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Just Think! What Would Your Morning Be Without……….
“The morning is great. Its only catch is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.”……Unknown.
Every morning you wake up to begin your day, and you will find yourself in the same places and using the same items. The following is an exploration and contemplation of these items and places. Normally, as you’re preparing for your day you probably don’t have time to occasionally wonder where about the origins of these things or who invented them. You probably don’t consider, for example, who invented the toaster while you are busy toasting your asparagus or mozzarella sticks. Well, Frank Shailor patented his idea for the “D-12” toaster in 1909. General Electric introduced it for use in the home. Unfortunately, it only toasted one side of the bread at a time, and it required that someone stand by to manually turn it off when the toast looked done. This often resulted in the charred remains of blackened bread just like at the contemporary gourmet buffet breakfasts at a Quality Inn. Charles Strite invented the modern timed pop-up toaster in 1919. And with that invaluable information, we are ready to go with everything or mostly everything else.
Once you wake up, and this can take some time, depending on who is waking up. You follow a specific or general routine. The routines may vary - but basically, you use things and wear things (one hopes) and probably eat things. Chances are, you’ll go places too. We’re going to take a look at the objects you use most mornings. Who is responsible for them and/or how did they evolve? And who should you blame. You’ll also note that overwhelmingly, the wealthy get them first and the poor last. You will also note our huge debt of gratitude to the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Chinese as well as kitchen cabinet makers in Indiana who invented the Lazy Susan for corner cabinets.
So, after careful study and thought you will be able to dazzle your friends and acquaintances with your extensive knowledge of many things. You can do this anytime or anyplace during your day and especially when you first encounter people in the morning. They will appreciate it. Trust us
“The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.”………Alexander Graham Bell
We will begin with the house. You live in a house. Who invented the house? People, and we include Neanderthals, who came first, and then Cro-Magnons (don’t mix them up), have always sought shelter be it caves, trees or structures built with mammoth bones. The idea of house/home has evolved from a place for shelter and survival. Earliest remnants of we know as a house were dated10,000 B.C in Turkey. Archeologist, Dr. Klaus Schmidt described the research and excavations that discovered what is probably the earliest known home in his riveting page turner, Sie Bauten Die Ersten Tempel. That earliest dwelling, designed by an architect, shepherd, hunter-gatherer named Abdul the Builder, was an open concept ground floor with updated appliances, three bedrooms, all ensuite, and office, a three-season room and a basement with a wet bar and display of animal slaying weapons. There was no garage since cars would not be invented for another 10,000 years but there probably was an area to park your camel. Nor was there a bathroom but we’ll get to that. Two millennia went by and before you know it, it was 8000 BC and we find round house structures in Jericho with mud brick construction. Round shapes were easier to defend. The round walls around Jericho didn’t help a whole lot for defense when “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down” according to the spiritual. The city of Jericho is located in the Middle East, 16 miles east to Jerusalem. It is considered to be the most ancient continuously inhabited city in the World. As dwellings evolved, people made mudbrick houses, packed close together. Some were entered through holes in the roof. Not good for rainy or snowy days or when large animals or thoughtless neighbors supposed the hole was a good place to relieve themselves. Inside the house were ovens, storage, and sleeping areas. Today we even have portable houses. Roland R. Conklin invented the first motor home (RV) in 1915. He called it the “Gypsy Van" and traveled from Long Island, N.Y., to San Francisco, Calif., over a two-month period. You can get still get an RV but if you pay $1.6 million it is a Motor Coach.
Presumably, you slept on something last night and we turn our attention to The Bed –
“ O bed! O bed! delicious bed! That heaven upon earth to the weary head”. ………Thomas Hood.
The earliest known bed, believed to be the Sealy Weedic Rushopedic, made of woven weeds and rushes, was found in a 77,000-year-old cave (open concept and ensuite) in South Africa. No, they were not full of bugs because people lined them and covered themselves with a bundle of grasses from a nearby river, which acted as insect repellent. Yeah sure! And if you didn’t live near of river full of crocodiles and anacondas and flesh eating microbles? If you were in the frozen north, animal skins, usually without the animal in them, came in handy and they also came with complimentary cold resistant bugs. And so it went for thousands of years. People slept and itched. Beds became a bit more sophisticated when the Egyptians raised beds off the floor with little legs. Good old King Tutankhamun (Tut to his friends) 3,300 years ago slept in a raised bed covered with a sheet. At Skara Brae (2,900 B.C.), in Scotland’s Orkney islands, archaeologists found evidence of box beds made from stone slabs. These did wonders for the Neolithic chiropracting business. Basically, there hasn’t been much change in the basic shape of the bed for thousands of years. Beds usually require some form of mattress, and mattresses have also been around as long as the bed except, evidently, at Skara Brae. We slept on what felt like an original mattress at a Comfort Inn last month. For centuries mattresses were filled with feathers, straw, hay, and grass and insects. Needless to say, they were quite uncomfortable although there were probably had early versions of adjustable mattresses. If you wanted your feet raised, just put more straw down there. Head raised? More straw beneath your head. Quite simple. People would put layers of hides or blankets on top for extra cushioning. Beds in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome improved considerably — for the wealthy. For families with property, the quality of bedding contrasted starkly with the piles of straw on which the poor slept. On the other hand, water beds were quite popular in swamps or flood prone deltas. Consider yourself fortunate. While discussing the bed, we take a brief detour to the concept of sleeping alone. You may have slept alone last night or with your spouse or partner or Heather Laquanda who you met online at the “Lie About Myself.com” website, but for thousands of years people were not interested in privacy. People would sleep together in large rooms. Royalty would sleep in a bed surrounded by retainers sleeping on the floor making trips to the bathroom a bit hazardous in the dark. Strangers meeting on the road would often share a bed at an inn. So, unless you were a king or queen you would not sleep alone for the next few millennia. The royal hoi polloi slept with their senior servants. Chinese emperors slept with concubines, stuffed animals, pictures of Taylor Swift or Barbie dolls. “Your own bed” is a 20th century development especially for the poor – again. For millennia among the poor, animals, such as cows and pigs, were often brought indoors at night too. This kept them safe from thieves, and also generated extra warmth on cold nights, not to mention providing a rather aromatic ambiance.
“Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.” Anthony Burgess
Now it’s time to wake up and many of you still use an alarm clock. “They should make an alarm clock that sounds like a dog about to puke. Nothing gets you of out of bed faster”……….Unknown.
