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Across the Fence:  A Bit of Trivia..  |
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 17 2016 : 9:22:29 PM
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American mechanic Walter Hunt is regarded as the inventor of the safety pin that bears resemblance to those used today. The safety pin included a clasp that covered the point and kept it from opening, and a circular twist at the bend to act as a spring and hold it in place. Charles Rowley (Birmingham, England) independently patented a similar safety pin in October 1849, although the company no longer makes these.
Hunt made the invention in order to pay off a $15 dollar debt to a friend. He used a piece of brass wire that was about 8 inches long and made a coil in the center of the wire so it would open up when released. The clasp at one end was devised in order to shield the sharp edge from the user.
After being issued U.S. patent #6,281 on April 10, 1849, Hunt sold the patent to W. R. Grace and Company for $400 (roughly $10,000 in 2008 dollars). Using that money, Hunt then paid the $15 owed to a friend and kept the remaining amount of $385 for himself. What Hunt failed to realize is that in the years to follow, W.R. Grace and Company would make millions of dollars in profits from his invention.
Walter Hunt was extremely creative, and in 1834 he built America's first sewing machine, which also used the first eye-pointed needle. Hunt did not patent his invention because he thought it would put hand sewers out of work. Nearly 20 years later, Elias Howe reinvented and patented an eye-pointed needle sewing machine.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 18 2016 : 06:09:06 AM
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Barometer is an instrument for measuring atmospheric pressure. It was invented in 1643 by the Italian scientist Evangelista Torricelli, who used a column of water in a tube 34 ft (10.4 m) long. This inconvenient water column was soon replaced by mercury, which is denser than water and requires a tube about 3 ft (0.9 m) long. The mercurial barometer consists of a glass tube, sealed at one end and filled with pure mercury. After being heated to expel the air, it is inverted in a small cup of mercury called the cistern. The mercury in the tube sinks slightly, creating above it a vacuum (the Torricellian vacuum). Atmospheric pressure on the surface of the mercury in the cistern supports the column in the tube, which varies in height with variations in atmospheric pressure and hence with changes in elevation, generally decreasing with increases in height above sea level. Standard sea-level pressure is 14.7 lb per sq in. (1,030 grams per sq cm), which is equivalent to a column of mercury 29.92 in. (760 mm) in height; the decrease with elevation is approximately 1 in. (2.5 cm) for every 900 ft (270 m) of ascent. In weather forecasting, barometric readings are usually measured on electronically controlled instruments often tied to computers. The results are plotted on base maps so that analyses of weather-producing pressure systems can be made. At a given location a storm is generally anticipated when the barometer is falling rapidly; when the barometer is rising, fair weather may usually be expected. The aneroid barometer is a metallic box so made that when the air has been partially removed from the box the surface depresses or expands with variation of air pressure on it; this motion is transmitted by a train of levers to a pointer which shows the pressure on a graduated scale. A barograph is a self-recording aneroid barometer; an altimeter is often an aneroid barometer used to calculate altitude.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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katmom
True Blue Farmgirl
17161 Posts
Grace
WACAL Gal
WashCalif.
USA
17161 Posts |
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 18 2016 : 10:21:18 PM
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Pen, pointed implement used in writing or drawing to apply ink or a similar colored fluid to any surface, such as paper. Various kinds of pens have been used since ancient times. Reeds that were slit or frayed at the end were used in antiquity; similar pens, usually made of bamboo, are commonly employed in Asia today. In ancient Greece and Rome much writing was done by scratching the wax coating of a tablet with a stylus, or style—a pointed implement whose blunt end was used to make erasures by smoothing the wax. Quills were introduced early in the Middle Ages and continued to be the main writing device until the mid-19th cent. Plucked from live birds (usually geese), the quills were treated with heat and shaped with a penknife, and they required frequent sharpening. Although metal pens were known to the Romans, and a few had been made in Europe in the 18th cent., a cheap, efficient slip-in nib did not come into common use until Josiah Mason improved existing models and began large-scale production in 1828 at Birmingham, England. The fountain pen, which feeds ink to the pen point from a reservoir, was first successfully produced on a commercial scale in the 1880s. The ball-point pen, introduced c.1944, offered several advantages over the fountain pen. Tipped with a ball bearing that rolls a gelatinous instant-drying ink onto paper, the ball-point pen contains a longer-lasting supply of ink than the fountain pen and is less likely to leak. Although soft-tip pens had been used in ancient times (the Egyptians made soft-tip pens from rushes c.4000 B.C., and the Chinese later used hair-tip pens), it was not until the 1950s that felt-tip markers came into fairly common use in the United States. By the 1960s felt-tip markers had been largely replaced by fiber-tip markers. These are made of such materials as nylon and plastic, are available in a wide variety of colors, and are capable of marking any surface, including plastic and glass.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 18 2016 : 10:22:47 PM
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Thank you Grace, I am so glad that you and many others are enjoying reading these bits of trivia!
