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Inventors/Inventions
RELATED LINKS:
Contrary to popular belief, very few of the great modern inventions
have been the result of a sudden inspiration, by which they sprung full-fledged from their creator's brain. Instead,
they evolved by slow and gradual steps so that, often, the end product has been almost imperceptible.
PAGE CONTENTS: The TV Dinner
Miscellaneous "Stuff" Inventing Inventions Some Inventions Are Just Disappointing Postage Stamps The First
Dot Com Johann Gutenberg, The Man
Behind All Your Books First Jigsaw Puzzles The First Bicycle Alexander Graham Bell The
Telephone
Eyeglasses
The TV Dinner
The
invention of the TV dinner has been attributed to at least three different sources, primarily Gerry Thomas, the Swanson Brothers,
and Maxson Food Systems, Inc.
In 1945, Maxson Food Systems, Inc. manufactured “Strato-Plates” –
complete meals that were reheated on the plane for military and civilian airplane passengers. The meals consisted of a basic
three-part equation of meat, vegetable and potato, each housed in its own separate compartment on a plastic plate.
In 1949, Albert and Meyer Bernstein organized Frozen Dinners, Inc., which packaged frozen dinners on aluminum trays
with three compartments. By 1950, the company had produced over 400,000 frozen dinners.
In 1952, the Bernstein brothers formed the Quaker State Food Corporation and expanded
distribution to markets east of the Mississippi. By 1954, Quaker State Foods had produced and sold over 2,500,000 frozen dinners.
Swanson’s frozen meals appeared in 1954. Swanson was a well-known brand that consumers recognized, and Swanson
launched a massive advertising campaign for their product. They also coined the phrase TV Dinner, which helped to transform
their frozen meals into a cultural icon.
Until
recently, the most widely credited individual inventor of the TV dinner was Gerry Thomas, a salesman for C.A. Swanson &
Son in 1953. However, Betty Cronin, a bacteriologist who was working for the Swanson brothers at that time, asserts that it
was the Swanson brothers themselves, Gilbert and Clarke Swanson, who came up with the concept of the TV dinner.
Copyright 2009 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved. Feel free to forward this, in its entirety, to others.
Miscellaneous "Stuff"
The driver's test was invented in France. In 1893, drivers of all self-propelled vehicles had to undergo an exam that included driving
ability and vehicle repair.
Donald F. Duncan, the man who made the yo-yo an American tradition, is also credited
with popularizing the parking meter and introducing Good Humor "ice cream on a stick."
Joseph Priestley, the English chemist, invented carbonated water. It was a by-product of his
investigations into the chemistry of air.
The first BB gun was invented in 1886.
Made for children, it frightened many parents because it was an actual working gun that could cause serious injury. The BB
gun was a descendant of the cap gun, which was invented soon after the U.S. Civil War. The
BB gun uses compressed air produced by a spring-operated plunger.
The first FAX machine was patented in 1843,
33 years before Alexander Graham Bell allegedly demonstrated the telephone.
The guillotine was originally called a louisette. Named for Antoine Louis, the French surgeon who invented it. It became
known as the guillotine for Joseph Ignace Guillotin, the French physician who advocated it as a more merciful means of execution
than the noose or ax. The first globe was made by famous German
map-maker, Martin Behaim in 1492.
| The Chinese philosopher Chang Hêng invented the earliest known seismoscope (also called a seismograph and used
for earthquake detection) in 132 A.D.
|
Bill Gates formed a company to sell a computerized traffic counting system to cities, which
made $20,000 its first year. Business droppedsharply when customers learned Gates was only 14 years old.
Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, invented the first alarm clock in 1787. It only rang
at 4 a.m. because that's what time he got up.
The monkey wrench is named after its inventor, a London blacksmithnamed Charles Moncke.
William Lear, the found of LearJet, invented the car radio and the 8-track tape player.
Ferdinand Porsche, who later went on to build sports cars bearing hisown name,
designed the original 1936 Volkswagen.
James J. Ritty, owner of a tavern in Dayton, Ohio, invented the cash register in 1879 to stop his patrons
from pilfering house profits.
Stainless Steel was first invented in 1913 by Harry Brearley in England.
Traffic lights with red and green gas lights were first introduced in London in 1868. Unfortunately, they
exploded and killed a policeman. The first successful system was
installed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914.
It was Swiss chemist Jacques Edwin Brandenberger who invented cellophane,
back in 1908.
In 1945, Percy Spencer discovered that when popcorn was placed under
microwave energy, it popped. This led to many experiments with other foods, and ultimately, the birth of the microwave oven.
The tin can was invented by Peter Durand in 1810.
The modern can opener was not invented until 1856. Before the can opener,
people used a chisel and hammer to open cans.
