Interesting Facts

Edwin Beard Budding, an engineer from Stroud, England, is credited with inventing the lawnmower. (It was a push mower, inspired by a machine he saw in a local cloth mill which used a cutting cylinder (or bladed reel) mounted on a bench to trim give wollen cloth a smooth finish. The mower was designed primarily to cut the grass on sports grounds and in extensive gardens, as a superior alternative to the scythe. He was granted the British patent on August 31, 1830. And thus the stripey English lawn was invented.)

The first patent for a "a smokeless non-tobacco cigarette" was made in 1963 by Herbert Gilbert. (Gilbert described a device that replaced burning tobacco and paper with heated, moist, flavoured air, but his device involved no nicotine, it was more flavoured steam and didn't prove a commercial success. It wasn't until 2003 that the first nicotine based electronic cigarette was patented, by Mr Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacologist. Manufactured to look like a traditional cigarette, the batter powered product contains liquid nicotine that is turned into a vapour which is then inhaled. Just another way to part a fool from his / her money. I wonder if it could be turned into something useful like a drug delivery system.)

Bubblegum was invented by Walter Diemer in 1928. (He worked as an accountant at the Fleer Chewing Gum Company, but he experimented on new gum recipes in his spare time. Eventually he hit on a formula that was less sticky than regular chewing gum, and stretched more easily. He used a pink dye for his new gum because pink was the only colour available at the Fleer Chewing Gum Company. (Bubblegum pink is still the standard colour for bubble gum, and a shade in its own right.) Samples of the new gum sold out in a single day and Fleer Chewing Gum Company, realising they had a hit on their hands, marketed the new gum as "Dubble Bubble." He even taught salespeople how to blow bubbles so that they in turn could teach customers. Now that's the kind of company training I'd love to take part in.) Source: Wikipedia )

Etch A Sketch was invented by André Cassagnes. (Sadly the former electrical technician who developed this hugely popular toy in the 1950s, died in Paris today, 16th January, aged 86.)

The smiley sun anti-nuclear badge ""Nuclear Power? No Thanks", was designed by a Danish pupil in a schools competition in the mid-1970s.