latham Sholes' typewriter?

Remington: the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer went on sale in 1874 with an early QWERTY layout, said to have been arranged to stop typebars jamming.

Which American inventor largely developed the electric telegraph in the 1830s and 1840s?

Samuel Morse got the idea for his telegraph from a shipboard conversation about electromagnetism on his 1832 voyage home from Europe.

Which physicist and engineer is often credited with co-inventing radar in 1930s Britain?

Robert Watson-Watt was asked whether radio waves could make a 'death ray' against aircraft; his team showed that was impossible but that radio could detect planes.

Which famous sinking prompted Reginald Fessenden to build an early sonar device?

Titanic: Fessenden's oscillator could pick up an iceberg's echo about two miles away, a forerunner of the sonar navies later aimed at submarines.

Which invention did physicist Theodore Maiman first get working in 1960 by flashing light into a ruby crystal?

Laser: Physical Review Letters rejected Maiman's report, so his breakthrough appeared in Nature instead, in August 1960.

Which satellite's radio signal, tracked in 1957, gave physicists the idea for satellite navigation?

Sputnik 1: physicists used its Doppler shift to work out its orbit, then turned the math around to locate a receiver on Earth, the idea behind Transit, a forerunner of GPS.

Which medical device did Swedish surgeons first implant fully inside a patient in 1958?

Pacemaker: the first one failed within hours, yet patient Arne Larsson went on to receive 26 pacemakers and died in 2001, outliving both the inventor and the surgeon.

Which anesthetic did dentist William Morton first demonstrate publicly at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846?

Ether: Morton tried to disguise it as 'Letheon' and patented it, but doctors soon learned it was plain ether, and he spent years fighting for credit.

Which chemist invented the first fully synthetic plastic, a phenol-formaldehyde resin, in 1907?

Leo Baekeland had already sold his Velox photo paper to George Eastman's Kodak, and the sale let him set up the home lab where he made Bakelite.

Which DuPont material did chemist Roy Plunkett find when a gas cylinder seemed empty but still weighed the same?

Teflon: the gas had turned into a slippery white solid inside, and the new plastic's first big job was coating valves and seals for the Manhattan Project.

Which toy company began selling 'Automatic Binding Bricks' in 1949?

Lego: its Automatic Binding Bricks were based on Hilary Page's British Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, and in 1981 Lego paid for the rights to that design.

The Rubik's Cube, a popular puzzle toy, was invented by an architect from which country?

Hungary: Ernő Rubik built the first cube in 1974, twisted it, and then needed long trial and error to solve the puzzle he had invented.

Burrs stuck to his dog's fur after a hunting trip inspired George de Mestral to invent which fastener?

Velcro: under a microscope de Mestral saw the burrs' tiny hooks catching loops of fabric, and he named his copy from the French velours and crochet.

Which adhesive did Harry Coover's team first reject in 1942 because it stuck to everything it touched?

Super Glue: Coover saw its value when he returned to it in 1951, and in the Vietnam War a spray version slowed bleeding in wounded soldiers.

Which instrument did Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli invent by standing a mercury-filled glass tube upside down in a dish?

Barometer: pumps couldn't lift water higher than about 10 metres, and mercury, far denser than water, let Torricelli show air pressure in a short tube.

Who invented the first practical safety razor with disposable blades in the early 20th century?

King C. Gillette took his cue from William Painter's throwaway bottle caps: a cheap, thin blade that customers would discard when dull and keep buying.

Which packaging did Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes invent while trying to make a 3D plastic wallpaper?

Bubble wrap found its calling when IBM began shipping its new 1401 computers to customers wrapped in the material.

Which children's modelling toy was first made in 1930s Cincinnati as a cleaner for wiping coal soot off wallpaper?

Play-Doh became a toy after nursery school teacher Kay Zufall read that the cleaning putty worked for art projects, and her brother-in-law's soap firm began selling it to Cincinnati schools.