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 20 2016 : 3:09:26 PM
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In the mid- to late-1800s, Matthew Fontaine Maury became head of the US Navy’s Department of Charts and Instruments -- only to discover that the Navy had very few charts of the oceans! But it did have a big storeroom of dusty logbooks from Navy ships. In these logbooks, sea captains traveling the North Atlantic had recorded their daily locations, as well the speeds and directions of winds and currents.
Maury realized the books contained a gold mine of information. By compiling records from many ships, he saw patterns. He made charts of ocean currents and winds that helped captains plot the best sea lanes for their voyages. He added more details to these charts by asking merchant captains to make more observations and send them to him. He also asked sailors to put messages in bottles. The message noted the ship’s location when the bottle was thrown overboard. When the bottles washed ashore, the finders were asked to send Maury a note telling him where they found the bottle. In this way, Maury could figure out more detailed ocean current patterns and add them to his charts.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Prince Albert of Monaco used a similar method to figure out what happened to the Gulf Stream as it approached Europe. By compiling the notes he received from people who found washed ashore bottles, he determined that the Gulf Stream splits in the northeastern Atlantic. One branch heads toward Ireland and Great Britain, while another part of the Gulf Stream heads south past Spain and Africa, and then back west.
Prince Albert’s knowledge of currents proved valuable during World War I. He was able to tell military officials how explosive mines would drift in the ocean and where they would land. Authorities found mines just where Prince Albert had predicted and disarmed them before they exploded.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 22 2016 : 05:53:51 AM
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British merchant Peter Durand made an impact on food preservation with his 1810 patenting of the tin can. In 1813, John Hall and Bryan Dorkin opened the first commercial canning factory in England. In 1846, Henry Evans invents a machine that can manufacture tin cans at a rate of sixty per hour. An significant increase over the previous rate of only six per hour.
The first tin cans were so thick they had to be hammered open. As cans became thinner, it became possible to invent dedicated can openers. In 1858, Ezra Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut patented the first can opener. The U.S. military used it during the Civil War. In 1866, J. Osterhoudt patented the tin can with a key opener that you can find on sardine cans.
The inventor of the familiar household can opener was William Lyman. William Lyman patented a very easy to use can opener in 1870. The kind with the wheel that rolls and cuts around the rim of a can.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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gramadinah
True Blue Farmgirl
3557 Posts
Diana
Orofino
ID
USA
3557 Posts |
Posted - Sep 22 2016 : 06:48:08 AM
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The earliest American patent for a clothespin, issued in March 1832, described a bent strip of hickory held together with a wooden screw. In 1853, David M Smith of Springfield, Vermont invented the wooden clothespeg we know today, made up of two wooden legs hinged together with a metal spring
Diana
Farmgirl Sister #273 |
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katmom
True Blue Farmgirl
17161 Posts
Grace
WACAL Gal
WashCalif.
USA
17161 Posts |
Posted - Sep 22 2016 : 10:39:24 PM
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Speaking of 'Cans" I just read about the history of the "Frozen TV Dinner"...
Originally created in the 1940's for Airlines... only to evolve into the Iconic "TV" dinner that we remember from the late 1950's (Swansons).., now fast forward,,, 1970's to todays market...they went from "Family size" to Healthy to gourmet...