The hypodermic needle was invented in 1853. It was initially used for giving
injections of morphine as a painkiller. Physicians mistakenly believed that morphine would not be addictive if it by-passed
the digestive tract.
The wristwatch was invented by Patek Philippe
at the end of the 19th century.
American Sylvester Howard Roper (1823-1896) invented a two-cylinder, steam-engine motorcycle (powered by coal) in 1867.
This can be considered the first motorcycle, if you allow your description of a motorcycle to include a steam engine.
Joseph C. Gayetty of New York City invented toilet paper in 1857.
After Marion Donovan was inundated by the wild success of her invention
of waterproof diaper covers in 1946, she was surprised when her prototype for disposal paper diapers was met with disinterest
and ridicule. She journeyed to all the major U.S. paper companies, and was laughed at for proposing such an "unnecessary and
impractical" item to replace cotton diapers. After nearly ten years of pitching her revolutionary idea, Victor Mills had the
foresight to capitalize on it, and he became the creator of Pampers.
Albert T. Marshall patented a household refrigerator on August 8, 1899.
A small grocer in Minnesota, Walter H. Deubner was looking for a way to
give his business a boost. Noticing that purchases were limited by what his customers could conveniently carry, he set about
devising a way to help them buy more purchases at one time. Four years later he'd seemed to strike upon the right solution:
a paper bag with cord running through it for strength, inexpensive, easy to use and strong enough to carry up to seventy-five
pounds worth of groceries. Deubner named his new product after himself, calling it the "Deubner Shopping Bag," and sold it
for five cents. Deubner patented his product and within three years, by 1915, was selling over a million shopping bags a year.
The first modern brassiere, made from two silk handkerchiefs and some pink
ribbon, was patented in 1913 by the New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob. (Source: Quizland)
The US record for the greatest number of patented inventions is 1,093.
The record is held by Thomas Alva Edison. Thomas Edison - inventor, was deaf from the age of 12.
In 1899, the first police car was used in Akron, Ohio. Police cars became
the basis of police transportation in the 20th century.
Sylvan N. Goldman of Humpty Dumpty Stores and Standard Food Markets developed
the shopping cart so that people could buy more in a single visit to the grocery store. He unveiled his creation in Oklahoma
City on June 4, 1937.
Hibbing, Minnesota, lays claim to being the birthplace of the American
bus industry. It sprang from the business acumen of Carl Wickman and Andrew "Bus Andy" Anderson - who opened the first bus
line (with one bus) between the towns of Hibbing and Alice in 1914. The bus line grew to become Greyhound Lines, Inc.
As World War I raged through Europe in 1917, Ed Cox of San Francisco invented
a pre-soaped pad with which to clean pots. His wife named it S.O.S., which, as the story goes, stood for "Save Our Saucepans."
Upon arriving at his workplace one morning in 1903, Albert J. Parkhouse
found that all of hooks provided for hanging hats and coats were in use. Annoyed and inspired, Parkhouse picked up a piece
of wire, bent it into two large oblong hoops opposite each other, and twisted both ends at the center into a hook. Then he
hung up his coat and went to work. The company, which specialized in making lampshade frames and other wire items, apparently
thought it was a good idea, taking out a patent on it. The company made a fortune and Parkhouse never got a penny.
James J. Ritty, owner of a tavern in Dayton, Ohio, invented the cash register
in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never phoned his
wife or his mother, who were both deaf.
Incan soldiers invented the process of freeze-drying food. The process
was primitive but effective -- potatoes would be left outside to freeze overnight, then thawed and stomped on to remove excess
water.
Inventing Inventions
Sometimes great historical moments just don't turn out as dramatic as the participants
might have wished. So when they are later asked to offer an inspiring "you-were-there" story to the world, more than a few
witnesses to history have given in to the understandable temptation to exaggerate.
One of the most famous of these embellishments, still believed by many, concerns
Alexander Graham Bell's first successful telephone call. As the popular version of the story goes, on Friday, March 10, 1876,
Bell sent his assistant, Thomas Watson, into a neighboring room to test his latest attempt to transmit the sound of the human
voice through a machine over electric wires.
According to Watson's autobiography (published a half-century later), Bell accidentally
spilled a beaker of sulfuric acid on his pants and cried out in alarm, "Mr. Watson! Come here! I want you!" Watson dutifully
came to Bell's aid, providing dramatic proof that Bell had built the first telephone. But as James MacKay notes in his biography
of Bell, the truth of what happened that day was a good deal less exciting.
