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THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTRICITY
While Boston's Ben Franklin (17(X3—1T90) first harnessed the
power of electricity, he wasn't the first person to discover it. That
honor goes to England's Dr. William Gilbert, who discovered
electricity in 1600 when lie showed that two substances—amber
and jet—worked as a magnet when rubbed together, forming the
basis for static electricity. Gilbert, who would later become personal
physician to England’s Queen Elizabeth I, denved the word elec-
tricity from the Greek word for amber. Franklin improved upon Gilbert’s findings with
his lightning-and-key experiment in 1732, proving that lightning and the spark from
amber and jet essentially are the same thing.
EARLTUPPER’S INVENTION
Earl Tupper of Berlin, N.H. (pop. 10,331), went to work at DuPont in 193 7 as a
chemist. Tupper (1907—1983) asked his supervisor for some leftover plastic material,
which he molded into bowls, cups and plates. He patented the air
tight Tupperware seal in 1947 and began selling his invention in
retail stores. Sales were slow, but a year later he noticed that two
distributors for Stanley Home Products were selling a lot
of Tupperware during “home parties." So Tupper, a for
mer door-to-d(x>r salesman, introduced the Tupperware
method of selling to the nation. Single mother Brownie
Wise (1913—1992) of Buford, Ga., with less titan an
eighth-grade education, became the company's
vice president and played a key role in develop
ing the concept of Tupperware parties. Many
historians say Tapper's greatest invention
wasn't his Tupperware product, but rather
his sales method. The company that bears
his name now has 1.9 million independent
distributors worldwide.
AIR CONDITIONING
The Bufialo Foige G>. was one of the nation's largest manufacturers of blacksmith
equipment in 1902. One of its new employees, Angola, N.Y, native Willis Gamer
(1876-1950), was working for just SlO a week when he created a way to cool the build
ing housing a Bufialo Forge customer, the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publish
ing Co. of Bnxiklyn. Carriers air conditioner originally was designed for machines rather
than humans, as it was invented to reduce the humidity and moisture in its customer’s
building. In 1915, Carrier started his own company, the Carrier Engineering Corp., with
six other engineers. The first use of air conditioning designed to benefit humans (xxurred
in department stores and movie theaters, prompting customers to flock iaside tor the cool
air during summertime. It wasn't until 1928—a full 26 years after Carrier first began
working on air conditioning—that he developed an air conditioner for home use.
PERSONAL COMPUTERS
The many innovations of the personal computer have come from many people, ever
since Ken Olsen (born in 1926) of Stratford, Conn., co-founded Digital Equipment
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.rty Images
Girp. in 1957. Olsen s company created the world's first minicomputer,
as well as the world’s first mass-produced minicomputer in 1965.
Named the PDP-8, che computer cost SI8,0(H) and was marketed
to businesses. A decade would pass before computers would become
available for home use, thanks to a couple of college dropouts named
Steve. Californians Steve Jobs and Steve Wozntak popularized the
personal computer when they founded Apple Computer in 1976 in
Jobs' parents' garage in Los Altos. To raise the necessary capital to
get their computer company off the ground, che two sold their most
valuable possessions: Jobs' Volkswagen minibus and Wozntak s sci
entific calculator, for a total of 51,300.
THE INTERNET
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. gov
ernment worried that a nuclear attack could wipe out Americas intel
ligence system. To protect the flow of information between military
installations, the Department of Defense created the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA) to develop a network of computers to exchange
information among different geographical locations. By 1969, computer scientists, led
by Vinton Cert of New Haven, Ginn., connected supercomputers from timr ma|or uni
versities—UCLA, Stanford University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
the University of Utah—to form ARPAnet. Tile National Science Foundation, a federal
agency, formed its own network of computers called NSFner in 1986 and eventually
replaced ARPAnet in 1990, becoming what is now the Internet. The name
Intemet" ongmated from ARPA's program of /wtrlinktng packet networks,
which became known as the “Internetting'' project. The resulting system of
networks became known as tile Internet.
Visit www.inyentionmysteries.com for more information.
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