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The stories behind everyday inventions, Part iii

Inventorsdigest.com has a great section on fun facts about inventions.  I’ve copied some of the stories below:

  • After Parker Brothers executives turned down the game of Monopoly because it had “52 fundamental errors” (including taking too long to play), a copy of the game wound up in the home of the company president who stayed up until 1 a.m. to finish playing it. He was so impressed by the game that the next day he wrote to inventor Charles Darrow and offered to buy it!
  • The first rickshaw was invented in 1869 by an American Baptist minister, the Rev. E. Jonathan Scobie, to transport his invalid wife around the streets of Yokohama.
  • To encourage use of his new invention, the shopping cart, market owner Sylvan Goldman hired fake shoppers to push the carts around his store in Oklahoma City. Seems his customers were reluctant to give up their hand-carried baskets.
  • The trademarked name “Baby Ruth” was inspired by President Grover Cleveland’s daughter, Ruth, and not by Babe Ruth.
  • J.B. Dunlop, one inventor of the pneumatic tire, was a veterinary surgeon.
  • Thomas Edison’s patent application on his phonograph was approved by the Patent Office in just seven weeks. In contrast, if took Gordon Gould, the inventor of the laser, 30 years to obtain his patent – finally awarded in 1988!
  • The first Apple computer was born in Steve Jobs’ parents’ garage. College students Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak worked furiously in that garage assembling computers for fellow students and were totally unprepared for their first commercial order for 50 computers. To raise the needed $1300 for parts, Jobs sold his old VW bus and Wozniak sold his Hewlett Packard calculator. The next year – 1977 – Apple sales hit $800,000 and went on to become a Fortune 500 company in a record five years!
  • “Patent leather” got its name because the process of applying the polished black finish to leather was once patented.

You may be interested in reading the following related posts:

  1. the stories behind everyday inventions, part ii
  2. The stories behind everyday inventions, Part I
  3. Take time to smell the shamrocks…and invent
  4. Microsoft Patents Apple – Don’t Believe the Hype
  5. Another Fun Patent



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Posted by Douglas Sorocco, September 14, 2004 at 10:40 am
Permalink: The stories behind everyday inventions, Part iii
1 Comment

Comments

On September 20th, 2004 at 6:13pm Navigating the patent maze said…

Just for fun

In PHOSITA, the guest blogger presented some interesting stories about the inventors and the genesis of a variety of inventions, such as Ivory soap, the TV remote control, and the rickshaw. My favorite is about how the inventor of the