A period of time where people depended on a candle flame as a means of a portable device to help see in the dark came to an end with the invention of the flashlight. However, the invention of the flashlight did not occur until later in the 19th century because it depended on the inventions [...]

John Hetrick’s invention was the first prototype of today’s modern air bags and derived from an accident on a Sunday afternoon drive. In the spring of 1952, Hetrick, his wife and daughter went for a car ride in their 1948 Chrysler Windsor.  The car veered into a ditch on the side of the road to [...]

The space race may have ended, but its legacy will live on in a number of everyday products.
NASA may not have invented Tang, but the legendary agency did contribute to the development of many other products we consumers use every day.  Memory foam, safety grooving and enriched baby formula were all NASA influenced.
Memory Foam -
In [...]

The history of popcorn making and corn popping machines have seen much improvement. Advancements have allowed us to efficiently pop our favorite snack just in time for that movie. In the past, many methods had been executed to pop corn as a treat. One simple way was placing kernels over a fire on a hot [...]

One of the most famous design patents ever was issued to Auguste Bartholdi. He received US Patent D11,023 on February 18, 1879 for the Design of a Statue of Liberty Enlightening The World. The patent covered the sale of small replica statues which helped raise money to build the statue which now lives in New [...]

One of the greatest life saving inventions ever made was the EKG. To this day, variations of the original EKG machine help to discover heart disease and prevent heart attacks. An EKG machine picks up electrical pulses from the heart and records them in wave tracings. These waves help physicians diagnose cardiac abnormalities. The development [...]

People attempted for decades to design a properly functioning sewing machine. There were many machines designed and patented which simply did not work. Then in 1830, Barthelemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, developed a successful model. This machine caused fear and outrage among tailors in France. Afraid that they would lose their livelihoods to this [...]

The first passenger elevator was designed for France’s King Louis XV for his personal chambers in Versailles in 1743. Called the “Flying Chair” the elevator only went one floor, connecting the king’s chambers to his mistresses’ on the second floor of the palace. The king entered his elevator through his balcony and a arrangement of [...]

You can add the microwave oven to the list of products invented by accident. Dr. Percy Spencer was not trying to invent a faster way to cook when he discovered the principal behind the microwave oven. Instead, Spencer was working for the Raytheon Corporation testing a new type of vacuum tube known as a magnetron. [...]

On Sunday, April 3, Google celebrated the anniversary of the first ice cream sundae with one of its famous Google Doodles. But the invention of the sundae celebrated by Google is only one of the stories about how the ice cream treat came to exist. For years, there has been an ongoing debate about how [...]