And ironicly,,, folks are getting back to making their own versions of frozen meals to serve at later dates...
:>)
>^..^<
Happiness is being a katmom and Glamping Diva!
www.katmom4.blogspot.com & http://graciesvictorianrose.blogspot.com
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katmom
True Blue Farmgirl
17161 Posts
Grace
WACAL Gal
WashCalif.
USA
17161 Posts |
Posted - Sep 22 2016 : 10:41:58 PM
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Diana,,, luv clothes pins,,,
in our mama's days they were used simply for laundry drying on the clothes lines... I use mine for bag clips, to holding a hem or sewing project in place while I stitch, to keeping paper work together... and it's fun to decorate them too!
>^..^<
Happiness is being a katmom and Glamping Diva!
www.katmom4.blogspot.com & http://graciesvictorianrose.blogspot.com
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2016 : 04:58:06 AM
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The cheese slicer, or cheese plane, is an ingenious invention developed by a Norwegian cabinet maker, Thor Bjørklund. Using a principle similar to that of the carpenter’s plane found in his workshop, Bjørklund perfected a device for making very thin, uniform slices from the hard cheeses favored in Norway, such as gouda and jarlsberg.
Bjørklund invented and patented the cheese plane in 1925. He founded the company Thor Bjørklund & Sønner AS in Lillehammer two years later, which was Norway’s only producer of the traditional Norwegian cheese slicer (ostehøvel), and the first in the world. Since then, the company has produced over 50 million cheese slicers. Originally, it took an hour to produce each cheese slicer, while today, approximately 7,000 slicers can be made in an hour.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 24 2016 : 07:28:35 AM
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Invention of radio
The idea of wireless communication predates the discovery of "radio" with experiments in "wireless telegraphy" via inductive and capacitive induction and transmission through the ground, water, and even train tracks from the 1830s on. James Clerk Maxwell showed in theoretical and mathematical form in 1864 that electromagnetic waves could propagate through free space. It is likely that the first intentional transmission of a signal by means of electromagnetic waves was performed in an experiment by David Edward Hughes around 1880, although this was considered to be induction at the time. In 1888 Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was able to conclusively prove transmitted airborne electromagnetic waves in an experiment confirming Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism.
After the discovery of these "Hertzian waves" (it would take almost 20 years for the term "radio" to be universally adopted for this type of electromagnetic radiation) many scientists and inventors experimented with wireless transmission, some trying to develop a system of communication, some intentionally using these new Hertzian waves, some not. Maxwell's theory showing that light and Hertzian electromagnetic waves were the same phenomenon at different wavelengths led "Maxwellian" scientist such as John Perry, Frederick Thomas Trouton and Alexander Trotter to assume they would be analogous to optical signaling and the Serbian American engineer Nikola Tesla to consider them relatively useless for communication since "light" could not transmit further than line of sight. In 1892 the physicist William Crookes wrote on the possibilities of wireless telegraphy based on Hertzian waves and in 1893 Tesla proposed a system for transmitting intelligence and wireless power using the earth as the medium. Others, such as Amos Dolbear, Sir Oliver Lodge, Reginald Fessenden, and Alexander Popov were involved in the development of components and theory involved with the transmission and reception of airborne electromagnetic waves for their own theoretical work or as a potential means of communication.
Over several years starting in 1894 the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi built the first complete, commercially successful wireless telegraphy system based on airborne Hertzian waves (radio transmission). Marconi demonstrated application of radio in military and marine communications and started a company for the development and propagation of radio communication services and equipment.
The first radio news program was broadcast August 31, 1920 by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan, which survives today as all-news format station WWJ under ownership of the CBS network.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 24 2016 : 9:26:00 PM
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Scotch tape was invented in 1930 by banjo-playing 3M engineer Richard Drew. Scotch tape was the world's first transparent adhesive tape. Drew was product testing 3M's Wetordry brand sandpaper at a local auto body shop, when he noticed that auto painters were having a hard time making clean dividing lines on two-color paint jobs. Richard Drew was inspired to invent the world's first masking tape in 1925, as a solution to the auto painters' dilemma, which was a 2-inch-wide tan paper tape with a pressure sensitive adhesive backing. Scotch Brand Cellulose Tape was invented five years later. Made with a nearly invisible adhesive, the waterproof transparent tape was made from oils, resins and rubber; and had a coated backing.
John A Borden, another 3M engineer, invented the first tape dispenser with a built-in cutter blade in 1932. Scotch Brand Magic Transparent Tape® was invented in 1961, an almost invisible tape that never discolored and could be written on.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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katmom
True Blue Farmgirl
17161 Posts
Grace
WACAL Gal
WashCalif.
USA
17161 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2016 : 5:58:23 PM
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Wow,, Nikola Tesla,,, he was a very busy man...
there is still dispute (I think) as to whether actually he or Thomas Edison created the energy/electricity/light that Thomas took fame for.... only the fly on the wall truly knows the truth.
>^..^<
Happiness is being a katmom and Glamping Diva!
www.katmom4.blogspot.com & http://graciesvictorianrose.blogspot.com
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 26 2016 : 05:30:50 AM
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The Polish-American Stephen J. Poplawski, owner of the Stevens Electric Company, began designing drink mixers in 1919 under contract with Arnold Electric Company, and patented the drink mixer in 1922 which had been designed to make Horlicks malted milkshakes at soda fountains. He also introduced the liquefier blender in 1922.
In the 1930s, L. Hamilton, Chester Beach and Fred Osius, produced Poplawski’s invention under the brand name Hamilton Beach Company. Fred Osius improved the appliance, making another kind of blender. He approached Fred Waring, a popular musician who financed and promoted the "Miracle Mixer", released in 1933. However the appliance had some problems to be solved about the seal of the jar and the knife axis, so Fred Waring redesigned the appliance and released his own blender in 1937, the Waring Blendor with which Waring popularized the smoothie in the 1940s. Waring Products is now a part of Conair. Waring long used the spelling "blendor" for its product.
Also in 1937, W.G. Barnard, founder of Vitamix, introduced a product called "The Blender," which was functionally a reinforced blender with a stainless steel jar, instead of the Pyrex glass jar used by Waring.
In 1946 John Oster, owner of the Oster barber equipment company, bought Stevens Electric Co. and designed its own blender, which Oster commercialized under the trademark Osterizer. Oster was bought by Sunbeam Products in 1960. which released various types of blenders, as the Imperial series and still make the traditional Osterizer blender.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 27 2016 : 05:50:48 AM
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Before the development of the electric toaster, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame or on a long-handled toasting-fork[3] and holding it near a fire or over a kitchen grill. Simple utensils for toasting bread over open flames appeared in the early 19th century.
The first electric bread toaster was invented by Alan MacMasters in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1893.
The primary technical problem at the time was the development of a heating element which would be able to sustain repeated heating to red-hot temperatures without either breaking or becoming too brittle. A similar technical challenge had recently been surmounted with the invention of the first successful incandescent lightbulbs by Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. However, the light bulb took advantage of the presence of a vacuum, something that couldn't be used with the toaster.
Macmaster's toaster was commercialized by the Crompton, Stephen J. Cook & Company of the UK as a toasting appliance called the Eclipse. Early attempts at producing electrical appliances using iron wiring were unsuccessful, because the wiring was easily melted and a serious fire hazard. Meanwhile, electricity was not readily available, and when it was, mostly only at night.
The problem of the heating element was solved in 1905 by a young engineer named Albert Marsh who designed an alloy of nickel and chromium, which came to be known as Nichrome.
The first US patent application for an electric toaster was filed by George Schneider of the American Electrical Heater Company of Detroit in collaboration with Marsh. One of the first applications the Hoskins company had considered for chromel was toasters, but eventually abandoned such efforts to focus on making just the wire itself.