Which frozen treat did 11-year-old Frank Epperson invent by leaving a soft drink mix on his porch overnight?

The Popsicle began when the drink froze around its stirring stick on a freezing night in 1905. Epperson waited until 1923 to sell the pops, and first called his patented treat the Epsicle.

Which technology standard is named after a 10th-century king who united the tribes of Denmark?

Bluetooth was only a codename, suggested by an Intel engineer after a colleague told him tales from a novel about Vikings. Its logo merges the runes for the initials of King Harald.

Which Wham-O toy takes its name from a Connecticut pie maker that supplied Yale University?

The Frisbee owes its name to the Frisbie Pie Company, whose empty tins Yale students tossed around campus. Wham-O adopted the nickname in 1957 for a disc first sold as the Pluto Platter.

Which American Founding Father invented bifocals and the lightning rod but never patented any of his inventions?

Benjamin Franklin gave his ideas away on principle, writing that people who benefit from the inventions of others should be glad to share their own freely.

Which explosive did Chinese alchemists of the Tang dynasty likely stumble upon while seeking an elixir of life?

Gunpowder's first confirmed formula dates to 808, and a later Daoist text warned that the mixture had scorched experimenters' hands and faces and even burned down a house.

Which Hollywood star co-invented a frequency-hopping radio system in World War II to guide Allied torpedoes?

Hedy Lamarr patented the idea in 1942 with composer George Antheil, but similar technology only entered service in 1962, three years after their patent had expired.

Which apparatus did gymnast George Nissen build in 1934 after watching circus trapeze artists rebound off their nets?

The trampoline got its name in Mexico, where Nissen heard the Spanish word trampolín and borrowed it. In World War II it trained pilots to orient themselves in mid-air.

Which San Francisco merchant financed tailor Jacob Davis's 1873 patent for work pants strengthened with copper rivets?

Levi Strauss supplied the cloth and the money. Davis, a Reno tailor, came up with the rivets while making tough pants for a woodcutter, and is credited with inventing jeans.

Which medical instrument did René Laennec, a skilled carver of wooden flutes, invent at a Paris hospital in 1816?

The stethoscope started as a quire of sheets rolled into a tube, which Laennec held to a young woman's chest because pressing his ear there was thought improper.

Which car part did Mary Anderson patent in 1903 after watching a New York streetcar driver struggle to see in snow?

The windshield wiper earned Anderson nothing: buyers saw no commercial value in it, and her patent expired in 1920, shortly before Cadillac made wipers standard.

Which Renaissance painter filled notebooks with designs for an aerial screw flying machine and an armoured vehicle?

Leonardo da Vinci also designed a parachute and a giant crossbow, and when a 2003 British documentary built his machines, some of them worked.

Which soft drink did wounded Confederate veteran and pharmacist John Pemberton develop in Georgia in 1886?

Coca-Cola began as a non-alcoholic version of Pemberton's coca wine, forced on him by local temperance laws. He sold off his rights to the drink shortly before his death in 1888.

Which invention carried a sheep, a duck and a rooster into the sky above Versailles in 1783?

The Montgolfiers' hot air balloon flew animals first, although King Louis XVI had proposed sending up two convicted criminals. All three animals survived, so human flights followed.

Which leatherworking tool blinded three-year-old Louis Braille as he played in his father's harness workshop?

An awl slipped as he tried to punch holes in leather and stabbed him in the eye. By fifteen he had reworked an army captain's dot code into the reading system named after him.

Which camera brand did George Eastman launch in 1888, selling it loaded with enough roll film for 100 exposures?

Kodak was a made-up word: Eastman liked the letter K, calling it strong and incisive, and devised the name with his mother using an Anagrams set.

Which kitchen appliance did Josephine Cochrane build in an Illinois shed and show off at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair?

The dishwasher was born after Cochrane's heirloom dishes were chipped in the washing-up following a dinner party. Her company later became part of KitchenAid.

Which inventor of the AC induction motor is honoured in the name of the SI unit of magnetic flux density?