According to the detailed notes Bell wrote at the time, no acid was spilled. Instead,
Bell had calmly and deliberately shouted into the mouthpiece, "Mr. Watson. Come here. I want to see you." Of course, the substance
of the story was the same. Watson came and excitedly told Bell he had heard his voice perfectly on the receiving end of the
telephone.
Later in life, though, Watson apparently felt that the invention of the world-changing
telephone deserved a more dramatic story. Ever since, countless books and movies have repeated Watson's harmless invention
of the spilled acid and Bell's shocked cry for help.
SOME INVENTIONS ARE JUST DISAPPOINTING
by Melvin Durai
Every now and then, a great invention comes along that
transforms the world and makes our lives easier, if not better. The plane, invented a century ago, gave people the freedom
to travel anywhere in the world, meet all kinds of foreigners, and, if necessary, drop bombs on them. It also created the
need for large airports, where thousands of passengers could stand in line, waiting for their next flight to be cancelled.
The television, invented some 80 years ago, allowed people to invite
a variety of guests into their homes, guests who would inform and entertain them, but unlike real guests, would never expect
any food. Some of these guests would even wrestle each other, saving people the trouble of visiting the zoo.
The Internet, invented more recently, gave people the ability to chat
with strangers around the world, visit thousands of interesting websites and download pictures of actors and models, while
pretending to be working. Yes, thanks to the Net, millions of people with no athletic skill whatsoever have managed to become
professional surfers. And not all of them work for the government.
It's no wonder people get excited when they hear rumors of another
great invention. They can't help imagining how it might improve their lives: "Perhaps it will allow me to drive my car while
taking a nap. Perhaps it will allow my mother to send me delicious food by email. Perhaps it will allow my cat to operate
the lawn mower and my dog to do the dishes."
Such wonderment was rampant in recent months with the news that Dean
Kamen, a prominent inventor with more than 150 patents, had created something called "Ginger," expected to be more revolutionary
than the World Wide Web. Even I was excited. "More revolutionary than the Web?" I asked. "Oh my goodness. What has this great
inventor created? Has he helped mankind everywhere by inventing a machine that will warn us, in a reliable way, about any
nearby occurrence of PMS? If so, I want to be the first to own it. And if I can't afford it, I want to be the first to steal
it. It could be the greatest invention in history, even greater than the nose-hair trimmer."
With the PMS-Detector, I would know when to keep my mouth shut, when
to get out of the way, when to hide under the bed. I'd finally feel safe.
But unfortunately Kamen's invention isn't that revolutionary. Though
he has revealed little about it, Inside magazine apparently did enough investigating to conclude that "Ginger" - also known
as "IT" - is nothing more than a hydrogen-powered scooter. What a disappointment, especially to Americans, who couldn't care
less about scooters, whether they're hydrogen-powered or hyena-powered.
Scooters are just too small to get Americans excited. The average American
has gained 30 pounds in the last few decades and is now large enough to EAT several scooters. And what about all those Americans
who don't want to be just average?
Americans, in general, do not like to be bigger than their mode of
transportation. That's why Oprah rarely travels by bus.
Most Americans prefer vehicles that are big enough to haul not just
their entire families, but also several sumo wrestlers. Just in case they go to Japan.
Never mind that a scooter would be more fuel-efficient. If it can't
haul a fat foreigner, what's the use?
So maybe Dean Kamen needs to go back to the drawing board. If he's
intent on inventing something that's hydrogen-powered, I'd be willing to invest all my money -- every last penny -- in a hydrogen-powered
PMS-Detector.
Even if I had to make all the hydrogen myself.
Postage Stamps
The earliest adhesive postage stamps in the world were the "Penny Blacks"
of the United Kingdom, bearing the head of Queen Victoria, placed on sale on May 1 for use on May 6, 1840.
Mint stamps are stamps that remain in their original state of issue,
unused and with full gum.
Since 1847, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington have appeared
on more stamps than any other Americans.
The first United States stamps were issued in 1847. One featured a picture
of Benjamin Franklin and cost five cents. The other featured a picture of George Washington and cost ten cents.
The
first post office was established in 1639 at the home of Richard Fairbanks in Boston, Massachusetts. The first building created
to serve as a post office was built in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1683.
The person receiving a letter paid the
delivery costs. Since rates at the time were very high, many people refused to accept a letter. Thus, the post office often
suffered the cost of both delivery and return of the letter.
The word "philatelist" means a person who practices philately or stamp
collecting.
Unknown copyright and/or author. Used without permission, but with the best of intentions.
Philatelists (postage stamp collectors) describe prepaid postage tokens dating as far back as 1653. These included printed
paper letter wrappers, special "postal paper" endorsed with ink stamps, and even black feathers embedded in wax seals, but
none of these early tokens were adhesive paper stamps.