The first commercially successful electric toaster was introduced by General Electric in 1909 for the GE model D-12.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 29 2016 : 05:46:22 AM
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A dustpan, the small version of which is also known as a "half brush and shovel", is a cleaning utensil. The dustpan alone is commonly used in combination with a broom or long brush. The small dustpan may appear to be a type of flat scoop. Though often hand-held for home use, industrial and commercial enterprises use a hinged variety on the end of a stick to allow the user to stand instead of stoop while using it. This latter improved dustpan design was patented by African-American inventor Lloyd Ray on August 9, 1897, while the first patented dustpan was by T.E. McNeill nearly 40 years prior.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Sep 30 2016 : 11:03:01 AM
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In the early 1800s, clothes dryers were first being invented in England and France. One common kind of early clothes dryer was the ventilator, the first one known to be built was made by a Frenchman named Pochon. The ventilator was a barrel-shaped metal drum with holes in it. It was turned by hand over a fire.
One early American patent for a clothes dryer was granted to George T. Sampson on June 7, 1892. Sampson's dryer used the heat from a stove to dry clothes and is an example of a ventilator type machine. View - U.S. patent #476,416. George Samson wrote in his patent: "My invention relates to improvements in clothes-driers. The object of my invention is to suspend clothing in close relation to a stove by means of frames so constructed that they can be readily placed in proper position and put aside when not required for use."
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 01 2016 : 05:44:36 AM
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Hot air balloon, lighter-than-air craft without a propulsion system, lifted by inflation of one or more containers with a gas lighter than air or with heated air. During flight, altitude may be gained by discarding ballast (e.g., bags of sand) and may be lost by releasing some of the lifting gas from its container. Balloons designed for crews are used mainly for recreation, research, and adventuring; uncrewed balloons are used primarily for scientific research or surveillance.
Although interest in such a craft dates from the 13th cent., the balloon was not actually invented until the late 18th cent., when two French brothers, Joseph and Jacques Étienne Montgolfier, experimented with inverted paper and cloth bags filled with heated air and, in 1783, caused a linen bag about 100 ft (30 m) in diameter to rise in the air. In the same year the Frenchmen Pilâtre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes made one of the first balloon ascents by human beings, rising in a hot-air-filled captive balloon (i.e., one made fast by a mooring cable to prevent free flight) to a height of 84 ft (26 m). In 1766 the English scientist Henry Cavendish had shown that hydrogen was seven times lighter than air, and the usefulness of this gas in balloon ascension was demonstrated in Dec., 1783, by J. A. C. Charles of France, who with his associates successfully ascended in a hydrogen-filled balloon and traveled 27 mi (43 km) from their starting point. Later, Charles made the first solo balloon ascent.
The first ascent in England was made by James Tytler, a Scottish writer, in 1784, and in 1793 the French balloonist J. P. Blanchard made an ascent at Philadelphia. Blanchard, with Dr. John Jeffries, an American physician, also made the first sea voyage by balloon, crossing the English Channel in 1784. Among the noted balloon voyages of the 19th cent. was that made by the Swedish engineer S. A. Andrée, who, in 1897, attempted unsuccessfully to reach the North Pole by balloon; his remains were discovered 33 years later. In the American Civil War and World War I, captive balloons were used to observe troop movements and to direct gunfire. Captive balloons called barrage balloons were used as obstacles against low-flying aircraft in World War II.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 02 2016 : 07:09:02 AM
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A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is made of two words: "wheel" and "barrow." "Barrow" is a derivation of the Old English "bearwe" which was a device used for carrying loads. The wheelbarrow is designed to distribute the weight of its load between the wheel and the operator so enabling the convenient carriage of heavier and bulkier loads than would be possible were the weight carried entirely by the operator.
The earliest wheelbarrows with archaeological evidence in the form of a one-wheel cart come from 2nd century Han Dynasty Emperor Hui's tomb murals and brick tomb reliefs. The painted tomb mural of a man pushing a wheelbarrow was found in a tomb at Chengdu, Sichuan province, dated precisely to 118 AD.
