John Gatling was not a man out to promote war and the killing of men with his invention. Instead, Gatling believed that the invention of an automatic weapon would reduce war and the death of soldiers. He thought because the gun would have such a devastating effect on the armies, once seen on the battlefield [...]

The Magic 8-Ball was inspired by fake seances. Mary Carter, a phony fortune teller, created a spirit writing device. Using a slate enclosed in a box, Carter could secretly write and pretend the spirits were communicating with the device. Her son, Alfred Carter, was amazed by the invention but wanted to make a device that [...]

“…The way out is not to slash and burn, it’s to innovate.”
- Steve Jobs
This week we mourn the loss of one of the greatest innovators of our time.
Steve Jobs, founder, long-time CEO, and chief creative genius behind all things Apple passed away Wednesday at age 56.
In his lifetime, Jobs brought us new ways of experiencing [...]

The coat hanger was invented in response to a lack of coat hooks in an office building in Jackson, Michigan in 1903. Albert J. Parkhouse worked for Timberlake Wire and Novelty Company which made lampshade frames and other wire items. One day, he arrived at work to discover that all the coat hooks were [...]

Have you ever wondered how those tiny beads of ice cream that you can buy at the mall and amusement parks are made? Dippin’ Dots are cryogenically frozen ice cream balls made with the same ingredients as regular ice cream. The ice cream treat was invented by microbiologist Curt Jones in 1987.
In 1987, Jones was [...]

Charles Darrow, an unemployed man living in Germantown, Pennsylvania, created the board game Monopoly in the evenings while trying to make ends meet during the day. In the game, all players have the chance to buy and sell real estate. Living during the great depression, this board game gave the hard pressed workers of [...]

Today, paper cups seem like something that of course everyone uses. No one would ever share a cup with a stranger just to have a drink of water. The diseases that could spread this way are apparent to us all. But until the beginning of the 20th century, this was not the case. Everyone drank [...]

Joseph Lister helped make surgery a much safer undertaking. Before Lister’s discovery, surgery was a last resort because of the high rate of post-operative infections. People believe that it was bad air in a hospital that caused infections after surgery. Preventative measures to prevent infections and diseases included airing out a hospital during the day.
Pasteur’s [...]

When Swanson introduced the TV dinner in 1954, it was an instant success. The frozen meal fit in perfectly with the nation’s obsession with prepackaged, convenience foods and a growing love of the television. At a price of 98 cents, the first meal sold was basically a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, cornbread dressing, [...]

As a young adult, struggling to financially support himself through Amherst College by catching and selling frogs to the Bronx Zoo, Clarence Birdseye would later come into a great fortune within the food industry and be named ‘The Father of Frozen Food.’
In 1912, Birdseye went on a fur-trading expedition to the Canadian province of Labrador [...]