Harry Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary, to a Jewish family. Houdini began his career as a trapeze artist and was later renowned as a magician and an escape artist. He astonished audiences by escaping from handcuffs, straitjackets, and prison cells.
Houdini also held a patent for a style of diving suit. The innovation was [...]

In 1915, a U.S. Patent No. 1,125,476 was issued to George Claude of Paris for a “System of Illuminating by Luminescent Tubes.” This patent was the basis for the neon sign. Claude, an engineer, chemist and inventor was the first person to create a lamp by applying an electrical discharge to a sealed tube [...]

On October 7, 1952 Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland received US Patent 2,612,994 for “Classifying Apparatus and Method.”
In 1948, Bernard Silver, then a graduate student at Drexel University, overheard a conversation that would eventually lead to the development of the bar code. The president of a local food chain was looking for a system [...]

Sometimes an inventor will make a best selling product completely be accident. The Post It Note is an example of that. In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver invented a repositionable adhesive that was strong enough to stick to surfaces but did not leave any residue. Silver had not set out to produce such a glue. He [...]

Philo Taylor Farnsworth was an American inventor born August 19, 1906. He was best known for inventing the first fully electronic television system, including the first working electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), and for being the first to demonstrate fully electronic television to the public.
Farnsworth’s aptitude with electricity was evident at an early [...]

Abraham Lincoln received patent #6469 on May 22, 1849 for a device to lift boats over shoals. His device was never manufactured but he did become the only president to hold a patent.
Lincoln had considerable experience as a boatman. Once while taking a boatload of merchandise down the Mississippi River, his boat slid into a [...]

The first patent was issued on July 31, 1790 but the Patent #1 was not issued until July 13, 1836. Prior to July 4, 1836, patents [...]