The first known adhesive paper stamps were printed in Greece in 1831, but they were probably not used for prepaid postage.
These 40-lepta denominated stamps may have been charity receipts for a fund supporting Greek refugees from Crete, although
some collectors believe they were postage due labels
The earliest documented, prepaid adhesive postage stamps were England's "Penny Black" stamps, designed by Rowland Hill
and brought into service in 1840. Millions were printed and used, and many are in collections today. Within three years, similar
adhesive stamps were used in Brazil, and soon they were in use worldwide.
More about the first adhesive postage stamp:
Great Britain was the world's first country to issue adhesive stamps. There are collectors all over the world who want
at least one copy of the Penny Black simply because it is the world's first stamp.
The Penny Black and Penny Post were the brain child of Sir Rowland Hill often called the father of modern post office.
The introduction of Penny posts revolutionized the letter service making it possible to send a letter anywhere in Britain
for a pre-paid postage. In 1837 Sir Rowland Hill, a school master, published a pamphlet entitled "Post Office Reform: Its
Importance and Practicability". In this he claimed that the true cost of delivering a letter from London to Edinburgh was
only about 1/36 of a Penny. If the post office charged one penny postage on every letter, more people would write letters
and the post office would make more profit. Helped by wide spread public support Hill eventually persuaded the post office
to adopt his plan.
Until Rowland Hill introduced his reform the postage on a letter was usually paid by the person who received it, not
by the person who posted it .The postman had the task of collecting the postage when he delivered the mail. Hill proposed
that letters be prepaid either in cash at the post office or by prepaid letter sheets and envelopes and almost as an afterthought
"a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamps showing that tax had been paid and covered at the back with a glutinous
wash which the bringer of the letter might by applying a little moisture attach to the back".
There was initially much reluctance for such a proposal as postage rates were rather high. During the early part of the
19th century postal charges rose rapidly and by the year 1814 a letter cost four pence for a distance of seven miles. Over
seven miles and under fifteen miles the charges were six pence. At that time a labourer's wage was four pence a day. Further,
members of parliament were entitled to free postage, which was much misused.
However as the public support for Rowland Hill's suggestions grew, he was appointed to the Treasury on 16th September
1839 to begin work on postal changes. First reform was the introduction of uniform Penny Postage on 5th December 1839, which
was reduced to one Penny on 9th January 1840.
The Treasury invited the public to submit suggestions for the design of the gummed labels which Hill proposed that the
Post Office should issue at one Penny each.
More than 2600 suggestions were submitted but only 49 related to adhesive stamps. One suggestion from Benjamin Cheverton
of Casinden Town answered the fears of Treasury officials that unscrupulous printer might may be able to forge the labels
and so defraud the Post Office. Cheverton suggested that the labels should bear "a female head of great beauty" because a
portrait would be more difficult for forgers to copy than any other design. Awards for innovative suggestions were made to
Benjamin Cheverton, Henry Cole, Charles Whiting, James Bogardus and Francis Coffin.
It was Rowland Hill's own suggestion which was developed into the finished design. It was the profile of Queen Victoria,
based on a portrait made when she was an eighteen old princess. It was also used on a medal designed by William Wyon, which
was struck for the occasion of Queen's first official entrance into the city of London in 1837.
Perkins Bacon & Petch Co, London who had been given the contract to print the adhesive stamp, commissioned the artist
Henry Corbould to make a number of profile drawing of the young Queen based on the Wyon medal. Charles and Frederick Health,
father and son, engraved the Queen's portrait for the production of the plate which contained 240 impressions.
The Penny Black, the first ever adhesive postage stamp was issued on 1st May 1840 though it became valid for postage
on 6th may 1840. Usages before this date is known (see image below). It was issued in sheets of 240 (rows of 12). It had a
water mark of a small crown, and was black in color. These stamps were not perforated and had to be cut and sold. The ink
used for the printing consisted of lamp black in linseed oil. The gum was applied hot with brushes. Whose color varied and
in some sheets were almost colorless. Total plates used were eleven (Nos 1 to 11). About 72 Million stamps were issued and
remained valid for usage till 1841.
A special postmark was also introduced to cancel the stamps. Popularly known as the Maltese cross it is more correctly
a cross 'pattee'. It was to begin with, in black. But since it was difficult to see a black postmark on a black stamp the
color was changed to red in 1841.
It was a matter of concern that there was a possibility that the cancellation might be removed from the used adhesive
stamp. Many experiments were made to produce a black ink which could not be removed. On 21st July 1840 Rowland Hill wrote
that one ''Mr Donovan, a chemist of Dublin had succeeded in removing not only the black but also the red color of the obliterating
stamps. Eventually the solution was to change the color of the stamp, from black to red on 21st January 1841. 10,000 sheets
of the Penny red were printed and issued to the public a month later.
