Inventions Facts

Ice Cream was first made in China!

The can opener was invented 48 years after the can.

Bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers were all invented or significantly improved by women inventors.

While their exact origins are debated, fortune cookies were invented in America, with one prominent claim attributing their popularization to David Jung in Los Angeles around 1918, who served them with inspirational messages.

The inventor of Vaseline ate a spoonful of the stuff every morning!

The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

The Landlord's Game, the predecessor to Monopoly, was originally designed with a circular board.

Leonardo da Vinci designed solar concentrators around 1515 to harness the sun's energy for industrial purposes, making him one of the earliest visionaries to imagine large-scale solar power.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 U.S. patents during his lifetime—more than any other inventor until 2003!

Play-Doh was first manufactured as a wallpaper cleaner.

The flushing toilet was invented in 1596, not by Thomas Crapper as most people think, but by Sir John Harington.

Shredded Wheat, invented in 1893 by lawyer Henry Perky, was one of the first ready-to-eat breakfast cereals and debuted at the Chicago World's Fair.

The first American alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist!

Approximately 365 million people in the world have computers while half of the world's 6.5 billion population has never seen or used a telephone.

The first telephone book was one page long and had only 50 names in it.

The last time American Green cards were actually green was 1964.

Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold!

Ancient India developed the decimal place-value number system around 500 CE, and mathematician Brahmagupta formally defined zero as a number in 628 CE.

The oil used by jewelers to lubricate clocks and watches costs about $3,000 a gallon.

Thomas Edison taught his second wife Morse code so they could communicate in secret by tapping into each other's hands when her family was around. He even proposed to her this way — tapping "Will you marry me?" into her palm during a carriage ride. She tapped back "Yes."

Speed dating was invented by a Rabbi in 1998.