The History Website informs that as early as the 5th century B.C., Plato invented an ingenious water clock that not only accurately measured the passage of time but also sounded a whistle to wake him for his morning lectures. Somehow, we presume, for the next millennia, folks managed to wake up at the time they needed to wake. The oldest alarm clock known is a German iron wall clock with a bronze bell, probably made in Nuremberg in the 15th century. Our friend, the classic tabletop alarm clock with that irritating, rattling bell didn’t emerge until the 19th century, introduced by French and American clockmakers. Levi Hutchins, an American clockmaker, built one of the first (relatively) affordable alarm clocks in 1787. Hutchins, who lived in Concord, New Hampshire, engineered his wooden, cabinet-style clock to ring a bell every morning at precisely 4 a.m. which was his preferred wake-up time. Hutchins didn’t patent his invention, which is just as well, because not everyone wants to get up at 4 a.m. A French clockmaker, Antoine Redier is credited with filing the first patent for an alarm clock in 1847. In 1876, the Seth Thomas Clock Company patented the standard bedside alarm clock, which became mass produced at the turn of the 20th century. Westclox introduced the “Chime Alarm” in 1931. This clock was advertised with the slogan “First he whispers, then he shouts.” What a joy that one must have been. The first alarm clock with a snooze button came from General Electric-Telechron, which designed the futuristic 1956 “Snooz-Alarm.” Because of the size and shape of the clock’s alarm gear, the snooze function only worked for nine minutes, not 10. Of note is that all these years later, 9 minutes is still the standard snooze time, even for smartphones.
“Dear Humans, You get mad at me when I work....You get mad at me when I don't work. Sincerely, Confused alarm clock.”
Of course, many people before they get out of bed or turn on the light - turn to their drug of choice, the iPhone. Yes, like breathing, people depend on their phones to start the day. So, thank you first to George Sweigert, an engineer at Bell Labs, who invented the cordless phone in 1965. This opened the Pandora’s Box of modern wireless communication technology. The original smartphones were bulky, unreliable and ridiculously expensive. Enter the iPhone on June 29, 2007. It was THE game changer. Unlike with Mr. Sweigert, there is no single person we can credit (blame?) as the Iphone’s inventor. Indeed, over 200 patents went into its original assembly. “An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iPhone! Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here it is.”………………..Steve Jobs “
Q: How can you tell which one of your friends has the new iPhone ? A: Don't worry, they'll let you know.”
“Let there be light”……Genesis 1:3. OK, you’re out of bed, possibly checked your messages, and chances are you will turn on a light so you won’t step on the dog or your spouse or walk into a door or wall or furniture. It was a very dark world before Thomas Edison. How to provide light after dark? First, of course was the fire in the hearth and people sat around it singing “you gotta have hearth”. Then, for 40,000 years, it was the stone lamp. This was the first true “lamp.” It was a hollowed-out, non-flammable object like a rock or a large shell and they would fill it with a flammable fuel and add a wick. The fuel was the easiest thing to find, usually rendered animal fat, or tallow available in the camping aisle at Walmart. Then along came rush lights, the simplest form of early lighting. People rushed to construct rushlights by coating 18-inch strips of rush plants with animal fat, typically mutton. These provided about 15 to 20 minutes of illumination each so you would go through quite a few rush lights in an evening while playing charades, bridge, monopoly or binging episodes of “Game of Thrones” with your neighbors. “It far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness”…….William L. Watkinson. Candles existed in two main varieties. Those tallow candles, made from animal fat, were cheaper but they flickered constantly, needed frequent trimming, gave uneven light, and smelled awful, just like the people. Beeswax candles offered better illumination and needed less maintenance, were more aromatic but cost about four times the price of tallow. In warmer climes, the Mediterranean world ran on olive oil. Presumably one could also dip a slice of bread onto an olive oil candle. Could this be toast? Permit us a slight digression, we love to watch movies set in past centuries in which people would enter a room and light one candle and the room would burst into light……caves too. Although not dungeons. Dungeons are always dark. Light sources progressed to kerosene and gas lamps and then Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison = light bulb….right? Well, not quite. Alessandro Volta, Humphrey Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Warren de la Rue, William Staite, and Joseph Swan all laid the foundation for the incandescent light bulb Edison invented. Volta invented the battery, called the Voltaic Pile. This did not refer to his hemorrhoids. English chemist, Joseph Swan created the first successful incandescent filament electric lamp and gave public demonstrations of it in late 1878 and early 1879. Edison’s combination of thin carbon filament design with better vacuums made him the first to solve both the scientific and commercial challenges of light bulb design. After a court battle in England between them which sided with Swan’s patent the two worked together under the commonly adopted “Ediswan” company and sold lamps made with a cellulose filament that Swan had invented. Now it would be nice to have something to turn the light on and off and so we have the light switch. Tracing that invention is easier than the light bulb. In 1884, Englishman, John Henry Holmes patented the first practical light switch. Now, thanks to lights, you can find your way, off you go to your first stop, the bathroom. On TV and in movies people just wake up and start doing things, only occasionally going to the bathroom first. Note that in “action movies”, they never go to the bathroom unless it’s to beat someone up or get beaten up or escape through a window above the toilet. Many are like the Da Vinci Code where Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou just never go to at all. The earliest bathrooms were for bathing…….bath room. If the Nile was not available for bathing because it had flooded or people preferred not to become crocodile chum, Egyptians installed small, private bath rooms in their homes. The Romans went one step further with communal bath houses. With the fall of Rome bathing declined, often due to fear of disease or being constantly attacked by barbarians. Thankfully, the Renaissance not only gave us great art, it gave us individual rooms designed for bathing and so the bath room was back but it was still just for bathing. However, your first stop in the bathroom in the morning is probably the Toilet - Between 3,500 and 3,000 B.C, Sumerians in Mesopotamia built the oldest toilets known to date. They consisted of deep pits lined with stacked ceramic tubes, on which users would sit. The solid excreta pungently remained in the container and liquid seeped out through holes in it. Again, for millennia, toilets, like beds, were also typically shared, featuring long benches with holes. Eventually, someone got a Handle on the Flush Toilet. The popular myth is that the appropriately named Englishman, Thomas Crapper invented the toilet. Nope! Although Crapper filed nine toilet-related patents from 1881 to 1896, the aptly named gent did not invent the modern flush toilet. Sir John Harington was flushed with success 300 years earlier with his water closet design. Harington sold the commode to his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I who had the first one installed in Richmond Palace. In 1775, Alexander Cummings filed the first flush toilet patent. By the time Crapper took a seat, the original flush toilet had undergone a series of improvements, including its S-curved water piping to trap odors (Cummings again), a chain-operated flushing device (Joseph Bramah) and a pressurized siphon flush system that effectively carried excrement from toilet bowl to sewage pipes (Joseph Adamson). Crapper became widely associated with toilets when as he wisely put his name on his wares. All this led to the contemporary, $128,000 Swarovski Crystal Toilet. The Artemus Moon vehicle toilets come in at $23 million but you wouldn’t have one in your home.