Of the 72 million copies of Penny Black which were sold, only 16800 were from plate II, which comes to just 700 sheets.
These are the rarest of the Penny Black. Over ten million copies were printed from plate la / 1b. Yet even a medium poor copy
of a plate 1 stamp is expensive. Strips of Penny Black are scarce and blocks very scarce.
Forged Penny Blacks first appeared in 1840, which are crude counterfeits made from a wood engraving. An electrotyped
forgery was discovered in March 1841, which led to the first prosecution and conviction for stamp forgery.
Hill's stamp system was eventually adopted in some form by every country starting with Brazil in 1843. It revolutionized
the postal system in the world. As a bonus it also kicked off the world's most popular hobby philately.
References:
1. The Penny Black :BB Paymaster. Mar-Apr 1990, pp 47.
2. The Penny Black :Suresh Kumar Jain. The
North Post. Jul-Dec 1990, pp 12-14.
3. Stamps :CW Hill. Grenada Publishing, pp 8-10.
4. The Penny Black : Edit PGI.
Jan-Feb 1990, pp 20.
Unknown copyright and/or author. Used without permission, but with the best of intentions.
The First Dot Com
by Jennifer Rosenberg
Half a century ago, no one in the world would have had a personal
computer of their own and most would not even have been able to describe a computer to you. Now, in the 21st century, we live
in a world filled with dot-somethings. We have .com extensions on website addresses for companies and .edu extensions for
schools. We have URL extensions for nearly every country (such as .ls for Lesotho) and newer extensions such as .nom for personal
websites and .travel for travel-related websites.
Surrounded by dot extensions, have you ever stopped to wonder what website was
the very first to be a dot-com? That honor was claimed on March 15, 1985, when Symbolics.com registered their domain name.
© 2007 IAC Search & Media. All rights reserved.
Johann Gutenberg
The Man Behind All Your Books
Johann Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was born around
1398, in the German town of Mainz. We don't know much about his early life, but we can assume that his well-bred parents gave
him a proper education. He inherited some money, but not enough to live on. So he worked as a goldsmith and looked for that
one big idea that would make him rich. He found it in the pages of the Bible.
At the time, books were copied by hand. The process was
expensive, prone to error, and very slow. Gutenberg's idea was to build a device to print books quickly. "Block printing,"
in which an entire page is carved into a block of wood, had been used in Europe and East Asia for centuries, but it was labor-intensive.
Movable type had been devised in Asia, but complex Asian character systems made it unwieldy.
Gutenberg made a movable type system that was both cheap
and practical. His type was cast from metal, using a process he invented that allowed for mass production of letters. These
could be arranged in a tray and painted with special oil-based ink (also devised by Gutenberg) before a sheet of paper was
laid across them. A modified wine press then squeezed letters and paper together. Presto: a printed page! After, the trays
of type could be disassembled and reused.
Gutenberg was an inventor in constant need of venture capital.
Developing his system involved a lot of tinkering, and the materials weren't free. In 1450, he took on a partner--Johann Fust,
a wealthy financier who invested a hefty sum in his era's coolest communications technology. With Fust's backing, Gutenberg
went into print.
Printing with Gutenberg's press was faster, cheaper, and
more accurate than copying by hand. Nowhere was such accuracy more important than in the Bible business, where a simple scribal
error might change the word of God. So Gutenberg set out to print his own Bible. Completed in 1455, the Gutenberg Bible was
a work of art. The 40 copies that still survive are cherished museum pieces.
Fust, however, was not a museum curator. He was a businessman
who expected a return on his investment. And Gutenberg never paid the interest on his loans. Eventually, Fust sued, and Gutenberg
was ordered to pay back the money his partner had lent him, plus compound interest. He didn't have the money, so he handed
over the printing press and the type for the Gutenberg Bible.
Gutenberg worked as a printer until his death in 1468.
Fust set up shop with Peter Schöffer--a Gutenberg assistant turned Fust son-in-law. In 1457, Fust and Schöffer became the
first printers to put their names on a printed book, using pages that Gutenberg had composed. For centuries, they, not Gutenberg,
were celebrated as the founders of modern printing, until historians finally figured things out.
By 1500, there were printshops throughout Europe. Mass
printing sped the spread of new ideas. It vastly increased literacy, helped power the Protestant Reformation, and provided
part of the foundation on which the Scientific Revolution flourished.
Gutenberg's press didn't make him a rich new media mogul.
But it did change the world.
Mark Diller
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
First Jigsaw Puzzles
When were the first jigsaw puzzles made?
