Ten inventions that improved our lives

It’s a tidbit day, lots of littjavascript:void(0)le interesting bits of trivia that you may not know about but have contributed to making this world a better place for all of us.

The Chocolate chip cookie…did you know that when Ruth Wakefield turned her toll house building into a restaurant she ran into difficulty while creating a common chocolate desert for the establishment? She had run out of baker’s chocolate but had Nestlé’s bars on hand in the candy counter. She grabbed a few of these, crumbled them up thinking they would melt and threw them into the dough. Ouila, chocolate chip cookies.

Paper bags…did you know that paper bags first resembled envelopes until Margaret Knight decided the bags should have a square bottom. She figured that with a square bottom more things could be carried in it.

Windshield wiper…how many of us take these simple devices for granted when we need to clean off our windshields? Well Mary Anderson while on vacation in New York took a tram during a storm. The tram driver had to stop frequently to go outside and clean off the snow that accumulated on his windshield. Mary thought this was a complete waste of time and invented the windshield wiper.

The Zipper…went through a few designers before Gideon Sundback increased the number of fasteners on the C-curity device his wife’s father’s company produced. He was distraught after her death and focused exclusively on improving the four per inch hook and eye to eleven per inch facing rows of teeth which later became known as the zipper when B.F. Goodrich decided to put it on their boots. It took twenty years before the fashion industry in the 1930’s used it in children’s clothing and today you can hardly find a piece of clothing that doesn’t have one.

Scissors…I’ll bet you thought these are a modern invention; I know I did but have come to find out that there are examples of scissors dating back to the First Century but becoming more popular in the Fifth. Cross bladed shears were used to cut hair in the barber shops of old. Researchers have found scissors in the shape of male and female figures carved into each blade of bronze apparently complementing each other during the act of cutting. Hmmmmm

Seat Belts…Volvo started use of the first seat belt in 1849 and by the early 1960’s they had introduced the shoulder strap which is standard in all cars sold today.

Candy…The first combinations that ancient man used to attend to his sweet tooth involved the use of honey. Farming bee hives until the advent of sugar in the middle ages was the only way to get that rush unless one ate fruit. During the middle ages only the rich could afford candy made from sugar so the masses had to make do with whatever they could find. It wasn’t until the Seventeenth Century that hard candy became popular and affordable.

Flashlight…Joshua Lionel Cowen invented the flashlight while trying to decorate his potted plants with light. He was the original owner of Eveready but wasn’t interested in the company. He passed it on, along with his design for a tube, light bulb and battery to Conrad Hubert who patented the idea and made millions. Lionel went on to invent toy trains while trying to come up with an idea to light up a display window.

A marshmallow…The root of the marshmallow plant was used in ancient Egypt to cure sore throats. It was mixed with honey originally but in a later Asian version it was mixed with egg whites and made into a lovely meringue. After many reincarnations through the ages our marshmallow’s no longer have any of the original plant included in the ingredients.

Umbrella…We have all seen pictures of native peoples holding large plant fronds over their heads to ward off rain but the idea for an actual umbrella came from wanting to ward off the sun not the rain. All cultures made shading devices but the Chinese were the first to lacquer their paper umbrellas to protect them from the rain. Later in the Eighteen hundreds Samuel Fox invented the steel ribbed umbrella and from there they invented the collapsible one most of us use.

And so these simple items have made huge differences in all our lives but we hardly think about them, today you did.