1Autopilots
Autopilots on aircraft look like a modern comfort for the pilots, but they are as ancient as aircrafts themselves. In the early days of aviation, aircrafts required the continuous attention of a pilot to fly safely. The first aircraft autopilot was developed by Sperry Corporation in 1912. That is just 9 years after the Wright Brothers achieved first powered flight in 1903. This autopilot connected a gyroscopic heading indicator and attitude indicator to hydraulically operated elevators and rudder.
2. The concept of the “rap battle” has existed since the 5th century, where poets would engage in “flyting,” a spoken word event where poets would insult one another in verse. The Norse god Loki is noted as having insulted other gods in verse. In Anglo-Saxon England, flyting would take place in a feasting hall. The winner would be decided by the reactions of those watching the exchange. The winner would drink a large cup of beer or mead in victory, then invite the loser to drink as well.
3. As the slogan for a smokeless world has been raised, a new practice called “vaping” has come to the forefront recently, but vaporizers/e-cigarettes were invented back in the 60s. The earliest e-cigarette can be traced to Herbert A. Gilbert, who in 1963 patented “a smokeless non-tobacco cigarette” that involved “replacing burning tobacco and paper with heated, moist, flavored air”. This device produced flavored steam without nicotine. The patent was granted in 1965. This concept never took off because smoking was still fashionable back then.
4. Most people might think true smartphones were first invented in the late 2000s when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007. The first true smartphone was actually IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator which was launched in 1992. It came with features such as a touchscreen and the ability to send and receive e-mails.
5. Medicines made from willow and other salicylate-rich plants can be dated to at least 2000 B.C. in ancient Sumer as well as 1500 B.C. in ancient Egypt. Hippocrates referred to their use of salicylic tea to reduce fevers around 400 B.C. Willow bark extract became recognized for its specific effects on fever, pain, and inflammation in the mid-18th century. By the 19th century, pharmacists were experimenting with and prescribing a variety of chemicals related to salicylic acid, the active component of willow extract. One such formulation was later marketed as aspirin.
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6Toilet Paper
The first documented use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century A.D., in early medieval China. In 589 A.D. the scholar-official Yan Zhitui wrote about the use of toilet paper. An Arab traveler to China in the year 851 AD remarked: “...they [the Chinese] do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities, but they only wipe themselves with paper.”
7. Tesla revolutionized the electric car's image in customers' minds – stylish, comfortable with a nice blend of traditional automotive stuff and futuristic features. However, electric cars are more than a century old. In 1884, over 20 years before the Ford Model T, the first practical production electric car was built in London that used specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries.
8. The sewing needle is over 40,000 years old. Human beings may have begun wearing clothing as far back as 190,000 years ago. Humans already had pants and jackets 20,000 - 12,500 years ago. Dyed flax fibers dated 36,000 years ago found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic of Georgia suggests that people were wearing clothes at that time.
9. Death growl, which is usually employed by death metal singers and in other heavy metal styles is centuries old. Growled vocals may have been a part of Viking music. In the 10th century, Arab-Spanish Sefardi Jewish merchant Ibrahim ibn Yaqub visited Denmark and commented on the local music as follows: “Never before I have heard uglier songs than those of the Vikings in Slesvig. The growling sound coming from their throats reminds me of dogs howling, only more untamed.”
10. Nintendo is mostly known today as a video game company. While video games have certainly been one of their most successful business ventures, they existed a long time before computers were even invented, as a toy company. The company was founded in 1889 when it produced playing cards, which it still does to this day.
11Marshmallow
The history of marshmallows goes back as early as 2000 B.C. Ancient Egyptians were said to be the first to make them and eating them was a privilege strictly reserved for gods and for royalty, who used the root of mallow plant species to soothe coughs and sore throats, and to heal wounds. The first marshmallows were prepared by boiling pieces of root pulp with honey until thick. Once thickened, the mixture was strained, cooled, and then used as intended.
12. Fidget Spinners have been around since 1993, but it wasn't until 2017 when they became a craze, partly because non-autistic children picked up the practice from autistic classmates. They are sold by shops catering to people with special sensory needs, as a calming device. In general "executive pacifiers" like the fidget spinner have been around since the 1920s or earlier, and include Newton's cradle and the drinking bird.
13. Music streaming was invented in 1897 in New York. It was called the Telharmonium and took up the entire basement of the Broadway building it was located in. It was 220 feet long and it used different sized/cogged gears spinning beneath a pickup (magnetic coil) to create different tones. These different gears and pickups were connected to an organ on the main floor of the building. Key presses would activate the corresponding tone to play from the Telharmonium and it had pedals and such to shape the sound. It delivered this music via the telephone, and subscribers could have the operator connect them.
14. Earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 B.C. when sheep were first domesticated. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs provided storage vessels for milk, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach.
15. Dr. Pepper was released in 1885, one year before Coca-Cola. Even before that carbonated lemonade was widely available in British refreshment stalls in 1833. The first company that sold carbonated water was established in Geneva in 1783. Even before carbonated drinks, in the medieval Middle East, a variety of fruit-flavored soft drinks were widely drunk, such as sharbat, and were often sweetened with ingredients such as sugar, syrup, and honey.
163D Printing
3D printing has burst into the mainstream media in recent years, but in reality, it has been around since the 1980s. Patent for stereolithography process was filed in 1984 and the technology used by most 3D printers to date, i.e., fused deposition modeling was developed in 1988. It has been gaining mainstream attention because most of the patents used in manufacturing them have expired, which has made them affordable.
17. During the 5th century B.C., ancient Greeks ate snow mixed with honey and fruit in the markets of Athens. In 400 B.C., the Persians invented a special chilled food, made of rose water and vermicelli, which was served to royalty during summers. The ice was mixed with saffron, fruits, and various other flavors. A frozen mixture of milk and rice was used in China around 200 B.C. They poured a mixture of snow and saltpeter over the exteriors of containers filled with syrup, for, in the same way as salt raises the boiling point of water, it lowers the freezing point to below zero.
18. Catheters were used as early as 3,000 B.C. to relieve painful urinary retention. In those times, many materials were used to form a hollow catheter, some of which were straw, rolled up palm leaves, hollow tops of onions, as well as, gold, silver, copper, brass, and lead. Malleable catheters were developed in the 11th century. In time, silver was used as the basis of catheters as it could be bent to any desired shape and was felt to have an antiseptic function.
19. Although the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas of Tarentum (5th century B.C.) is the alleged inventor of the screw, the exact date of its first appearance as a useful mechanical device is obscure. Though invention of the water screw is usually ascribed to Archimedes (3rd century B.C.), evidence exists of a similar device used for irrigation in Egypt at an earlier date. The screw press, probably invented in Greece in the 1st or 2nd century B.C., has been used since the days of the Roman Empire for pressing clothes. In the 1st century A.D., wooden screws were used in wine and olive-oil presses.
20. The check is older than cash. Ancient Romans are believed to have used an early form of check known as praescriptiones in the 1st century B.C. Credit predates the check and it actually predates writing. According to historians, the concept of using a valueless instrument to represent banking transactions dates back 5,000 years, when the ancient Mesopotamians used clay tablets to conduct trade with the Harappan civilization. While still cumbersome, a slab of clay with seals from both civilizations certainly beat the tons of copper each would have had to melt down to produce the coins of that era.
21Animation
Humans made animated art tens of thousands of years ago. The 21,000 years old cave paintings in Lascaux, France were made in such a way that flickering oil light would create the illusion of motion on the cave-painted animals. When the cave was discovered in 1940, more than 100 small stone lamps that once burned grease from rendered animal fat were found throughout its chambers. A flickering flame in the cave may have conjured impressions of motion like a strobe light in a dark club.
22. Even in the earliest days of silent film, color was used in motion pictures. The technique utilized in the earliest color films like "Vie et Passion du Christ" ("Life and Passion of the Christ") (1903) and "A Trip to the Moon" (1902) was stenciling, in which each frame of a film was hand-colored. The process to hand-color each frame of a film — even films much shorter than the typical film of today — was painstaking, expensive, and time-consuming. The first feature film with a sound was The Jazz Singer, which was released in 1927.
23. In the 1st century A.D., Greek mathematician Heron of Alexandria invented the first known automatic door. He described two different automatic door applications. The first application was used to open temple doors. The device used heat from a fire lit by the city's temple priest. After a few hours, atmospheric pressure built up in a brass vessel caused it to pump water into adjacent containers. These containers acted as weights that, through a series of ropes and pulleys, would open the temple's doors at about the time people were to arrive for prayer. Heron used a similar application to open the gates to the city.
24. Scottish inventor Alexander Bain received British patent in 1843 for his "Electric Printing Telegraph". The first device resembling the modern fax machine was the pantelegraph which was invented by an Italian physicist. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.
25. The earliest known written reference to ivory billiard balls is in the 1588 inventory of the Duke of Norfolk. By the mid-19th century, elephants were being slaughtered for their ivory at an alarming rate, just to keep up with the demand for high-end billiard balls.