Jigsaw puzzles were first made to teach geography in England in the late
18th century. They were called "dissected maps," and were made by drawing a map on a sheet of wood and sawing it into irregular
pieces with a saw.
Later, different kinds of pictures were made into puzzles, with topics
like history, alphabets, botany, and zoology.
Jigsaw puzzles reached a peak of popularity in the 1860's in Great Britain
and the USA. During the Great Depression, their relative cheapness made them popular again as gifts.
More about the history of jigsaw puzzles:
The History of the Picture Puzzle
Fitting Pieces
of the Past Together
The first picture puzzle as we know it was created by
enterprising London mapmaker and engraver John Spilsbury, sometime between 1760 and 1762. By mounting one of his maps on thin
mahogany and cutting out the pieces with a fret saw, he made the first 'dissected map to facilitate the teaching of geography.'
Spilsbury's creation was an immediate success, and by 1770 a
number of other mapmakers and printers were producing dissected maps & pictures.* Costing as much as one
pound sterling each (the equivalent of a tradesman's weekly wages at the time), these early dissected maps & pictures
were primarily purchased by upper class parents who wanted their children to benefit from the latest teaching tools. To
further enhance their educational value, some of these dissected maps & pictures were also accompanied by printed
descriptions or stories.
Popular subjects included chronological tables of Kings &
Queens, books of the Bible, scenes of town and country life, illustrations from popular books, alphabets, military TM historical
scenes and, of course, maps. In 1775, the London partnership of Robert Sayer and John Bennet offered dissected examples
of 63 different maps. A listing in their catalog states: 'Any of the foregoing Maps may be dissected on Boards, for
the use of such as are Learners of Geography; whereby they may readily learn the Situation of every Kingdom, State, or Division.
Price 7s 6d each, in neat Boxes.'
By the mid-1780s humorous prints had become very popular subjects
for dissected pictures. And in 1790 board games were being presented in this manner, to be assembled before being played.
One of the most popular of these, titled: ' The New Game of Human Life,' was published jointly by John Wallis and Elizabeth
Newbery (of children's book fame) on July 14th, 1790. Shortly thereafter it was being marketed in the form of a boxed dissected puzzle game.
* The term jig-saw puzzle did not come into use until about 1870, when a pattern 'Jig'was used
for cutting the pieces into uniform shapes for mass produced puzzles.
Of a Singular Quality
Unlike today's mass produced cardboard die-cut puzzles, the 18th
century originals had an individual look of quality and durability. Manufacturers used fine woods such as mahogany, oak, walnut
and cedar for both the dissected maps & pictures and their boxes. The vast majority of boxes were assembled with
mitered corners and sliding lids, but examples of John Spilsbury's surviving boxes all had dovetailed comers. Sometimes, splint
or 'chip' boxes were also used in order to offer the dissected maps & pictures to a wider audience at a lower price.
Each map or print was hand-tinted with watercolors; pasted onto
thin wood; then hand-cut with a fine fret saw. And since these dissected maps & pictures were primarily used for
educational purposes, there was no real reason to cut them into intricate shapes. Usually only the edge pieces were interlocked
to save time in the hand-cutting process; although examples do exist where there arc no interlocking pieces, such as John
Spilsbury's early dissected maps.
The Missing Pieces
of History
The first American-made puzzles of this type appeared in Philadelphia
around 1830, and are attributed to Thomas Ash. Up to that time, all commercially produced dissected maps and pictures were
imported--most of them coming from England and Germany, and a small number from France and Holland.
It has been estimated that of all the different types of dissected
maps & picture puzzles advertised between 1820 and 1850, examples of only about 15% of them are known to exist in
museums or private collections today. With the early examples from 1762 up to the second decade of the 19th century, even
fewer are extant.
Examples are also known to exist of maps and prints that were
purchased by individuals, mounted on board and dissected. How many different ones were ever done is lost to history,
but you could envision the great variety of possibilities by perusing the catalog of a print seller and map maker of the period.
In
addition to the element of time itself, various natural disasters and two world wars have also taken their toll on the number
of dissected maps & pictures which had still survived childhood until then.
The First Bicycle In 1817 Baron von Drais invented a walking machine that would help him get around
the royal gardens faster: two same-size in-line wheels, the front one steerable, mounted in a frame which you straddled. The
device was propelled by pushing your feet against the ground, thus rolling yourself and the device forward in a sort of gliding
walk. Made entirely of wood, the machine became known as the Draisienne or hobbyhorse. They enjoyed a short lived popularity
as a fad, not being particularly practical for transportation.
