Inventions

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.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing

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.

Bubble gum contains rubber.

The world's largest coffee pot is located in Davidson,

Saskatchewan. It measures 24 Feet(7.3 Meters) tall, is made of

sheet metal and could hold 150,000 8 ounce cups of coffee.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt invented and wore garments made

with thin threads of beaten gold. Some fabrics had up to 500 gold

threads per one inch of cloth.

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.

Miller Reese of New York, patented the first hearing-aid.

Unlike the hearing aids that we know today - this original was

not portable.

The first razor with disposable blades was patented by King Camp

Gillette.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Bullet-proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers,

and laser printers were all invented by women.

Kotex was first manufactured as bandages, during WWI.

The parachute was invented by da Vinci in 1515.

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola,

apple, and chocolate.

Henry Waterman invented the elevator in 1850. He intended

it to transport barrels of flour.

John Greenwood invented the dental drill in 1790.

The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn in 1860.

Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R.

Hutchinson.

Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio in 1952.

Four wheel roller skates - James L. Plimpton in 1863.

Henry Ford, of Model T. fame operated a sawmill in the early

1900s. Hating waste, he wondered what he could do with a growing

pile of scrap wood. He came up with the idea of converting the

wood into charcoal powder and compressing it into the now

familiar briquet shape. A relative of Ford's, E.G. Kingsford,

collaborator on the project.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar

tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

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.