Post It Note:
The Post It Note may have been a God-sent, literally. In the early 1970s, Art Fry was in search of a bookmark for his church hymnal that would neither fall out nor damage the hymnal. Fry noticed that a colleague at 3M, Doctor Spencer Silver, had developed an adhesive in 1968 that was strong enough to stick to surfaces, but left no residue after removal and could be repositioned. Arthur Fry took some of Spencer Silver's adhesive and applied it along the edge of a piece of paper. His church hymnal problem was solved! Arthur Fry soon realized that his "bookmark" had other potential functions when he used it to leave a note on a work file, and co-workers kept dropping by, seeking "bookmarks" for their offices. This "bookmark" was a new way to communicate and to organize. 3M Corporation crafted the name Post It Note for Arthur Fry's new bookmarks and began production in the late 70s for commercial use. In 1977, test-markets failed to show consumer interest. However in 1979, 3M implemented a massive consumer sampling strategy, and the Post it note took off. Today, we see the Post it Note peppered across files, computers, desks, and doors in offices and homes throughout the country. From a church hymnal bookmark to an office and home essential, the Post It Note has colored the way we work.
Liquid Paper: It was originally called "mistake out", the invention of Bette Nesmith Graham, a Dallas secretary and a single mother raising a son on her own. Graham used her own kitchen blender to mix up her first batch of liquid paper or white out, a substance used to cover up mistakes made on paper. Bette Nesmith Graham never intended to be an inventor; she wanted to be an artist. However, shortly after World War II ended, she found herself divorced with a small child to support. She learned shorthand and typing and found employment as an executive secretary. An efficient employee who took pride in her work, Graham sought a better way to correct typing errors. She remembered that artists painted over their mistakes on canvas, so why couldn’t typists paint over their mistakes? Bette Nesmith Graham put some tempera waterbased paint, colored to match the stationery she used, in a bottle and took her watercolor brush to the office. She used this to correct her typing mistakes… her boss never noticed. Soon another secretary saw the new invention and asked for some of the correcting fluid. Graham found a green bottle at home, wrote "Mistake Out" on a label, and gave it to her friend. Soon all the secretaries in the building were asking for some, too. By 1967, it had grown into a million dollar business. In 1968, she moved into her own plant and corporate headquarters, automated operations, and had 19 employees. That year Bette Nesmith Graham sold one million bottles. In 1975, Liquid Paper moved into a 35,000-sq. ft., international headquarters building in Dallas. The plant had equipment that could produce 500 bottles a minute. In 1976, the Liquid Paper Corporation turned out 25 million bottles. Its net earnings were $1.5 million. The company spent $1 million a year on advertising, alone. Bette Nesmith Graham believed money to be a tool, not a solution to a problem. She set up two foundations to help women find new ways to earn a living. Graham died in 1980, six months after selling her corporation for $47.5 million.
History of Glue:
Archeologists excavating burial sites from 4000 BC have discovered clay pots repaired with glue made from tree sap. We know that the ancient Greeks developed adhesives for use in carpentry, and created recipes for glue that included the following items as ingredients: egg whites, blood, bones, milk, cheese, vegetables and grains. Tar and beeswax were used by the Romans for glue. Around 1750, the first glue or adhesive patent was issued in Britain. The glue was made from fish. Patents were then rapidly issued for adhesives using natural rubber, animal bones, fish, starch, milk protein or casein. Superglue or Krazy Glue is a substance called cyanoacrylate that was discovered by Dr. Harry Coover while working for Kodak Research Laboratories to develop an optically clear plastic for gunsights in 1942. Coover rejected cyanoacrylate because it was too sticky. In 1951, cyanoacrylate was rediscovered by Coover and Dr Fred Joyner. Coover was now supervising research at the Eastman Company in Tennessee. Coover and Joyner were researching a heat-resistant acrylate polymer for jet canopies when Joyner spread a film of ethyl cyanoacrylate between refractometer prisms and discovered that the prisms were glued together. Coover finally realized that cyanoacrylate was a useful product and in 1958 the Eastman compound #910 was marketed and later packaged as superglue. Hot glue or hot melt adhesives are thermoplastics that are applied hot (often using glue guns) and then harden as they cool. Hot glue and glue guns are commonly used for arts and crafts because of the wide range of materials that hot glue can stick together. Procter & Gamble chemical and packaging engineer, Paul Cope invented thermoplastic glue around 1940 as an improvement to water-based adhesives that were failing in humid climates.