Nikola Tesla licensed his AC motor patents to Westinghouse in 1888, and they became the cornerstone of the power system that still feeds homes today.

Which writing material is Han dynasty court official Cai Lun traditionally credited with inventing around 105 AD?

Paper existed in cruder forms before Cai Lun. His breakthrough was pulping tree bark, hemp waste, old rags and fishnets, which let it be made on a large scale and spread worldwide.

Which daughter of the poet Lord Byron wrote what is often called the first published computer program?

Ada Lovelace's program, a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers, was written for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a machine that was never actually built.

Which fastener did mechanic Walter Hunt patent in 1849, then sell for $400 to settle a $15 debt to a draftsman?

The safety pin made others millions of dollars, while Hunt, who sold most of his patents cheaply with no royalties, never became wealthy.

Which baked treat did Ruth Wakefield create in the 1930s at the Toll House Inn she ran in Massachusetts?

The chocolate chip cookie earned Wakefield just $1 from Nestlé for the recipe rights, plus a lifetime supply of baking chocolate. The tale that she invented it by accident is a myth.

Which French chemist worked out in the 1860s that gently heating wine stops it souring, a method later applied to milk?

Louis Pasteur devised the method during an 1864 summer holiday in Arbois, and it was many years before the treatment was used on milk rather than wine and beer.

Which vehicle traces its origins to Karl Drais's 1817 'running machine', which riders pushed along with their feet?

The bicycle's ancestor, nicknamed the dandy horse, had two wheels in line but no pedals. Drais wanted transport that did not rely on horses, and it could double walking speed.

Which disease did Edward Jenner protect a boy against in 1796 using pus from a milkmaid's blistered hands?

Smallpox gave us the word vaccine, from the Latin for cow: Jenner's protective pus came from cowpox, which milkmaid Sarah Nelmes had caught from a cow called Blossom.

Which kind of message did Ray Tomlinson first send in 1971 between two ARPANET computers standing side by side?

The first email was so forgettable that Tomlinson forgot what it said, guessing a random string like QWERTYUIOP. His lasting choice was the @ sign, picked to split user from host.

Which fairground ride was built for Chicago's 1893 world's fair as a showpiece to rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris?

The Ferris wheel stood 264 feet tall, and its 36 cars, each holding up to 60 people, could carry 2,160 riders at once. It was demolished in 1906.

Which inventor discovered vulcanized rubber over a hot stove in 1839, decades before a tire company took his name?

Charles Goodyear never owned the tire firm: Frank Seiberling founded it in 1898, 38 years after Goodyear died owing his creditors far more than his patent had earned.

Which modern comfort did Willis Carrier first design in 1902 for a Brooklyn printing firm rather than for people?

Air conditioning was invented for paper, not people: summer humidity made the printer's sheets swell and shrink between colour passes, spoiling the images.

Which Greek thinker from Syracuse is traditionally credited with inventing a screw-shaped pump for raising water?

Archimedes' screw is still at work in wastewater treatment plants and, run in reverse, as a small hydroelectric generator. Some scholars think he found Egyptians already using it.

Which pointing device did Douglas Engelbart demonstrate in 1968 at a presentation later dubbed The Mother of All Demos?

The mouse was likely named for its shape and size, with the trailing cord as its tail. Engelbart and Bill English had built the first prototype in 1964.

Which instrument did Bartolomeo Cristofori invent around 1700 while serving as keeper of instruments to a Medici prince?

Piano is short for an Italian phrase meaning harpsichord with soft and loud: unlike the harpsichord, it let players vary the volume by how hard they struck the keys.

Which instrument was patented in 1846 by a Belgian maker from Dinant who gave it his own surname?

The saxophone made Adolphe Sax famous but not rich: rival makers fought his patents in court for over 20 years, and he was driven into bankruptcy three times.

Which German engineer vanished from a steamer bound for England in 1913, leaving an engine that carries his name?

