Henry Shrapnel of England (1761-1842), an artillery officer, invented the so-called shrapnel.
It was a round projectile filled with bullets and equipped with an explosive charge to scatter the shot.
In later versions, fragments of the shell casing itself were found to be more deadly than the enclosed bullets.
Shrapnel today refers to those fragments.
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.
Aspirin got its name in parts. The a came from the first letter of the product’s scientific name, acetylsalicylic acid. The spir came from Spiraea ulmaria, the meadowsweet plant, which was the original source of the compound. The in was a common suffix for medications in the late nineteenth century, when aspirin was first marketed.
The first toothbrush with bristles was developed in China in 1498. Bristles were taken from hogs at first, and later from horses and even badgers. Not until 1938 were nylon bristles, more sanitary and less dangerous, developed by Du Pont.
Two self-service stores, precursors to supermarkets, opened in California in 1912. The Alpha Beta Food Market in Pomona and Ward’s Grocetaria in Ocean Park. The Piggly-Wiggly stores, which opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, had self-service and checkout counters but did not call themselves supermarkets. The word supermarket was not part of a store name…
Nescafe, developed by the Nestle Company and introduced in Switzerland in 1938 was the first instant coffee. It had taken eight years to develop.
Alfred Carl Fuller came to the United States from Norway in 1903, and after working at a variety of jobs, he began selling brushes door-to-door in 1905. By 1910, he had a staff of 25 salesmen. Over the years, Fuller adapted by expanding his line to include a variety of household cleaning products. When he…