The first wheelbarrow in Europe appeared sometime between 1170 and 1250. Medieval wheelbarrows universally featured a wheel at or near the front (in contrast to their Chinese counterparts, which typically had a wheel in the center of the barrow), the arrangement now universally found on wheelbarrows.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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Edited by - janamarieje on Oct 02 2016 07:09:48 AM |
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 03 2016 : 07:22:25 AM
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Barbed wire - wire composed of two zinc-coated steel strands twisted together and having barbs spaced regularly along them. The need for barbed wire arose in the 19th cent. as the American frontier moved westward into the Great Plains and traditional fence materials—wooden rails and stone—became scarce and expensive. Of the many early types of barbed wire, that invented in Illinois in 1873 by Joseph F. Glidden proved most popular. The advent of barbed-wire fences on the plains transformed the cattle industry, ending the open range to a large extent and making possible the introduction of blooded cattle. The transformation was not without protests, which often led to bloodshed. In the 20th cent. barbed wire gained importance as an instrument of defense through its use in wartime for entanglements and obstacles. Barbed-wire fences have been replaced in some applications by other types, e.g., woven-wire fences.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 04 2016 : 05:25:03 AM
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The concept of using a ball point within a writing instrument as a method of applying ink to paper has existed since the late 19th century. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen.
The first patent for a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October 1888, to John J. Loud, who was attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write "on rough surfaces-such as wood, coarse wrapping-paper, and other articles" which then-common fountain pens could not. Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although it could be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as Loud intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter-writing. With no commercial viability, its potential went unexploited and the patent eventually lapsed. The manufacture of economical, reliable ballpoint pens as we know them arose from experimentation, modern chemistry, and precision manufacturing capabilities of the early 20th century. Patents filed worldwide during early development are testaments to failed attempts at making the pens commercially viable and widely available. Early ballpoints did not deliver the ink evenly; overflow and clogging were among the obstacles inventors faced toward developing reliable ballpoint pens. If the ball socket were too tight, or the ink too thick, it would not reach the paper. If the socket were too loose, or the ink too thin, the pen would leak or the ink would smear. Ink reservoirs pressurized by piston, spring, capillary action, and gravity would all serve as solutions to ink-delivery and flow problems
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 05 2016 : 07:49:56 AM
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A battery, which is actually an electric cell, is a device that produces electricity from a chemical reaction. Strictly speaking, a battery consists of two or more cells connected in series or parallel, but the term is generally used for a single cell. A cell consists of a negative electrode; an electrolyte, which conducts ions; a separator, also an ion conductor; and a positive electrode.
1748 - Benjamin Franklin first coined the term "battery" to describe an array of charged glass plates.
1780 to 1786 - Luigi Galvani demonstrated what we now understand to be the electrical basis of nerve impulses and provided the cornerstone of research for later inventors like Volta.
1800 - Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile and discovered the first practical method of generating electricity. Constructed of alternating discs of zinc and copper with pieces of cardboard soaked in brine between the metals, the voltic pile produced electrical current. The metallic conducting arc was used to carry the electricity over a greater distance. Alessandro Volta's voltaic pile was the first "wet cell battery" that produced a reliable, steady current of electricity.
1836 - Englishman, John F. Daniel invented the Daniel Cell that used two electrolytes: copper sulfate and zinc sulfate. The Daniel Cell was somewhat safer and less corrosive then the Volta cell.
1839 - William Robert Grove developed the first fuel cell, which produced electrical by combining hydrogen and oxygen.
1839 to 1842 - Inventors created improvements to batteries that used liquid electrodes to produce electricity. Bunsen (1842) and Grove (1839) invented the most successful.
1859 - French inventor, Gaston Plante developed the first practical storage lead-acid battery that could be recharged (secondary battery). This type of battery is primarily used in cars today.
1866 - French engineer, Georges Leclanche patented the carbon-zinc wet cell battery called the Leclanche cell. According to The History of Batteries: "George Leclanche's original cell was assembled in a porous pot. The positive electrode consisted of crushed manganese dioxide with a little carbon mixed in. The negative pole was a zinc rod. The cathode was packed into the pot, and a carbon rod was inserted to act as a currency collector. The anode or zinc rod and the pot were then immersed in an ammonium chloride solution. The liquid acted as the electrolyte, readily seeping through the porous cup and making contact with the cathode material. The liquid acted as the electrolyte, readily seeping through the porous cup and making contact with the cathode material."