Rudolf Diesel retired to his cabin on the SS Dresden and was never seen alive again. His bed had not been slept in, and a pilot boat's crew came upon a body ten days later.

Which painkiller did Bayer chemists first produce in a pure, stable form in 1897, building on a willow bark remedy?

Aspirin has ancient roots: willow bark, which contains its natural precursor salicin, has been used as a remedy for at least 2,400 years.

Which camera brand grew from Edwin Land's young daughter asking why she could not see a photo he had just taken?

Polaroid put its instant camera on sale in 1948, delivering a finished picture in a minute or less. Land had the idea within an hour of three-year-old Jennifer's question.

Which English scientist built the first working reflecting telescope in 1668, with a mirror instead of a main lens?

Isaac Newton's mirror design avoids the colour fringing that lenses produce, and it is simple enough that amateur telescope makers still favour it.

Which Cornish-born chemist designed an 1815 miners' lamp whose fine wire gauze stopped the flame igniting firedamp gas?

Humphry Davy's gauze lets air in to feed the flame, but its holes are too fine for the flame to pass back out and set off gas in the mine.

Which brand name stuck to the vacuum flask after Scottish scientist James Dewar declined to patent his 1892 invention?

Thermos was the name chosen by two German glassblowers, who turned Dewar's unpatented laboratory flask into a household product in 1904 and claimed the trademark.

Which technology traces back to an 1843 patent by Scottish clockmaker Alexander Bain, decades before the telephone?

The fax began as Bain's 'Electric Printing Telegraph'. By 1846 he could reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments, 30 years before anyone made a phone call.

Which everyday item did English chemist John Walker invent around 1826 but decline to patent, to benefit the public?

The friction match earned Walker little: once Michael Faraday's lectures had publicised it, rivals copied and improved his unpatented sticks so fast that he stopped making them by 1830.

Which alloy did Sheffield's Harry Brearley develop in 1913 while seeking a longer-lasting metal for gun barrels?

Stainless steel found its real market in the kitchen: Brearley, raised in a city of cutlers, tested it against vinegar and lemon juice and saw it could put an end to rusty knives.

Which French mathematician began building a mechanical calculator at 18 to ease his father's work as a tax supervisor?

Blaise Pascal went through 50 prototypes before unveiling his machine, the Pascaline, in 1645 and dedicating it to the chancellor of France.

Joseph Marie Jacquard's 1804 chain of punched cards, an inspiration to Charles Babbage, controlled which machine?

A weaving loom fitted with Jacquard's cards could turn out complex brocades and damasks. Babbage owned a silk portrait of Jacquard woven this way, and borrowed the cards for his own engine.

Which invention did John Joseph Merlin debut at a London party, playing the violin until he crashed into a mirror?

Roller skates made a painful debut at a Soho masquerade: Merlin, a clockmaker who used balls and masquerades to promote himself, broke the mirror and his violin and was quite badly hurt.

Which farm machine did Jethro Tull, the agriculturist whose name a rock band later borrowed, develop in 1701?

The seed drill sowed in neat rows at the right depth and covered the seed over, replacing the old practice of scattering seed across the soil by hand.

Which sweetener did chemist Constantin Fahlberg discover in 1879 after noticing a sweet taste on his hand one evening?

Saccharin made Fahlberg wealthy after he patented it on his own, angering Ira Remsen, the Johns Hopkins professor in whose coal tar laboratory he had been working.

Which colour of dye did 18-year-old William Perkin stumble on while trying to synthesise the malaria drug quinine?

Mauve appeared when Perkin rinsed a failed black residue from his flask with alcohol. Cheaper than natural purples, it became such a craze that humourists joked about the mauve measles.

Which drink did Joseph Priestley invent by accident in 1767 after hanging a bowl over a beer vat at a Leeds brewery?

Soda water made Priestley no money, but it launched the soft drink industry: Johann Jacob Schweppe founded Schweppes in 1783 to sell it bottled.