Henry Ford did not invent assembly-line production.
Ransom E. Olds, father of the Oldsmobile, introduced the assembly-line technique to the United States in 1901.
In doing so, he increased automobile production from 425 vehicles in 1901 to over 2,500 in 1902.
Ford contributed modifications, including the conveyor belt system, which reduced the time it took to build a Model T from 1.5 days to 90 minutes.
An hour divided into 60 minutes because it is based on the sexagesimal system of notation, a system based on the number 60 that predates the decimal system. It was developed about 2400 B.C. by the Sumerians. Since ancient times, the sexagesimal system has been used to divide circles into 360 degrees (60 x 6),…
The safety pin as we know it today was not produced until 1849, when American inventor Walter Hunt patented the first modern design. Precursors were developed in Europe about 3,000 years ago and became the standard device for fastening clothes. In the sixth century B.c., Greek and Roman women used a fibula, a pin with…
Haagen-Dazs has no particular meaning, and is two made-up words meant to look and sound Scandinavian. It is a name created by its developer, Reuben Mattus, a Polish emigre living in the United States, to convey a European sensibility. Haagen-Dazs ice cream started in the Bronx, New York, in 1961, and had only three flavors:…
Baron George Wrangell, descendant of Russian and Italian royalty was the Man in the Hathaway Shirt. He was working as an artist’s model before advertising executive David Ogilvy chose him for the Hathaway advertisements in the late 1940s. The eye-patch (cost: 50 cents) was Ogilvy’s idea.
The Bic pen is named for Baron Biche. But Biche did not invent the ballpoint pen, Hungarian Laszlo Biro did, in 1938. Biche’s French firm, Bic, took over the English company that had agreed to produce the pens. In England the pen is still known as a “biro,” in France as a “bic.”
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.