Time to wipe the slate clean as just in case you were wondering. In 1896, Scott Paper Co. began marketing the first rolls of toilet paper. Toilet Paper - The first known example of TP comes from A.D. – or rather Roman times to be exact. Romans used a sponge on a stick, known as a tersorium or xylospongium, that was kept in either a bucket of salt water or vinegar. The ancient Greeks used Ostraca. Ostraca were broken pieces of ceramic pottery, kind like what a flowerpot is made out of today, that had smoothed down edges. Early Chinese people used a wooden stick shaped like a spatula with a cloth wrapped around the end. In the 16th century, paper became widespread in Europe, so the population began to use old newspapers and pages from books to wipe. In the US, during the 19th century, catalogues became popular, especially Farmers’ Almanac and Sears Roebuck Catalog as they were printed on soft paper, delivered free, and even had a hole in the corner to help hang in the outhouse. People would tear off a sheet to use and then toss it into the outhouse hole…..another pungent delight. We remind you that for thousands of years before the light bulb and toilet the world was dark and smelly. The first product made specifically for tush-wiping originated in the US in 1857. Joseph Gayetty created a product made of “aloe-infused sheets of manila hemp” that came in boxes. They were meant to treat hemorrhoids (Voltaic Piles?). In 1890 Clarence and E. Irvin Scott developed a type of toilet paper that could be rolled onto a small cardboard tube, making manufacturing and introduced the very useful toilet paper roll. Also in the bathroom, you should have a mirror. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is fairest of them all?” ………. Either the Wicked Queen in Snow White or a Kardashian.
After taking mirrors for granted all my life, I stayed in an Airbnb recently and discovered that it had a mirrorless bathroom. There was space for a mirror above the sink where it was supposed to be but there was no mirror. I had some issues. Shaving left patches of stubble beard. Later, when I found a mirror elsewhere in the house, I found my face resembled the Mercator Projection. There was also dripping blood. While brushing, twice my toothbrush entered a nostril and there was some Sensodyne on my left earlobe. My combed hair looked like I had been struck by lightning. Mirrors are arguably one of the most common and essential items you might come across on a day-to-day basis. Researchers believe some of the world's first mirrors date back to approximately 4000 B.C. However, those mirrors were not the reflective glass and metal items humans use today. Instead, they consisted of obsidian stones. The world's first handheld mirrors date back to the fifth century B.C. where pottery drawings and paintings from Greece depict humans looking into these types of mirrors which could handily fit in a toga or sandals or Socrates mouth if you got mad at him. Archeologists also believe this is the earliest evidence of humans using mirrors for self-grooming purposes. Ancient Romans introduced mirrors made with silvering techniques. Early versions of glass mirrors became more commonplace around 500 A.D. but eventually, Venice became the epicenter of the modern glass mirror. Now you have something to look into. “Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head”…….The Beatles. A quick brush at The Comb. The first hair combs were not invented by a single person that we can point to. Instead, they were gradually developed by early humans across different cultures. Archaeologists have found combs made from bone, wood, and ivory dating back to as early as 5,000 years ago because it was important to look good for a date to go mammoth hunting or capturing a wife from a neighboring tribe. By the 19th century, combs started being manufactured from materials like celluloid and plastic, making them cheap and accessible to everyone.
Time to wash and isn’t it nice to have a Faucet –The earliest faucets can be traced back to, you guessed it, the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. The Greeks created a system of pipes that allowed water to be transported from one location to another using gravity, while the Egyptians invented hand pumps that could be used to draw water from wells. During the Roman Empire, public buildings had elaborate plumbing systems that included lead pipes and bronze valves that could be used to control the flow of water. These valves were operated by hand using a system of levers and pulleys. During the Middle Ages, indoor plumbing was virtually non-existent, and most people relied on wells and pumps for their water supply while also producing Cholera epidemics. However, in the 16th century someone remembered that the screw pump invented by Archimedes in the third century BC, allowed for more efficient drawing of water from wells and rivers. The first indoor faucets were also invented during this time period. These were usually made from wood or metal and were designed to pour water into buckets or other containers. They were not attached to any sort of plumbing system, but were rather used as standalone device. Leonardo da Vinci designed the first valves, a large component of water faucets. He illustrated the designs that preceded the faucets we use today, possibly so he could wash the paint off his hands while painting the Mona Lisa. Faucet interest was off and on for a few hundred years as we fast forward to 20th century Seattle in 1937. Alfred Moen was cleaning up after an evening of work when he went to wash his hands at an old-fashioned two-handle faucet, one hot one cold. Another serendipitous invention as a sudden burst of hot water got his immediate attention…..to say the least….. and this moment of surprise turned out to be the inspiration for the single-handle faucet. In 1945. Landis Perry designed the ball valve for faucets. Ball valves control the amount of hot and cold water that comes through the spout. It was “the Moen, the merrier.” The 1970s gave us the Farrah Fawcett. Remember the Swarski toilet? Well you can now add a Swarovski Crystal Widespread Bathroom Faucet for a mere. $2,416.
One rarely thinks about the hot/warm water that we depend on but where did hot water heating come from? We posed the question, “who invented the water heater?” to Google. The result of our inquiry was that it was evidently plumbers since the first seven sites providing answers to the query were listed as plumber sites that had evidently all copied and pasted from each other while inserting the name of the company. We eventually found that, who else, those ancient Romans were hot water “pioneers”. While not busy conquering every territory they could find and assassinating their own emperors, or wearing those cute little gladiator skirts, they built large, public baths that tapped into natural hot springs. However, in other times and places, people boiled a pot of water over a fire or on a stove to take their baths and wash their laundry. Things took a while to heat up but in 1868 Benjamin Waddy Maughan, an English painter, invented a way to heat the cool water in pipes with Bunsen burners. His goal was commendable, but it was a dangerous way to get hot water from the tap. Although one could boil veggies as a multitasking endeavor. The inventor of the modern-day water heater was Edwin Ruud, a Norwegian mechanical engineer working in Philadelphia. In 1889, he designed “the first automatic, storage-tank type gas water heater.” Ruud founded a company with several other engineers and patented the invention in 1897. The Ruud Automatic Gas Water-Heater promised instant hot water coming out of the faucet more safely than ever before. His invention was timely—it took advantage of the advent of gas utility services in large cities in the 1890s and 1900s and eventually provided the water that burned Alfred Moen. Now that you have that hot water, you can wash and avoid a “Ruud” awakening with cold water. Oh, and the first walk-in shower, an outdoor shower, was originally known as a waterfall.
“If soap tasted good I would never get clean.” ……unknown……. Soap, like houses and bedrooms and bathrooms and just about everything else except good taste in Hollywood movies and politics has improved as it has evolved. Evidence has been found that ancient Babylonians understood soap making as early as 2800 BC. Archeologists have found soap-like material in historic clay cylinders from this time. These cylinders were inscribed with the soap producing instructions saying, “fats boiled with ashes” although it could also be a pain in the ash if not sufficiently cooled. 400,000 years ago the Neanderthals and those newcomer Cro-Magnons, who appeared 40,000 years ago were dirty and stinky despite what we saw with Ringo Starr and Raquel Welch in the critically acclaimed historical documentary movies, Cave Man and 1,000,000 Years B.C. Egyptian bathing records show ancient Egyptians bathed regularly. The Ebers papyrus, a medical document from about 1500 BC describes combining animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to form a soap-like material used for treating skin diseases, as well as for washing. Many other ancient civilizations also used early forms of soap. The word soap received its name from an ancient Roman legend about Mount Sapo. Rain would wash down the mountain mixing with animal fat and ashes, resulting in a clay mixture found to make cleaning easier. By the 7th century, soap-making was an established art in Italy, Spain and France. These countries were early centers of soap manufacturing due to their ready supply of source ingredients, such as oil from olive trees. But after the fall of Rome in 467 AD, for some reason people began forsaking washing themselves and bathing habits declined in much of Europe leading to stinky unsanitary conditions in the Middle Ages. The uncleanliness of that age made perfume a very popular item to cover up personal stinkiness. Perfume had made a comeback although it had been around for a while. The oldest perfumes were discovered by archeologists in Cyprus. They were more than 4,000 years old. A cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia, dating back more than 3,000 years, identifies a woman named Tapputi as the first recorded perfume maker. Eau de Tappui for discriminating royal beauties.
