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1st Flushable Toilet
Invented by Sir John Harrington in 1596, the 1st toilet that could flush was a 2 ft deep oval bowl that was made waterproof and was fed by an upstairs cistern. Flushing required 7.5 gallons of water, but when water got backed up, up to 20 people could use the toilet in between flushes -
Blood Transfusion
Blood transfusion was discovered by Jean-Baptiste Denys in 1625 so that blood could be transferred from one person to another person with blood loss from a surgery, injuries from an accident, or if they had a disease that didn't let the body supply enough blood. The method also went as far as transferring the blood of a sheep into a boy that had a high fever for months. -
Seed Drill
The seed drill invented by Jethro Tull was made to plant more seeds efficiently because before, people sewed seeds by hand by scattering them on the soil which wasted a lot of seeds.This machine had a plow in the front that created the rows and a harrow in the back that covered the seed with soil. It started as a one-man, one-row device but evolved into a three-row device that had wheels and drawn by horses and Became the first agricultural machine with moving parts. -
English Dictionary
The first English Dictionary was written by Samuel Johnson in 1755. He wanted to make English and the great classics accessible for all readers. It was the first book to address English as it was written and spoken. It took him 9 years to write this dictionary by himself. -
Bifocal Eyeglasses
The Bifocal eyeglasses were invented by Benjamin Franklin because he did not like switching lenses back and forth that he used for for his farsightedness and nearsightedness eye problems. He combined lenses into a pair of eyeglasses with the two dissimilar optical powered. -
Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 to speed up the process of removing the seeds from cotton fibers instead of the old way of doing it by hand, which was painful. This caused plantation owners that farmed cotton to grow larger crops and get more slaves because the cotton process was shorter. Eli Whitney also invented interchangeable parts in 1798. -
Small Pox Vaccine
Edward Jenner discovered a vaccination when he noticed that milk maids had cowpox. He wanted to find a way to heal them and stop new cases; he did. Jenner took fluid from a cowpox blister and scratched it into the skin on the arm of a man without the disease. The man ended up with a place on his arm but did not have the disease. After, doctors in Europe adopted the method and had a decline in new cases of small pox. -
1st Electric Battery
Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery called Voltaic Pile to provide continuous electric currents to a circuit without interruption.It had a few flaws but was still more reliable than Leyden jars. -
Samuel Colt Revolver
In 1836, Samuel Colt patented his six-barreled colt pistol to be able to reload faster without disabling them. His business, Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, popularized the use of interchangeable parts, assembly lines, and simple but reliable gun designs. -
Steel Plow
The steel plow was created by John Deere to improve the wooden plow. Since he saw that the wood plow would break while trying to break up the soil, he started working with steel and found that it was the perfect thing to replace the wood. Deere found ways to improve farm machinery ,even today in this year. -
Anesthesia
Alfred Velpeau discovered ways to prevent pain of any patient with or without losing consciousness during a surgery. -
The Bessemer Process
Sir Henry Bessemer created the Bessemer Process to make cheap mass production of steel. Steel was essential in building the modern day skyscraper. Later, in 1916, he invented the stainless steel. -
Pasteurization
Louis Pasteur (the Father of Microbiology) discovered something when he was commissioned to an alcohol manufacturer. He determined what was causing the beet root alcohol to sour and get bad.It was a different microbe that was used in vinegar that caused this. After this, he came up with the pasteurization process, a high temperature, short time process that sterilized milk and/or wine to make it safe for drinking. -
Commercial Combine Harvester
Hiram Moore created the first commercial combine harvester so that reaping, threshing and winnowing could all be done in a single process since all of them are usually done separately and take longer. This came from the reaper that was created by Patrick Bell. in the 1980's, on-board electronics were put in the combines to measure threshing efficiency. -
Seat belts
George Cayley first invented the seat belts to keep pilots inside their gliders. Then later, people started testing and improving seat belts to use in vehicles. Modern seat belts are what save the driver and passengers in car wrecks and crashes. -
Artificial Heart (Jarvik 7)
American scientist, Robert Jarvik and his mentor invented the artificial heart they named the Jarvik 7 because heart donors were harder to find for the blood types. In 1982, Dentist Dr. Barney Clark was the first person to get the transplant.He said his heart was moving like a normal heart. Unfortunately, he only lived 112 days after the surgery. Another man got the transplant and lived 620 days after the surgery. There was much improvement needed. -
Ultrasound
The ultrasound was invented by Obstetrician Ian Donald and engineer Tom Brown primarily for clinical use to look inside the body with sonic waves but by the end of the 20th century, the ultrasound was used in maternity clinics. -
3-D Printer
The first 3-D printer was invented by Chuck Hall. With the 3-D printer, you could make anything from toys, tools, musical instruments and even body parts. This revolutionized the way we produced entire objects and parts in the last few years. -
Camera Phone
On June 11th, 1997 Philippe Kahn sat while his wife was in labor with his daughter. He was putting things together like wires and found a way to make the first camera phone. He ran up the stairs with the phone as soon as his daughter was being born. He then took his daughter in his arms and took a picture. -
YouTube
Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley created the video sharing platform called YouTube. This all started when one of them couldn't find the video of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Superbowl anywhere on the internet. They wanted to make a video sharing website. YouTube started out as a video dating website but advanced into a platform for anyone to share videos, help grow people's businesses, and let people express themselves.
