Most likely, the K in K rations represents the first letter of the last name of the product’s developer, Ancel Keys (b. 1904).
Keys, a physiologist from Minnesota, developed the portions of food for soldiers in World War II.
This 1903 creation Sanka is a contraction of the French phrase sans cafeine. The first decaffeinated coffee arrived in America by accident that year: A shipload of coffee coming from Europe to coffee importer Dr. Ludwig Roselius became waterlogged, and thus decaffeinated.
Chamois is a soft, warm leather and is the skin of the Alpine animal of the same name. More often, however, it is specially treated sheepskin.
Called celluloid, it was invented in 1869 by American John Wesley Hyatt. This cellulose nitrate and camphor mixture, though flammable, was strong and pliable enough for use in a variety of common household items. Eventually it was replaced by less flammable synthetic polymers.
There was a woman who acted as Aunt Jemima Nancy Green, of Montgomery County, Kentucky. This cook for a judge’s family in Chicago was lured by executives of the Davis Milling Company to promote the pancake mix at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. She had served 1 million pancakes by the time the fair…
Nescafe, developed by the Nestle Company and introduced in Switzerland in 1938 was the first instant coffee. It had taken eight years to develop.
Eyeglasses first appeared in Italy in the fourteenth century. They were supposedly introduced by Alessandro di Spina of Florence. Eyeglasses also appeared in China about this time; it is not clear who got the idea first.