“ Mmm, a little bit of soap Will take away your perfume eventually”……….The Jarmels…….Back to soap. a major step toward large-scale soap making occurred in 1791 when a French chemist, Nicholas Leblanc, patented a process for making soda ash from common salt. Soda ash is obtained from ashes and can be combined with fat to form soap. This discovery made soap-making one of America's fastest-growing industries by 1850 although it could occasionally be a pain in the ash. Today, most things we call “soap” are actually detergents. It has become so common to call detergents “soap,” that most people would be confused if you asked for a “liquid hand detergent” when shopping. But then a lot of people are confused about a lot of things these days. You should wash, shouldn’t you? We consulted the “Essential Home and Garden” website to clarify the soap vs. detergent confusion and learned that the main difference between soap and detergent is in their chemical makeup. Soap consists of oils, fats, and lye that come together to form salts that act as surfactants. A surfactant (aka a surface-active agent) is a substance that, when added to a liquid, reduces its surface tension, thereby increasing its spreading and wetting properties. Ask for the surfactant aisle when visiting supermarkets or pharmacies. Detergents are also surfactant salts, but their unique makeup means they are not reactive with minerals in hard water. Fed up with surfactants like Dove or Irish Spring? Try Khan Al Saboun, a concoction featuring gold and diamond powder which comes with the astounding price tag of $2,800 per bar.
“Wash four distinct and separate times, using lots of lather each time from individual bars of soap.”…………Howard Hughes
Time to brush your teeth.
The toothbrush doesn’t remove six months of tartar 30 minutes before your dental appointment!....Anonymous.
Evidently, from daily interactive empirical observations with the public, brushing one’s teeth is optional for some people. Nor is the use of soap, come to think of it especially on mass transit during the summer. The toothbrush as we know it today was not invented until 1938. It took a while to get there though as early forms of the toothbrush have been in existence since 3000 BC. Ancient civilizations used a “chew stick,” which was a thin twig with a frayed end. These ‘chew sticks’ were rubbed against the teeth. The bristle toothbrush, similar to the type used today, was finally invented in1498 in China by philosopher/dentist, Ah Gon Chew. The bristles were actually the stiff, coarse hairs taken from the back of a pig’s neck and attached to handles made of bone or bamboo. William Addis designed the more recognizable toothbrush in England around 1780. The handle was carved from cattle bone, and the brush portion was made from pigs' hair as well. Clearly there were a lot of follicle challenged pigs in past centuries. In 1844, the first 3-row bristle brush was designed. According to the Library of Congress, natural bristles made from animal hair were still used until Dupont de Nemours invented nylon. Nylon initiated the development of the modern toothbrush in 1938. The first nylon toothbrush was called Doctor West’s Miracle Toothbrush. The first electric toothbrush was made in 1939, and the first electric toothbrush, now widely-used was invented in 1960. You should have something to put on your toothbrush of course and so we have toothpaste . Because we think you need to know these things, we checked on how many flavors of toothpaste there are extant. We stopped counting at an impressive thirty-five flavors but there are many more.…….. Egyptians are believed to be the first people to use substances made out of various ingredients to clean their teeth around 5,000BC. While these powdery substances were nothing like the toothpaste we use today, they served more or less the same purpose. Back then, toothbrushes weren’t even invented – which happened between 3,500 to 3,000 BC. The ancient Greeks and Romans used to have toothpaste, while people in India were using it around 500BC. Just like today, these ancient types of toothpaste were used to keep teeth and gums clean, freshen breath, and whiten the teeth. But the ingredients used to create toothpaste have changed drastically over the years. The Egyptians used burnt eggshells, powder of ox’s hooves, and ashes, combined using a pumice stone to make a powder they’d rub their teeth and gums with. Sometimes the ox would get really upset. On the other hand, the Greeks and Romans were more abrasive with their toothpaste ingredient selections. The Greeks used crushed bones and oyster shells to create a powder to clean their teeth. Later, the Romans enhanced it and added some flavoring to help bad breath, along with delicious, powdered charcoal and bark. The earliest known example of a past form of toothpaste that we are familiar with now came in to being in the 1850s. Known as Crème Dentifrice, it was sold in jars. Tubie or Not Tubie? It wasn’t until the 1890s that Colgate introduced the tube in which toothpaste that we know and love thus launching over a century of controversy that continues to this moment over squeezing the tube from the top or bottom. Clearly, it should be the bottom yet, there are many of those free-spirited top squeezers (I know one quite well) and those who go through life compromising by being middle squeezers. This can create friction in many households. Of course there are some who do not use toothpaste at all. Here in the Poconos, you compliment them by saying “nice tooth”.
Hopefully, now you are cleaned and well-groomed and it’s time to leave the bathroom although we’re certain that there are people who would spend their day in the bathroom Shall we get dressed or go to the kitchen? We’re hungry so it’s the kitchen where we encounter the Refrigerator. Before refrigerators were invented and you could eventually purchase a Thermador Freedom 48 Inch Wide 26.8 Cu. Ft. Energy Star Certified French Door Refrigerator with Gallon Door Storage for $16,799.00, people stored food in any way possible to keep it cool just like our contemporaries do with beer at the beach. They took advantage of rivers and lakes by storing food directly in the cold water or cutting ice for ice houses. Ice houses on lakes and rivers were still effective ways to keep food cool before the invention of electricity but not if you lived in the desert or jungle or Florida in the summer. Underwater or underground storage, like cold cellars, provided refrigeration before mechanical refrigeration became available at home. A problem if you lived in the desert, however. William Cullen, a Scottish physician made the earliest invention of artificial refrigeration in 1748. Although he didn't employ the technique in practice, he showed how quickly evaporating a liquid into gas has a cooling impact. The work of various inventors during the 1800s led to the development of the modern mechanical refrigeration technology used today. German scientist Carl von Linde developed a revolutionary method for liquefying gases in the late 1800s, while American Jacob Perkins created the first vapor compression device in 1834. By the turn of the 20th century, advances in refrigeration and use of electricity led to widespread commercial refrigeration, particularly in sectors like breweries and meatpacking factories. Fred W. Wolf, an American, built the first home electric refrigerator in 1913, which comprised a refrigeration unit on top of an icebox. When William C. Durant developed the first house refrigerator with a self-contained compressor in 1918, mass production of domestic refrigerators heated up. The initial price of a household refrigeration unit ranged from $500 to $1,000, or around $6,575 to $13,150 in modern currency. There was no automatic ice machine to spill ice on the floor when you put your glass in the wrong place when visiting a neighbor’s house. I never did that. Thus, during the early years of its use, household refrigerators were seen as a luxury items. Those wealthy people again. And the Freezer? In 1860, French inventor Ferdinand Carre patented a device that pressurized and then depressurized refrigerant enough to create vapor compression technology by using a more stable and effective (but toxic) refrigerant – ammonia
Yes, one must eat but while there is finger food, there are limits. At the cutting edge of utensils is the Knife.
