Useless Facts on Inventions in History
In 1875, the director of the United States Patent Office sent in his resignation and advised that his department be closed. There was nothing left to invent, he claimed.
Thomas Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter.
The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Its first creator was a German, Philip Reis, who in 1861 made a primitive sending-receiving transmitter which he called the “telephone.” Tweleve years later Elisha Gray of Chicago completed a short-distance telephone communication. Bell's invention, patented in March, 1876, was distinguished by the fact that it was the first sending-receiving mechanism over which the human voice could be transmitted.
In 1940, a total of ninety-four patents had been taken out on shaving mugs.
Orson S. Fowler, who in the mid-nineteenth century popularized the science of phrenology, was also the inventor of the octagon house, an eight-sided dwelling that enjoyed great popularity in America from the 1840's through the 1860's.
The first plastic ever invented was celluloid, which is still used to make billiard balls. It came into use in 1868, when cellulose nitrate was first combined with natural camphor in a laboratory. At the time it was regarded as a mere curiosity.
The Chinese invented the speedometer. In 1027, Lu Taolung presented the Emperor Jen Chung with a cart that could measure the distances it spanned by means of a mechanism with eight wheels and two moving arms. One arm struck a drum each time a li (about a third of a mile) was covered. Another rang a bell every 10 li.
The rickshaw was invented by an American. The Reverend Jonathan Scobie, a Baptist minister living in Yokohama, Japan, built the first model in 1869 in order to transport his invalid wife through the city streets. Copies were made by the minister's parishioners and soon the rickshaw became a standard mode of transportation in Asia.
The postage stamp was invented by an Englishman named James Chambers in 1834. Before that time envelopes had stamps engraved upon them. They were bulky, however, and Chambers' invention caught on immediately. Postage stamps were introduced to America in 1847.
James Ramsey invented a steam-driven motorboat in 1784. He ran it on the Potomac River, and the event was witnessed by George Washington.
Benjamin Franklin invented crop insurance.
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. It was the invention of several nineteenth-century engineers, paramount among them being two Germans, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. What Ford did was to mass-produce automobiles and provide cheap service for them.
The parachute was invented more than a hundred years before the airplane. It was the creation of a Frenchman, Louis Lenormand, who designed it in 1783 to save people who had to jump from burning buildings. In 1797 Jacques Garnerin gave a public exhibition of parachuting, descending 3,000 feet from the balloon.
Roulette was invented by the great French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It was a by-product of his experiments with perpetual motion.
The parking meter was invented in Oklahoma City. It was the brainstorm of one Carl Magee, whose first model appeared in 1935. Early models look almost exactly like modern ones: few items have changed as little through the years as the parking meter.
Wallpaper was invented in Philadelphia. The inventor was one Plunket Fleeson, who in 1739 stamped designs on paper with woodblocks and painted them in by hand. In August of that year Fleeson advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette the sale of “bed ticks, choice live geese feathers, as well as paper hangings.”
James J. Ritty, owner of a tavern in Dayton, Ohio, invented the cash register in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits.
Joseph Priestley, the English chemist, invented carbonated water. It was a by-product of his investigations into the chemistry of air.
The monkey wrench is named after its inventor, a London blacksmith named Charles Moncke.
Camel's-hair brushes are not made of camel's hair. They were invented by a man named Mr. Camel.