In 1870 the first all metal bicycle appeared, although the pedals were simply attached directly to the front wheel
with no freewheeling mechanism. Solid rubber tires and the long spokes of the large front wheel provided a much smoother ride
than its predecessor did. The front wheels became larger and larger as makers realized that the larger the wheel, the farther
you could travel with one rotation of the pedals. However, because the rider sat so high above the center of gravity, if the
front wheel was stopped suddenly, the entire apparatus rotated forward on its front axle, and the rider was dropped unceremoniously
on his head. Thus the term "taking a header" came into being.
With metal that was now strong enough to make a fine chain and sprocket small and light enough for a human being
to power, bicycle design returned to the original configuration of two same-size wheels, only now, instead of just one wheel
circumference for every pedal turn, you could, through the gear ratios, have a speed the same as the huge high-wheel.
Early chain-powered bicycles still had the hard rubber tires,
however, and in the absence of the long, shock-absorbing spokes, the ride they provided was much more uncomfortable than any
of the high-wheel designs. Consequently, many of these bicycles of 100 years ago had front and/or rear suspensions. Further
comfort was achieved when the pneumatic tire was first applied to the bicycle by an Irish veterinarian who was trying to give
his young son a more comfortable ride on his tricycle.
It's been said that the bicycle was what made the Gay
Nineties gay. Ladies, heretofore consigned to riding the heavy adult size tricycles that were only practical for taking a
turn around the park, now could ride a much more versatile machine and still keep their legs covered with long skirts. The
bicycle craze killed the bustle and the corset, instituted "common-sense dressing" for women and increased their
mobility considerably. In 1896 Susan B. Anthony said that "the bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than
anything else in the world." Unknown author and/or copyright. Used without permission, but with the best
of intentions.
More About Bicycles
As of
2009, there are about a billion bicycles in the world, twice as many as motorcars. Almost 400 million bicycles are in China.
Every year some 50 million bicycles - and 20 million cars - are produced.
Although Leonardo da Vinci drew some rough sketches of a contraption that looked like a bicycle, the Frenchman
De Sivrac built the first bicycle-type vehicle in 1690. It was referred to as a hobbyhorse. However, it did not have pedals.
Those were added in 1840 by a Scottish blacksmith, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, who is credited with inventing the real bicycle.
With the advent of gears, bicycles could move as fast as cars.
The first five-seat bicycle, the quindem, was built in 1940.
The world speed record on a bicycle is held
by John Howard, Olympic Cyclist and Ironman triathlon winner from the US. In 1985 he reached 152.2 mph, cycling in the
slipstream of a specially designed car.
Air-filled tires were used on bicycles before they were used on motorcars. Copyright 2008 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved. Feel free to forward this, in its entirety, to others.
Alexander Graham Bell
Today's telecommunications pioneers may make headlines--and
big bucks--for developing hot new devices. But for all their bucks and buzz, they can't measure up to the biggest telecoms
innovator of all: Alexander Graham Bell, the man who made it possible to give you a ring.
Alexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847.
(He added "Graham" to his name when he was 11, in honor of a family friend.) His father was an expert elocutionist who gained
fame on both sides of the Atlantic for developing "Visible Speech," a system through which deaf people could learn to speak.
His mother was a painter and an accomplished pianist, despite being deaf herself.
Aleck, as the family called him, was the second of three
sons. Though he received little formal education, he graduated from Edinburgh's prestigious Royal High School when he was
14. He had been well schooled at home--especially when it came to speech, the family business.
Bell took a job as a teacher of speech and music at 16,
and he continued his own education by briefly attending both Edinburgh University and University College, London. A few years
later, he stood in for his father in London, running the family business while the elder Bell lectured in America.
The family immigrated to Canada in 1870, after tuberculosis
killed both of Bell's brothers. Two years later, he opened a school for teachers of the deaf in Boston. The year after that,
he was appointed professor of vocal physiology at Boston University.
In Boston, Bell worked with two deaf students, Mabel Hubbard
and George Sanders, whose fathers became his financial backers. (Mabel Hubbard also later became his wife.) With some cash
in hand, Bell was able to pursue some long-standing inventive interests--though he wasn't able to quit his day job. Lab work
waited till after-hours.
Around the same time, he also met a talented mechanic,
Thomas Watson, who worked at an electrical machine shop in Boston. This was no small matter, since--despite his undisputed
brilliance--Bell was something of a klutz. Soon Bell and Watson were working nights on the invention for which both are remembered:
the telephone.
At first they were just trying to build a better telegraph.
Contemporary telegraphic technology allowed for the transmission of only one message at a time. Employing a musical metaphor,
Bell came up with the idea of a "harmonic telegraph" that could transmit multiple messages at once.
Not long after that, he became convinced that it was possible
to transmit human speech over a wire--something he had wondered about for years. On March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office
issued Bell a patent covering "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically." Three
days later, Bell placed history's first phone call. The exact details surrounding that call are a matter of dispute, but the
story goes something like this.