Easter The meaning of the many different customs observed during Easter Sunday have been buried with time. Their origins lie in both pre-Christian religions and Christianity. In one way or another all the customs are a "salute to spring" marking re-birth. The Romans believed that "All life comes from an egg." Ancient Christians considered eggs to be "the seed of life" symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia eggs were dyed for spring festivals. In medieval Europe, beautifully decorated eggs were given as gifts. Today hundreds of novel methods of decorating Easter eggs have been invented, and during the week of Easter about 30 million more eggs are sold compared to any other week of the year. The white Easter lily has come to capture the glory of the holiday. The word "Easter" is named after Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A festival was held in her honor every year at the vernal equinox. People celebrate Easter according to their beliefs and their religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day that Jesus Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day that He was resurrected. Protestant settlers brought the custom of a sunrise service, a religious gathering at dawn, to the United States. Today on Easter Sunday, many children wake up to find that the Easter Bunny has left them baskets of candy. He has also hidden the eggs that they decorated earlier that week. Children hunt for the eggs all around the house. Neighborhoods and organizations hold Easter egg hunts, and the child who finds the most eggs wins a prize. The Easter Bunny is a rabbit-spirit. Long ago, he was called the "Easter Hare", hares and rabbits have frequent multiple births so they became a symbol of fertility. The custom of an Easter egg hunt began because children believed that hares laid eggs in the grass. The Romans believed that "All life comes from an egg." Christians consider eggs to be "the seed of life" and so they are symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why we dye, or color, and decorate eggs is not certain. In ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia eggs were dyed for spring festivals. In medieval Europe, beautifully decorated eggs were given as gifts. In England, Germany and some other countries, children rolled eggs down hills on Easter morning, a game which has been connected to the rolling away of the rock from Jesus Christ's tomb when he was resurrected. British settlers brought this custom to the New World.
Toilet A toilet is a plumbing fixture used for defecation and urination. Modern toilets consist of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat and are connected to a waste pipe where waste is flushed. Tiolets are also called: privy, latrine, water closet, or lavatory.
King Minos of Crete had the first flushing water closet recorded in history and that was over 2800 years ago.
A toilet was discovered in the tomb of a Chinese king of the Western Han Dynasty that dates back to 206 BC to 24 AD.
The ancient Romans had a system of sewers. They built simple outhouses or latrines directly over the running waters of the sewers that poured into the Tiber River
Chamber pots were used during the middle ages. A chamber pot is a special metal or ceramic bowl that you used and then tossed the contents out (often out the window).
In 1596, a flush toilet was invented and built for Queen Elizabeth I by her Godson, Sir John Harrington.
The first patent for the flushing toilet was issued to Alexander Cummings in 1775.
During the 1800s, people realized that poor sanitary conditions caused diseases. Having toilets and sewer systems that could control human waste became a priority to lawmakers, medical experts, inventors, and the general public.
In 1829, the Tremont Hotel of Boston became the first hotel to have indoor plumbing, and had eight water closets built by Isaiah Rogers. Until 1840, indoor plumbing could be found only in the homes of the rich and the better hotels.
Beginning in 1910, toilet designs started changing away from the elevated water tank into the modern toilet with a close tank and bowl.
The first packaged toilet paper was the 1857 invention of American, Joseph Gayetty and called Gayetty's Medicated Paper. In 1880, the British Perforated Paper Company created a paper product to be used for wiping after using the toilet that came in boxes of small pre-cut squares. In 1879, the Scott Paper Company began selling the first toilet paper on a roll, however, toilet paper in roll form did not become common until 1907. In 1942, St. Andrew's Paper Mill in Great Britain introduced the first two-ply toilet paper.