1868 - Twenty thousand of Georges Leclanche's cells were now being used with telegraph equipment.
1881 - J.A. Thiebaut patented the first battery with both the negative electrode and porous pot placed in a zinc cup.
1881 - Carl Gassner invented the first commercially successful dry cell battery (zinc-carbon cell).
1899 - Waldmar Jungner invented the first nickel-cadmium rechargeable battery.
1901 - Thomas Alva Edison invented the alkaline storage battery.
1949 - Lew Urry invented the small alkaline battery.
1954 - Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin invented the first solar battery.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 06 2016 : 05:23:03 AM
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Many alcoholic drinks, such as beer, wine and champagne, were carbonated through the fermentation process for centuries. In 1662 Christopher Merret was creating 'sparkling wine'. In 1750 the Frenchman Gabriel François Venel produced artificial carbonated water for the first time. In 1767, Joseph Priestley discovered a method of infusing water with carbon dioxide when he suspended a bowl of water above a beer vat at a local brewery in Leeds, England. The air blanketing the fermenting beer—called 'fixed air'—was known to kill mice suspended in it. Priestley found water thus treated had a pleasant taste, and he offered it to friends as a cool, refreshing drink. In 1772, Priestley published a paper titled Impregnating Water with Fixed Air in which he describes dripping "oil of vitriol" (sulfuric acid) onto chalk to produce carbon dioxide gas, and encouraging the gas to dissolve into an agitated bowl of water. Priestley referred to his invention of soda water as being his "happiest" discovery.
In the late eighteenth century, J. J. Schweppe (1740–1821) developed a process to manufacture carbonated mineral water, based on the process discovered by Priestley, founding the Schweppes Company in Geneva in 1783. In 1792 he moved to London to develop the business there. In 1799 Augustine Thwaites founded Thwaites' Soda Water in Dublin. A London Globe article claims that this company was the first to patent and sell "Soda Water" under that name.
Modern carbonated water is made by passing pressurized carbon dioxide through water. The pressure increases the solubility and allows more carbon dioxide to dissolve than would be possible under standard atmospheric pressure. When the bottle is opened, the pressure is released, allowing the gas to come out of the solution, forming the characteristic bubbles.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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janamarieje
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
Jana
Southern California
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Oct 07 2016 : 05:27:21 AM
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A slow cooker, also known as a Crock-Pot, is a countertop electrical cooking appliance used for simmering, which requires maintaining a relatively low temperature (compared to other cooking methods such as baking, boiling, and frying), allowing unattended cooking for many hours of boiled dinners, pot roast, soups, stews, and other suitable dishes, including beverages, desserts, and dips.
The Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago, under the leadership of Irving Naxon, developed the Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker. Naxon was inspired by a story his Jewish grandmother told about how back in her native Lithuanian town, her mother made a stew called cholent, which took several hours to cook in an oven. As shown in an advertisement in the April 1950 issue of The Rotarian magazine, a version of the Crock-Pot, called the "Simmer Crock", was made by the Industrial Radiant Heat Corp. of Gladstone, NJ at that time. The Rival Company bought Naxon in 1970 and reintroduced it under the Crock-Pot name in 1971. Slow cookers achieved popularity in the US during the 1970s, when many women began to work outside the home. They could start dinner cooking in the morning before going to work and finish preparing the meal in the evening when they came home. In 1974, Rival introduced removable stoneware inserts making the appliance easier to clean. The brand now belongs to Sunbeam Products, a subsidiary of Jarden Corporation. Other brands of this appliance include Cuisinart, GE, Hamilton Beach, KitchenAid, Magic Chef, West Bend Housewares, and the now defunct American Electric Corporation.
Jana
#7110
http://www.emhardt.com
Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown
All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt! ~Charles Schulz
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Across the Fence: A Bit of Trivia.. |
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A Bit of Trivia..
