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.”
The abacus was probably invented by the Babylonians. It was refined and used by the Romans, Chinese, Arabs, Europeans, and Asians as late as the seventeenth century. It is still used, in various forms, in the Middle East and Japan.
The Tootsie Roll was named after Clara Hirschfield, the daughter of the candy’s creator. Leo Hirschfield who invented the Tootsie Roll had given her this pet name. He gave the name to the candy as well, which entered the American market in 1896.
The first chewing gum was the flavorless Adams New York Chewing Gum. Snapping and Stretching was developed by New York inventor Thomas Adams and introduced in 1871. Flavored gum followed in 1875, and bubble gum a decade after that.
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.
No, the Gerber baby is not a painting of the young Humphrey Bogart. The now famous portrait was of a baby girl named Ann Turner and was sketched by artist Dorothy Hope Smith in 1928.
LSMFT means Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco. It was the creation of George Washington Hill, son of Buck Duke, founder of the American Tobacco Company. The slogan, introduced in the early 1940s, became so popular that by 1944 its acronym, L.S.M.F.T., was printed on the bottom of every Lucky Strike package.