Who invented Kool-Aid?
Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. By experimenting in his mother’s kitchen he came up with a liquid concentrate that he called Fruit Smack. He sold this product in the 1920′s by mail order, but he wanted to reduce shipping costs. In 1927 he managed to do this by developing a way to remove the liquid from this product so that he was left with a powder. He called this product Kool-Aid and it became very popular. Perkins sold Kool-Aid to General Foods in 1953.

Did you know?
Since 1998 the city of Hastings celebrates a summer festival called Kool-Aid Days on the second weekend of August. A popular attraction is the World’s Largest Kool-Aid Stand, where visitors can purchase a mug and have as many refills as they like all day long!

In 1998 the state of Nebraska made Kool-Aid the official soft drink of the state!

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Who invented cotton candy?
We know that cotton candy was first invented in the 19th century, but spinning sugar was an expensive and time consuming process. This all changed when William Morrison and John C. Wharton invented machine spun cotton candy in 1897. This invention made the process of producing cotton candy much easier and introduced the product into the mainstream market. Their invention became a huge success during the 1904 World’s Fair where they sold over 68,000 boxes at a cost of 25 cents, which was quite expensive at the time. The product was initially called fairy floss, but the name was changed to cotton candy in the 1920′s. In the 1970′s an automatic cotton candy machine was invented. This automated the manufacture and packaging of the product, which allowed for mass production.

Did you know?
December 7 is celebrated as National Cotton Candy Day in the United States.

Ironically, William Morrison who was one of the inventors of machine spun cotton candy was a dentist!

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Who Invented the MP3 player?
The first digital audio player was designed by British scientist Kane Kramer in 1979. He called his invention IXI and the prototype device was only capable of playing 3.5 minutes of audio. It never entered commercial production. It did not use the MP3 file format.

The first company to produce a portable MP3 player was Audio Highway. They announced the Listen Up player in 1996 and it was released the next year. Although it won many awards only 25 of these players were produced.

The first mass-produced MP3 player was the MPMan, which was created in 1997 by South Korean company Saehan Information Systems. It was distributed in the North America market by Eiger Labs and rebranded as the Eiger MPMan.

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The Development of SCUBA gear
The two people who are credited with the invention of self-contained diving equipment are Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan. However, before they invented their system much work and development had occurred in the area of diving equipment. Many inventors spent time trying to devise a safe and practical way that people could breathe under the water and withstand the enormous pressure of different water depths.

Many of the early dive suits where not autonomous and required air to be pumped down through a hose to the diver. In 1772 a French inventor named Sieur Freminet invented a rebreathing device. This devise was suppose to recycle the air inside the barrel allowing the diver more time underwater, Unfortunately it was not a very successful invention and Sieur Freminet died from lack of oxygen while using his invention.

The next development in diving gear was in 1825 by an English inventor named William James who created a helmet attached to an iron belt that could hold up to seven minutes of pressurized air. In 1876 another Englishman invented a diving suit that was purposed to be used to repair ship doors that were underwater. Henry Fleuss used his invention for a 30 foot dive and died due to acute oxygen poisoning. This occurred because oxygen that is placed under pressure is poisonous to humans.

In the 1860’s Benoit Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouse worked together to design a diving suit that allowed divers to stay underwater for 30 minutes at a time. It was very large and heavy and it didn’t prove to be very popular.

The first diving equipment to resemble what we recognize today was developed by the Japanese Ohgushi in 1918 and the Frenchmen Maurice Fernez and Yves le Prieur in 1926. Both provided a constant flow of air to the diver rather than supplying air only the diver took a breath. The Fernez-Le Prieur apparatus was mass produced during the 1930s and used by the French navy and by recreational SCUBA diving clubs.

After his own personal use of the Fernez-Le Prieur apparatus, Jacques-Yves Cousteau together with Emile Gagnan worked on inventing a way to regulate the air flow to the diver. In 1943 they invented the modern regulator which is now used in all SCUBA diving equipment after reworking a pressure regulator that Gagnan had developed to run cars on vegetable oil. The regulator was used to send compressed air at the correct pressure to the diver whilst they were under the water. This allowed the pressure of the air to be equal to that of the pressure on the diver’s chest stopping oxygen poisoning. They named their equipment the Aqua-Lung.

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Who Invented the Microscope?
The first type of microscope to be invented was the optical microscope, but it is unclear exactly who was the first to invent this device. It is thought that the first people to use magnifying glasses as a microscope were Dutch spectacle makers Zacharias Janssen and Hans Janssen. It is thought that sometime around 1590 they created a tube like device with a number of glass lens inside. They discovered that multiple glass lenses created greater magnification than single lens. The famous scientist and inventor Galileo heard about their experiments and started work on this own. He added a focusing mechanism to the microscope and it was given the name of microscope in 1625 from Giovanni Faber. At this stage microscope has an upper magnification limit of only 10x.