Bell and Watson were working in different rooms when Bell
had a minor accident--possibly the result of his clumsiness. He called out "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you." Watson heard
Bell's call for help loud and clear, not from down the hall, but through the telephone they were constructing. By June, Bell
and Watson were showing off their amazing machine at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
At first, people treated the telephone as a curiosity,
and its inventor as a bit of an eccentric. But before long, Bell's patent on telephone technology became the focus of one
of the largest and longest-running patent fights in U.S. history. Before the dust settled, the patent would have to survive
more than 600 legal challenges, and Bell himself would have to testify in cases across the country.
Bell's patent held up, but he grew weary of defending it.
While businessmen ran the Bell Telephone Company, Bell continued inventing. He came up with a "photophone," which transmitted
speech on a ray of light (and helped lay the groundwork for fiberoptic communications). He created an artificial respirator
that later scientists used in developing the iron lung. And he helped found the National Geographic Society and launch Science
magazine.
Later, hydrofoils and flight fascinated him. He was even
part of the team that built and flew the first heavier-than-air craft in Canada. "There cannot be mental atrophy," Bell said,
"in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys
about things." He died in 1922.
Steve Sampson
KnowledgeNews is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent
small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright © 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Telephone
Credit for inventing the electric telephone remains in dispute. There
were several inventors who did pioneer experimental work on voice transmission over a wire and improved on each other's ideas.
Innocenzo Manzetti, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison, among others,
have all been credited with pioneer work on the telephone. The early history of the telephone is a confusing morass of claim
and counterclaim, which was not clarified by the huge mass of lawsuits which hoped to resolve the patent claims of individuals.
The Bell and Edison patents, however, were forensically victorious and commercially decisive.
Early telephones were locally powered -- one of the jobs of outside plant
personnel was to visit each telephone periodically to inspect the battery. During the 20th century, "common battery" operation
came into being, with power transmitted over the same wires that carried the voice signals. Early telephones had one wire
for both transmitting and receiving of audio, with only one opening for sound -- the user had to alternately listen and speak
(rather, shout) into the same hole.
In the 1890s a new smaller style of telephone was introduced. The transmitter
stood on a stand, known as a "candlestick" for its shape. When not in use, the receiver hung on a hook with a switch in it,
known as a "switchhook." Previous telephones required the user to operate a separate switch to connect either the voice or
the bell. With the new kind, the user was less likely to leave the phone "off the hook".
What turned out to be the most popular and longest lasting physical style
of telephone was introduced in the early 20th century, including Bell's Model 102. Thetransmitter and receiver were united
in a single molded plastic handle, which when not in use sat in a cradle in the base unit which housed the coupling transformer,
battery, and ringer. The dial switch in this base unit interrupted the line current by repeatedly but very briefly disconnecting
the line 1-10 times for each digit, and the hook switch (in the center of the circuit diagram) permanently disconnected the
line and the transmitter battery while the handset was on the cradle.
The word telephone was derived from the Greek words tele (meaning "far")
and phone (meaning "voice"). It is one of the most common household appliances in the world today.
Copyright © 2008 ArcaMax Publishing, Inc. and its licensors.
Eyeglasses
Most historians believe monks or craftsmen
in Pisa (or perhaps Venice), Italy produced the first form of eyeglasses around 1285-1289. The magnifying lenses for reading
were set into bone, metal, or leather mountings, shaped like two small magnifying glasses
with the handles riveted together to form an inverted "V" shape that could be balanced on the bridge of the nose.
The first specific mention of eyeglasses
is in a 1289 Italian manuscript written by a member of the di Popozo Family. The author wrote, "I am so debilitated by
age that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no longer be able to read or write."
The first
know artistic representation of the use of eye-glasses were paintings by two Italian artists in 1352. Tommaso da Modena painted
a series of frescoes depicting monks reading and writing manuscripts. One monk holds a magnifying
glass, but another wears spectacles perched on his nose. Pope Leo X (1475-1521), who was very nearsighted,
reportedly wore eyeglasses with concave lenses for hunting and claimed they enabled him to see better than his companions.
It was in the 1600s that Spanish craftsmen created the first eyeglass frame temples.
They attached ribbons of silk or strings to the frame and looped them over the wearer's ears. Spanish and Italian missionaries
brought the new types of eyeglasses to China, and the Chinese attached small metal weights to the strings instead of making
loops.
In 1800, the monocle (first called an eye ring) is introduced in England. Monocles remained popular
in Europe among men in society's upper class throughout the 1800s.
Copyright 2009 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved. Feel free to forward this, in its entirety, to others.
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