“Remember, it is never the knife's fault.”……Daniel Boulud.
According to “Today in Science”, Cardinal Richelieu (Armand Jean du Plessis), chief advisor to French King Louis XIII, was responsible for creating the now common table knife with its rounded end during the 1630s. Apparently the Cardinal got irritated by the coarse behavior of men at the dining tables of the time. They spent meals stabbing their daggers into chunks of meat and other food, or into the table, or each other. In the absence of toothpicks, they also of using the sharp daggers to pick their teeth at the end of the meal. Richelieu ordered his kitchen staff to file off the sharp points of all the house knifes. The idea caught on, and it wasn’t long before this new style of rounded table knife became a trendy dinner accessory in upper-class French households. In 1669, King Louis XIV of France banned pointed knives – at the table and as weapons – to try put an end to the culture of violence of the time. Unfortunately, 124 years later there was still the pointed edge of the guillotine for great grandson, Louis XVI. Over time, the exact shape and form of the table knife changed, becoming slightly wider to make it easier to scoop food onto a fork, and to make it easier to spread butter or other spreads onto a slice of bread. So next time you butter a slice of fresh bread, or tuck into a soft and juicy stew, remember Cardinal Richelieu, and his clever cutlery innovation from almost 400 years ago. Also remember, knife on the right side of the plate and fork on the left even if it is a GoldVein by Kamon - GV No.2 that you purchased for $54,650.
Fork. “If you come to a fork in the road, take it”……Yogi Berra. Or, “Tine is on my side”…..John Cafarella with apologies to the Rolling Stones. Bee Wilson in “Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat”, informs that roasting and carving forks existed in ancient and medieval times. Ancient Romans, them again, used fork-like tools to handle shellfish or remove food from fire, and medieval diners used specialized forks for sweet treats. Naturally these were for the wealthy. The first recorded mention of a fork dates to the 11th century when a two-pronged gold fork was used by a Byzantine princess, the wife of the Doge (inventor of Doge Ball) of Venice. The poor woman was mocked by religious fanatics because, they claimed, it resembled the Devil’s pitchfork. Saint Peter Damian criticized the princess for her “excessive delicacy” in choosing the utensil over her hands. Whatever would we do without religious fanatics?
For the next 400 years, spoons and knives remained the preferred utensils in Europe. And although Queen Elizabeth I reportedly had access to forks during her reign from 1558 to 1603, she considered spearing her food crude and opted to eat with her fingers even if she would have had access to the "Golden Salad Fork," which is valued at approximately $28,000 and is crafted from gold and adorned with precious gemstones.
“Don't you always feel bad when they take away one of the spoons? It's like you ordered wrong.” …….David Hyde Pierce.
So let us consider the Spoon. Spoons take the cake (although now we should properly use cake servers), as the oldest eating utensil, next to fingers, of course. The word comes from the ancient Latin word “cocklea,” meaning shell. The first spoons were indeed shells that allowed people to drink more efficiently than they would by using their cupped hands. Yes, we “shell” overcome. Spoons date back to the Paleolithic period before the giant woolly sloths went extinct. In other words, they've been around for a while. It's thought that the spoon most likely originated in southern Europe. The shells eventually moved to first wood and bone. Paleolithic scoops around 20,000 years ago were used for scooping broth or soft grains. Note that of the knife, the fork and the spoon, only the spoon was/is used for just eating, not as a weapon. No one was stabbed to death with a spoon.
There is also furniture of course in your home, we hope, and of import are two items of furniture that you may use as use begin your day. First, the Chair. Not to be confused with the 60’s rock duo, Sonny and Chair, the first chairs were thrones for, of course for royalty. Speaking of thrones, you can still get a L.Ercolani Von Arm Chair for $244,000 possibly at Ikea. The Greeks came up with the concept of benches circa 550 BC. Basically, only rich people, yup, them again, had chairs before the Industrial Revolution which we’ll date from James Watt’s steam engine 1760 (see trains below), through the Wright Brothers airplane, 1903. Chairs weren’t created by one person and the chair’s design changed as it reflected shifts in society, technology, and culture about to where to place one’s tush over the next millennia or so. The chair that you are sitting on, the modern chair and its iterations was designed and built by Italian cabinet maker, Gaetano Descalzi in 1807. It is cleverly called the Chiavari chair for his hometown of Chiavari. Factories during the Industrial Revolution made chairs much more common and affordable for the common folk. New machines meant factories could pump out chair parts much faster and cheaper. Things became more standardized. Inventors like German/Austrian cabinet maker, Michael Thonet figured out tricks like steam bending wood. Metal (like cast iron….very important for outdoor furniture in the Poconos where critters like to chew on wood) also started being used. Slowly but surely, chairs stopped being just for the rich. More ordinary middle-class families could start affording them and eventually would have something to sit on while watching TV. The chair became less of a luxury and more of an everyday thing enabling you to sit at a table while gulping down your breakfast while catching up on texts and Facebook and Instagram or reading the list of ingredients on the back of the Fruit Loops box.
Speaking of Tables, Ancient peoples quickly identified the need to elevate objects above the dirt floor for obvious reasons, and this was initial driving force behind the table’s invention. Archeological evidence from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia revealed the use of low, raised platforms and stone slabs dating back to the third millennium BC. However, the true transformation of the table into a distinct, specialized piece of furniture occurred in the sophisticated societies of ancient Greece and Rome. Greek culture introduced the concept of separate, four-legged tables after initial attempts at two-legged tables failed, used specifically for dining. These tables were initially low, designed to be used by diners reclining on couches, and were frequently brought in and out of the dining room as needed. Russian physicist, Dmitri Mendeleev invented the Periodic Table in 1869 but of course you cannot eat food or play Mahjong on it. You can’t eat off a multiplication table or a table of contents either for that matter. You can, however eat off a Branched Master Crystal-Acrylic Dining Table – Clear Luxury Furniture with Elegant Nature By Dainte available at Wayfair for $274,458.00 r $9,515/mo. 0% APR up to 36 months. All of the above can take less time than it has taken what we have explored thus far in our essay but now it is time to get dressed.
When you get dressed, either before, after, or during breakfast, there are essential clothing items that are required.
“Silver threads and golden needles will not mend this heart of mine”….. the grievance of numerous female country chanteuses.
At last, we are getting dressed and in exploring the evolution of articles of clothing we note that it is not certain when people first started wearing clothes, however, anthropologists estimate that it was somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 years ago. That narrows it down. The first clothes, both Armani and St. Laurent, fall collections were made from natural elements, animal skin, fur, grass, leaves, bone, and shells and were displayed each year at the annual Olduvai Gorge Fashion Shows for Influencers arranged and presented by Anna Wintour. Garments were often draped or tied; however, simple needles made out of animal bone provide evidence of sewn leather and fur garments from at least 30,000 years ago. When neolithic cultures began living together in settlements, they discovered the advantages of woven fibers over animal hides, the making of cloth, drawing on basketry techniques, evolved as became one of mankind's fundamental technologies. With the history of clothing goes the history of textiles. Humans, (Martha Stewart was young at the time) invented weaving, spinning, tools. The invention that inspired machines was called the Spinning Jenny and was created by James Hargreaves, a spinner and weaver from Lancashire, England in 1764. His invention was the first machine to improve upon the spinning wheel. And from whenst came the spinning wheel? Thought.com references "Ancient History of the Spinning Wheel," by German author and science historian Franz Maria Feldhaus. She weaves a history with origins of the device back to ancient Egypt, however, other historical documentation indicates that it debuted in India between 500 and 1000 A.D. by Mahatma Gucci while other evidence cites designer Quiang de la Renta, of China as the point of origin A spinning wheel is a simple machine used to create yarns, which are then woven together with a loom to create textiles. and the other techniques needed to be able to make the fabrics used for clothing. But “sew what”, you say. Along came Ready-Made Clothing. Before sewing machines, nearly all clothing was local and hand-sewn, there were tailors and seamstresses in most towns that could make individual items of clothing for customers. It took a while to get to Elias Howe and his sewing machine. The first patent was issued to Charles Weisenthal, a German and it was a British patent in 1755 for a “needle that is designed for a machine.” There’s no description in Weisenthal’s patent of any mechanical machine. English cabinet maker Thomas Saint designed the first sewing machine of its kind. His patent described a machine powered with a hand crank to be used for leather and canvas. It is unknow whether Saint built a prototype. Forty years after Thomas Saint’s drawing came a functioning sewing machine. Barthelemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, invented a machine that used a hooked needle and one thread, creating a chain stitch. Other French tailors heard about the invention, they weren’t too pleased. Fearing Thimonnier’s machine would result in their unemployment, they burnt down his factory. Unfortunately, Thimonnier was still inside at the time. Walter Hunt created America’s first functioning sewing machine, but he had second thoughts. Hunt thought such a machine would cause unemployment for many, resulting in his having his factory burned down with him in it so he didn’t bother to patent the design. Finally, Elias Howe, that guy we learned about as we were memorizing lists of inventions in elementary school. (Eli Whitney – Cotton Gin……. In 4th grade I had no idea what that was), patented a process that used thread from two different sources in 1846. He had a difficult time selling his design, so he went to England to try his luck there with little success. Eventually, he returned to America only to find others had copied his lockstitch mechanism while he was gone. One of those was Isaac Singer. So now we’re ready for your ready-made clothes and you can make them on your M28 Longarm Sewing Machine with Autopilot & 10′, 11′, or 12′ Quilting Frame by Innova. It can be yours for $52,999.00
First comes your underwear. Underwear
"God bless my underwear my only pair. Stand beside them and guide them. Through the rips, through holes, through the tears. From the washer to the dryer, to clothesline in the air. God bless my underwear, my only pair".......Boy Scout Song. ……………In ancient Egypt (circa 4400 BC), the schenti, a triangular linen garment, became fashionable as a refined loincloth. Unisex, worn by both men and women, schenti varied in design based on social status, with pharaohs like Tutankhamun, he of the raised bed, buried with elaborate versions—145 were found in his tomb, in case he couldn’t decide what to wear while being dead on a particular day, signifying their cultural importance. Linen was favored for its breathability, while leather schenti were used during menstruation for their absorbency. In ancient Rome, the subligaculum, a loincloth or shorts-like garment, was worn by men and women, particularly athletes and gladiators, for functionality during physical activity like fighting lions or assassinating emperors and such. Roman women also used strophia, leather or fabric breastcloths, to support the chest during exercise or while poisoning husbands. In ancient China, during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 BC), the xieyi, (try saying that fast three times), a tunic-style undergarment, was worn, while the Northern Dynasty (420–588 BC) introduced the moxiong, a one-piece breast cloth that flattened the chest for modesty. These garments were made from silk or cotton. The Middle Ages (5th–15th centuries) saw underwear evolve as hygiene and social class became more prominent influences. In Europe, men wore braies, loose-fitting linen trousers tied at the waist and knees. Initially outer garments, braies became underwear by the late Middle Ages, featuring a front flap (codpiece) for practicality. Women wore chemises, close-fitting linen shirts that served as a hygienic barrier between the skin and heavy outer garments. In a song that. no one but this author remembers from 1958, Gerry Granahan presented his opinion of the garment with his recording of No Chemise Please (I still have the ‘45’). Chemises were critical in that stinky era of limited bathing, absorbing sweat and oils to keep outer clothing clean. With the Victorian Era (1837–1901) came extreme modesty in dress and complex layering, with women’s underwear consisting of up to 13 pieces weighing nearly 10 pounds in total. Key garments included: chemise (again): the linen underlayer for hygiene, drawers: split-leg pants for practicality, especially before indoor plumbing, petticoats: multiple layers to shape skirts, including panniers (side-extending frames) and crinolines (hoop skirts). Then came corsets, reinforced with whalebone or steel, which were central to achieving that attractive hourglass figure through tightlacing. By the time all that was done and they were dressed it was evening and time to take them all off to go to bed. The clothing may have been attractive to some, but minor issues such as organ displacement and respiratory issues emerged by the late 19th century thanks to the tight corsets. Then came the bustle, a smaller frame worn at the back which replaced crinolines in the 1870s but was equally restrictive. It was great to be a society woman in those days. Men got off much easier. Most wore union suits, one-piece garments with a buttoned flap for convenience. Guess where? These evolved into long johns, named after late 19th century American boxer, John L. Sullivan, who wore them during his matches, and were made from cotton or wool, offering warmth and better hygiene.
Brassière “So this dyslexic guy walks into a bra”. The term originates from the French word brassière, meaning a cloth designed to support the upper body. It entered common usage in the early 20th century and has since become a global term. The most ancient bras that we know of are depicted in certain pieces of art from the Minoan civilization in the 14th Century BC. These show a mastoeides – a linen or soft leather garment which supported the breasts from underneath, pushing them out and leaving them totally exposed. This did not catch on in colder climates. Then, we have Roman bras or “mamillare” — pieces of cloth that women wrapped tightly around their chests to cover their breasts. During the 16th century when women in the Western world adopted the corset.,the garment lifted up her breasts and shrank the waist to width and shape that was considered a feminine beauty ideal at the time. The corset as fashion d’reguer is attributed to Catherine de Médici, wife of King Henri II of France. She enforced a ban on thick waists at court during the 1550s. She was also in 1893, Marie Tucek patented a brassiere that included separate pockets for the breasts and straps that went over the shoulder and had hook-and-eye fastening. Although it looked very much like modern bras. The first modern bra is often considered to be a creation of American socialite Mary Phelps Jacob, also known as Caresse Crosby, who was the first recipient of a patent for what looks like the bra we know today.
“Coffee is like a bra, 3 cups is one too many.”………..Demetri Martin
Time to put on your Pants. "Where are your pants, son?".....Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.......
It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment trousers were invented and people put their pants on one leg at a time. However, archaeological discoveries provide evidence of early trouser-like garments dating back around 3,000 years. These ancient trousers were typically loose-fitting and made from natural fibers. Historical research suggests that Central Asian societies relying heavily on horseback riding were the first to invent trousers. Unless they all ended up with unusually high voices, this makes total sense. The earliest recorded instance of women wearing trousers is found in the Scythian (a group of nomadic tribes originating in southern Siberia), culture around 500 BC. Scythian women, who were known as skilled horse riders, wore pants for practicality and mobility while riding. The origins of trousers as we know them today can also be traced back to riding breeches, worn by horse-riding cultures, both men and women, in the medieval period. During the Renaissance, breeches became a fashionable garment for men in Europe. They were snug-fitting and typically ended just below the knee, just like pro football uniforms today. In the18th century: Knee-length breeches paired with long stockings continued to be popular. Then in the 19th century trousers began to lengthen, evolving into high-waisted and snug-fitting trousers. As the century progressed, trousers became a standard part of men’s daily attire. We know you’re wondering “when did women begin wearing pants?” Meet Fanny Wright, Scottish-American author and social reformer of the early 19th century, who began wearing long pants beneath a medium dress. She became the first woman ever to step outside in public in anything other than dresses and skirts. Later in the 19th century came women’s rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Her trousers, eponymously called bloomers were loose-fitting and that became a symbol of the women’s suffrage movement. The true revolution in women’s fashion came in the early 20th century. With the advent of World War I, women increasingly took on roles in factories and the workforce, necessitating practical clothing. This shift towards trousers continued and gained momentum in the 1920s when designer Coco Chanel popularized pants as chic fashion for women.
A brief word about your T Shirt - most of you wear one at one time or another. The first manufactured t-shirt was invented between the Spanish-American War in 1898, and 1913 when the U.S. Navy began issuing them as standard undershirts. In 1920 for the actual term “t-shirt” became part of the English dictionary, thanks to F. Scott Fitzgerald who published the word in his novel This Side of Paradise.
Shoes – “There’s no business like shoe business”….apologies to Irving Berlin.
Have to protect those footsies from the cold and sharp objects don’t we. Climatic evidence suggests that people were probably protecting their feet from frigid conditions by about 50,000 years ago. Changes in foot shape and toe strength indicate that people were using footwear with substantial soles, identified as Manolo Blahnik about 40,000 years ago. The oldest surviving pair of shoes, much more up to date are what’s referred to as the Fort Rock Sandals. These were woven sagebrush bark sandals made by Indigenous people in what’s now southeast Oregon and northern Nevada about 10,200 to 9,300 years ago for a night out in Las Vegas to attend a Wayne Newton residency. As for fully enclosed shoes, during 2020 dig archaeologists in an Armenian cave found well-preserved shoes made from tanned cowhide that date back 5,500 years. Yup, the world’s oldest leather shoes size 10 wide. By the 17th century, heels had become a significant element of men’s fashion, especially among the aristocracy…….there they go again……..Louis XIV of France, famously popularized heels, red heels in fact which became a symbol of wealth and power. Heels were initially practical as they were designed for riding stirrups. Soon, heels evolved into an essential part of court attire. The shoes were also laced along a center seam. With the Industrial Revolution, the mass production of shoes led to the standardization of sizes, allowing manufacturers to produce shoes more efficiently. This eliminated the need for custom-fitting every pair of shoes. We wondered about that thingy they use in shoe stores to measure the size of your feet. It is called the Brannock Device® and is the standard foot measuring tool for the world's footwear industry. It was invented by Charles Brannock in 1926 and we learned this on the Brannock.com website. Until the mid-1800s, shoes were typically made without distinction between the left and right foot. Then, in 1818, an unknown Philadelphia shoemaker, possibly Geppetto Skechers, began producing shoes with curved soles designed specifically for the left and right foot, greatly enhancing comfort. The idea quickly caught on.
Sock …… “Sometimes I wonder, that one missing sock after doing laundry, is the smart one. After being unhappy for so long, it finally walks away from a frayed, worn-out relationship.” Anthony Liccione
It was those Romans again as they wore "udones", wool or linen socks that were often worn under sandals. This practice was particularly common among soldiers, who needed comfort and protection during long marches and battles. The use of socks spread throughout the Empire, influencing other cultures. The Romans helped popularize the idea that socks were not only practical but could also be a fashion statement. This period laid the foundation for the importance of socks in the centuries to come, both functionally and aesthetically. But, really, socks with sandals? No no no, it is a major fashion faux pas. No wonder the Roman Empire declined and fell. Sneakers - aka trainers, running shoes, tennis shoes, plimsolls, gym shoes, but they started as sneakers and they will always be sneakers. Thank Charles Goodyear, who invented vulcanized rubber in 1839, which made the material available for commercial use. Rubber would become a key feature of most sneakers. During the 1880s the term sneakers came into usage in the United States. The word is based on the quietness of the rubber soles, which enables wearers to “sneak up” on others.
“Wet sneakers and muddy clothes are prerequisites for understanding the water cycle.“………..David Sobel
Out you go……………it’s time to go to work, school, play or back to bed or plopping into a chair in front of a computer for remote work, work from home, telecommuting, or teleworking but if you leave the house, you’ll probably use a method of transportation such as the Car. “Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.”- E. B. White….
In 1680, Dutch physicist and astronomer, Christiaan Huygens designed (but never built) an internal combustion engine that was to be fueled with gunpowder. Huygens also had time to develop the wave theory of light and discover the rings of Saturn. Hop ahead a couple of hundred years and 1858 -Belgian engineer Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir invented and patented a double-acting, electric spark-ignition internal combustion engine fueled by coal gas. Developments accelerated quickly and in 1885, Gottlieb Daimler invented what is often recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine. A year later, he built the world's first four-wheeled motor vehicle. That sounds like a car to us but that same year German inventor Karl Benz (brother of Deep Knee Benz), patented the three-wheeled car, known as the "Motorwagen,". It was the first true, modern automobile, meaning Benz is most often identified as the man who invented the car. Benz also patented his own throttle system, spark plugs, gear shifters, a water radiator, a carburetor and other fundamentals to the automobile such as satellite radio, heated seats, WAZE, and Elon Musk. You can own a 2009 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss for a mere $3,021,538 and it has four wheels.
“Did you know that they built a temporary train station in NYC before they built Penn Station?
It was called Pencil Station. It was sketchy. It’s been completely erased from the map………Unknown.
Many folks still take the train – We always thought, as you no doubt did, that Englishman, George Stephenson invented the train but during our research in our never ending quest to keep you completely informed we turned to the History of Trains site and learned that in 1763 Scotsman, James Watt, the guy who started the Industrial Revolution, took the simple designs of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen and introduced a crankshaft that could transform power of steam into circular motion. This invention finally enabled inventors all around the world to start adapting steam engine into machine that could power cars, trains and boats of all kinds of types and sizes. George Stephenson invented the locomotive. The first train in the world was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened on September 27, 1825, in England. This railway used a steam locomotive designed by our friend, George Stephenson.
No train station nearby? If there is congestion price gouging in the city so you afford to take the car, there is always the Bus – "Every day I get in the queue (Too much, the Magic Bus) / To get on the bus that takes me to you (Too much, the Magic Bus) / I'm so nervous, I just sit and smile (Too much, the Magic Bus) / Your house is only another mile (Too much, the Magic Bus)".....The Who.......
In 1662, Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, and philosopher, he of “Pascal’s Wager”, a practical argument for belief in God, was the first to suggest the idea of using a vehicle to carry more than one passenger. However, it wasn’t until 1830 that English inventor, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney (his parents were named John and Isabella….go figure.) of Great Britain designed the first motorized bus. Gurney called his invention the velocipede and created it as an alternative to horse-drawn carriages. The velocipede, not to be confused with the velociraptor, was powered by steam and could carry up to 12 people at once—three on each side with two sitting on top. Should people have been around 80 million years ago, the velociraptor could have carried 12 in his stomach. Gurney later withdrew his patent because he believed it would be too expensive to mass produce his invention commercially. No, Goldsworthy Gurney did not invent the gurney that you see in hospitals, that was invented by J. Theodore Gurney of Boston in 1883. Buses were horse drawn until late 1800s when trolleybuses, aka trams, trolleys, or electric streetcars replaced horsecars. They ran on rails and were powered by electric current lines overhead. The switch was facilitated by the fact that trolleybuses used the existing rails
For those of you who are carbon emission apprehensive, we give you the Bicycle – We visited Amsterdam recently and noticed that in a city with a population of 1,196,130 they seem to have 5,000,000 or more bicycles, many of whose owners are seemingly intent on killing or maiming pedestrians, tourists in particular. Fighter pilots used to put a decal for every plane they shot down on the fuselage of their plane and likewise, I think Amsterdamers put little tourist decals on a handlebar after taking out another unsuspecting soul crossing the street or taking a picture of Amsterdam Centraal station or leaning over to take a picture of a canal. But we digress. Who is responsible for these weapons of destruction? Like humans, and most of the items covered here, evolution is at work. Like evolution it was a slow process, but we’ll go downhill with this to speed it up. In 1418, according to the International Bicycle Fund (IBF), Italian engineer, Giovanni Fontana constructed a human-powered device consisting of four wheels and a loop of rope connected by gears. 400 years after Fontana built his wheeled contrivance, German inventor, Karl von Drais developed a four-wheeled, human-powered vehicle. Then in 1817, Drais subtracted two and came up with a two-wheeled vehicle, known as the “dandy horse” or ”hobby horse”. The first patent for this device was granted to Pierre Lallement, a French carriage-maker who obtained a U.S. patent for a two-wheeled vehicle with crank pedals in 1866. In 1885, Englishman, James Starley introduced the "Rover" with its nearly equal-sized wheels, center pivot steering and differential gears that operated with a chain drive, Starley's Rover was quite stable, and became the first highly practical iteration of the bicycle. Starley is also best known for his invention of the tangent-spoke wheel in 1874. All of which leads us to the The House of Solid Gold 24K Gold Extreme Mountain Bike which can be yours for $1 million. In case you were wondering, training wheels were first introduced in 1949 by the Huffy Corporation as part of their pioneering "Convertible" children's bicycle model. And we’ve “spoken” enough about wheely interesting things and as Freddie Mercury crooned …… “I Want To Ride My Bicycle I Want To Ride My Bike I Want To Ride My bicycle I Want To Ride It Where I Like”……..
Nowadays more and more people won’t even leave the home for work. While they will still need transportation for essential life errands, these couch potatoes will just mosey into a “home office” like we see on HGTV’s buying a house shows. The essential equipment is the home computer, but that device is not as modern as you think. In 1823, English mathematician Charles Babbage conceived the Difference Engine. It was designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Babbage then designed the Analytical Engine in 1837. It featured components like a "store" for memory and a "mill" for executing operations. Sound familiar? A next major milestone came in the wonderful year of 1947 with the invention of the transistor by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs. Transistors could do the same switching and amplification functions as vacuum tubes but were smaller, cheaper, more reliable, and more energy efficient. However, these vacuums could not clean carpets as well as Hoovers. The first commercially available personal computer was the Altair 8800, released in 1975. The Altair was a rudimentary machine sold as a $439 kit. Problem was you had to put it together yourself and there was no You Tube to show you how to do it. Nor was there Gorilla Glue. In 1977 along came the Apple II high-resolution color graphics, sound, and gaming capabilities. While you’re busy working at home in your pajamas (a Hindi word), you’ll need the internet. British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, a key part of the Internet used today. He proposed the idea in March 1989, while working for CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). Computer scientists Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn are credited with inventing the Internet communication protocols we use today in our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms and the system referred to as the Internet. Now you can go back to bed.
We’ve discussed many inventions and developments and rituals so we should recall that the aphorism, “Necessity is the mother of invention” is attributed to Plato’s work “Republic”, where he articulates that pressing needs drive human ingenuity.
“I never thought I'd be the type of person who would one day get up early in the morning to exercise. I was right”. Unknown…..
All of these items we have examined get you prepared and in motion for the rest of your day. You probably take them for granted unless you decide to write an essay about them. Now you can take time each morning to thank the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese and imaginative inventors responsible for your home and your rooms, your eating utensils and your clothing and your transportation as you prepare for and begin your day. We wish we could tell you that the idiocy that you will encounter everywhere, especially in social media, during the day is an invention but people have come up with that on their own for thousands of years and we can’t really blame the Chinese and Egyptians, and Greeks and Romans, etc. And speaking of dissertations, that reminds us that Aristotle conceived the idea of the dissertation circa 340 B.C and since then many others such as….…….no, no, that’s enough!
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”……..Isaac Newton in a letter to fellow scientist Robert Hooke.
Every day, from the moment you first get out of bed, so have you.
Footnote: I have referred to this work as an essay and a dissertation. I wasn’t sure what it is. If printed on A4 paper this would be 24 pages size 12 font or 53 pages size 18 font. It would be 236 pages on size A6 4.1 x 5.8 -paper but then it would be a book, a thick little book. You could fit it in your pocket so it would be a pocket book. As you see, there was no easy answer to what to call 24 pages….I checked. It is probably a pamphlet. Pamphlets are under 50 pages. I think of a pamphlet as that glossy folded document that they give you when you enter a museum, but I found that Thomas Paine’s 1776 work Common Sense is referred to as a pamphlet so technically Thomas Paine and I wrote pamphlets. However, I wouldn’t describe this as a pamphlet to my readers because they would think of a pamphlet as that folding thing you get at “Hop On, Hop Off” bus tours. Like me, many people confuse pamphlets and brochures. It could also be called a monograph, a detailed study of a single subject. There are others but we’ll stick with essay.
Sources: A. I ……No Way! None!.......Never!
https://clockhistory.com/alarmClockHistory/
https://www.essentialhomeandgarden.com/soap-vs-detergent/
https://todayinsci.com
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: by Arthur Herman
Thought.com
Brittanica.com
History of Trains.com