People’s curiosity continued to grow and much work was done on increasing the magnification. Anthoni Van Leeuwenhoek of Holland was one of these people and he was able to create smaller and more powerful lens that could magnify up to 270x. Using his new and improved microscopes he was able to see things that no other man had seen. He observed yeast, blood cells and tiny microscopic animals in water.

In 1893 sample illumination was developed by August Köhler making lighting more even and led to greater discoveries with the microscope. Sample illumination was improved upon in 1953 by Fritz Zernike and George Nomarski who enabled transparent samples to be illuminated.

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Who invented barbed wire?
As more people spread across the United States the ranchers needed a way to prevent other people from encroaching on their land. The railroads also wanted farmers to find a way to keep animals away from the tracks. This led to a surge of fencing inventions that bear some resemblance to modern barbed wire.

The invention of barbed wire is sometimes credited to Lucien B. Smith, who was awarded a patent for the invention in 1867 and was one of the first to come up with a solution to the above problem. However, there were 6 other patents issued for similar products in the same year and similar products that had already been patented. For example, a similar design was patented in 1860 by Leonce Eugene Grassin-Baledans.

Smith’s design never went into production and the problem remained until 1873 when Joseph Glidden, Jacob Haish, and Isaac L. Ellwood discovered an invention, made of wood and metal spikes made for hanging on a fence wire to deter cattle, at a County Fair in Illinois. The three studied the crude design and thought that the spikes could easily be added to the wire instead. This is where the idea for the first commercially available barbed wire began.

Glidden, Haish, and Ellwood all submitted separate patents, which led to years of legal battles. Glidden won the final legal battle in 1892 and his barbed wire, known as “The Winner,” became the model of the modern barbed wire we know today.

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Who Invented the ZIP Code?
Prior to the use of ZIP codes The U.S Postal Department had implemented postal zones for large cities. These were a simple two digit number that allowed the post to be delivered to the correct post office. This worked for a while, but by the 1960s many towns and cities had become larger and a huge influx of business mail created the need for a more general and standardized system. The Postal Department had considered and discarded a number of postal code systems, but finally decided on a five code system adopted from a three code system developed by Robert Moon.

Robert Moon had developed his system for sorting mail in the 1940’s as a postal inspector in Philadelphia. The three digit code allowed mail to be quickly sorted and distributed to the correct postal office in the Philadelphia area. He submitted this idea to the U.S postal department in 1944, but nothing came of it until much later. Robert Moon is today credited as being the father of the ZIP code.

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Who invented the flash mob?
The flash mob was invented in 2003 by Bill Wasik, who was the senior editor of Harper’s Magazine at the time. His first attempt at organizing a flash mob in a Manhattan store was unsuccessful because they were tipped off about the plan. The first successful flash mob was held on June 3, 2003, at Macy’s department store. This time Wasik avoided a tip off by sending the participants to staging areas where they received their final instructions. About 130 people made their way to the rug department of the Macy’s department store where they approached a sales assistant to enquire about a “love rug” for the group.

The following video is an example of a flash mob performing at the Central Station in Antwerp, Belgium.

Did you know?
While most flash mobs are legal and basically harmless, the flash mob phenomenon turned ugly in the city of Philadelphia where a wave of mob crimes took place in 2009 and 2010. Wasik was very critical of these incidents and was very surprised by the violence of these crimes.

Who invented kickball?
Kickball was invented by Nicholas C Seuss and the early form of the game was called “kick baseball,” which it is sometimes still called today. It was invented in Cincinnati, Ohio where Seuss was the Supervisor of Cincinnati Park Playgrounds. A few years later it entered the public school system where it was adopted by physical education teachers as a way to teach young children about baseball. During the early days of the game it was usually played on the same field as baseball.

Did you know?
It has been reported that some US soldiers played kickball in their down time during World War II.

Kickball is played in many other countries, although the rules can be quite different.

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Who invented Dr Pepper?
Dr Pepper was created in the 1880′s by pharmacist Charles Alderton. He created the formulation while working at a Drug Store in Waco, Texas. He offered the drink to Wade Morrision, the owner of the store, who thought that there would be a market for it. It was soon being sold and was referred to by the customers as a “Waco.” The formula was given to Morrision and he officially named it Dr Pepper.

Did you know?
The first record of Doctor Pepper being served is in 1885 and it was introduced on a national scale in 1904. This means that it was first introduced a year before Coca-Cola.

The origin of the name is a subject of much debate. Some people think that it is named after an actual doctor and others believe that the name comes from pepsin, which is a digestive enzyme.

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