Inventions Facts for Kids
Genius facts about great inventions
Humans have been chewing gum for thousands of years — ancient Greeks chewed resin from the mastic tree, and archaeologists have found birch bark tar chewed by Neolithic people in Scandinavia 5,700 years ago.
The ballpoint pen was invented by Hungarian journalist László Bíró in 1938, who was inspired by seeing how newspaper ink dried quickly without smearing. In Britain, ballpoint pens are still commonly called 'biros' in his honour.
Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize of 12,000 francs to anyone who could find a way to preserve food for his army in 1795. Nicolas Appert won by sealing food in glass jars and heating them — the basis of canning we still use today.
Samuel Morse invented his famous dot-and-dash code in 1838 to send messages over electric telegraph wires. The first official Morse code telegram — 'What hath God wrought!' — was sent between Washington and Baltimore in 1844.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek became the first person to see bacteria and other micro-organisms in the 1670s using microscopes he ground himself. He was so secretive about how he made his lenses that the technique was lost after his death.
The plastic bag was invented in 1959 by Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin as an eco-friendly alternative to paper bags, since it required less material to make. The inventor's son has said his father was appalled by how wastefully people used them.
The earliest windmills were built in Persia (modern-day Iran) around 500–900 AD to grind grain and pump water. Unlike modern wind turbines that have horizontal axes, these ancient windmills had vertical sails like a merry-go-round.
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, a machine that could clean cotton 50 times faster than a person doing it by hand. Sadly, rather than reducing the need for enslaved workers, it caused cotton demand to soar and made slavery worse.
Sir John Harington invented the flush toilet in 1596 and installed one for Queen Elizabeth I at her palace. The idea did not catch on widely for another 200 years, when Thomas Crapper popularised it.
Before anaesthesia was invented in the 1840s, surgeons had to operate as quickly as possible because patients were fully awake. Dentist William Morton gave the first public demonstration of ether anaesthesia in 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital.