Little Known Facts about Inventions
Who invented fire escapes and why?
The fire escape was a joint effort between Don Juan and Casanova, who were frequently forced out of bedroom windows whenever their mistresses’ significant others came home unexpectedly. Tired of hanging off building ledges until the coast was clear, the two men decided they needed a back exit. Naturally, they had to cover up the reason behind their invention with a practical name and humanitarian campaigns, which greatly cut into their conjugal visits, but they were well worth it in the end.
Who invented the ballpoint pen?
Around the turn of the 20th century, a Hungarian dictator, who wanted to be rid of an annoying underling that mercilessly chewed ice, invented the ballpoint pen as a new object of his assistant’s oral fixation. The dictator’s evil-genius plan worked. The young man choked to death soon after he was presented with the new invention. To this day, Hungarian government aids are presented with ballpoint pens on their first day to commemorate the incident, and heads of state and business partners traditionally present one another with the same token as a thinly veiled warning to one another about their hidden agendas before they sign any agreements.
Who invented the fire hydrant?
It is a little known fact that the inventor of the fire hydrant was actually a Dalmatian named Jake. It is ironic no one recognizes him as the inventor since he often poses with the famous object, but alas, artists are rarely revered while still living.
Who invented the funnel?
A group of college students, who could not seem to get beer down fast enough, decided they needed a better way of consuming large amounts of alcohol accurately because the more drunk they got, the harder it was to get the beer bottle into their mouths without spilling half of it all over their clothes. Since the girls were complaining that the beer was ruining their clothes, and the guys were complaining because the girls stopped getting drunk, a group of ingenious drunks got together and began brainstorming. First, they used a paper towel roll, but the opening was too wide for people to get their mouths around, so many of their guinea pigs got a Guinness shower. They then tried rolling up a piece of paper into a cone, but all that did was collapse and disintegrate before the test subject could swallow a mouthful. Finally, they realized they needed to use something that was both small enough to get a person’s mouth around the opening, but wide enough to empty a can of booze into, and durable enough for repeated use. Plastic was the obvious choice, and the paper cone worked in theory; thus, the funnel was born.