Why Are People Never Smiling in Old Photographs?

Americans pose in a photo

First developed in the late 1820s, photography combined art and science into one medium capable of capturing an image in the moment. The innovation transformed recorded history into something that could be documented in pictures as well as text. As the technology advanced, the medium exploded in popularity, making it possible for families to create snapshots of memories for future generations to appreciate. These early photographic portraits transport us back in time, painting a picture of a different way of life: Families were larger, clothes were bulkier, and postures were noticeably stiff and formal. But perhaps the most conspicuous difference of all is that no one ever seemed to smile.

The somber expressions preserved in early photographs might lead us to assume that past generations led austere and joyless lives. However, the lack of joviality in these snapshots can be attributed to several other factors. Here’s the truth behind those stern expressions in old photos.

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Long Exposure Times

In the earliest days of photography, the lengthy exposure periods made it impractical to photograph people. For instance, French inventor Nicéphore Niépce’s 1826 “View from the Window at Le Gras,” credited as the oldest surviving photograph, required an exposure time of eight hours. It was more than a decade before Louis Daguerre’s 1839 invention of the daguerreotype made portrait photography practical. But even then, it was a relatively slow and meticulous process that required the subject to remain still for as long as 20 minutes.

By the early 1840s, photographic technology had advanced further, and the daguerreotype images that once required a 20-minute exposure needed only 20 seconds to process. Still, even modern photo subjects understand the difficulty of maintaining an open-mouthed smile for any amount of time. It only takes a few moments for a candid smile to turn into something more like an awkward grimace. And anyone who has dealt with a restless child can attest that more than a few seconds of remaining motionless is a formidable challenge. To minimize movement and guarantee a sharp image, children were sometimes put into restraints for the length of a photo shoot.

Additionally, until the 20th century, the expense of photographic equipment and the toxic and dangerous chemicals needed to process film meant that most photographs were taken by professional photographers working out of studios or traveling with their equipment. A photography session was a time-consuming and pricey undertaking; it cost the average person as much as three or more months’ salary, and a person might only be photographed a few times in their life. The requirement for stillness, combined with the novelty and cost of posing for a professional photographer, created an atmosphere where it was simply easier to maintain a neutral or serious expression. But even once the technology existed to capture more relaxed expressions, it was a long time before smiling in photos became the norm.

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Early Photographers Imitated Portrait Artists

Though technological limitations are frequently cited as the reason for the solemn expressions in old photographs, it wasn’t the only reason our ancestors so often appeared solemn in front of the camera. One notable feature shared by artist portraits from the 17th and 18th centuries and photographs from the early 19th century is the presence of stoic, enigmatic expressions on the subjects’ faces. As portrait artist Miss La Creevy observes in Charles Dickens’ novel Nicholas Nickleby, only two types of expressions existed in portraiture: “the serious and the smirk.”

Before photography, a painted portrait was the only way to preserve someone’s image for posterity. Having your portrait painted was an activity associated with wealth and social status, and accordingly, the art form had its own rules and expectations. This formal portraiture proved to be a big influence on early photographers, who featured their subjects in ways that represented their social status, occupation, or other interests. The social mores associated with painted portraits carried over into photographic portraiture, and smiling was discouraged.

The Kodak Revolution

As photography became more accessible in the late 19th century, a wider variety of people took and sat for photographs, and what was acceptable in portrait photography became less rigid. In 1888, Kodak founder George Eastman started a photographic revolution that put cameras in the hands of amateur photographers and gave them an instruction manual on how to take good photos. In 1900, the Kodak Brownie camera was marketed for children and sold for just $1, creating a photography craze that appealed to adults as well.

By the 1920s, a century after the first landscape photographs were captured on film, more relaxed postures and a greater variety of expressions, including closed- and open-mouthed smiles, were common in both amateur and professional photography. With the advent of color photography, the popularity of candid photos, and the rise of affordable personal cameras, capturing an array of expressions — including moments of genuine joy — became the gold standard.

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6 Inventions Often Credited to the Wrong Person

Telescope, circa 1620

There’s nothing more frustrating than working your socks off only to see someone else get all the credit for your efforts. Spare a thought, then, for the minds behind some of history’s most significant innovations, who, despite months, years, or in some cases lifetimes of work, find someone else’s name ignominiously attached to their invention.

Sometimes inventions are miscredited in the public consciousness simply because a more famous name becomes associated with the creation. For example, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford — two of modern history’s most well-known innovators — are often credited with things they didn’t actually invent, through no fault of their own. Then there are the more insidious misattributions. In some instances, an idea has been copied or outright stolen, robbing the true inventor of their glory; in others, a more senior or prominent member of a team is given credit despite not coming up with the original idea. See, for example, the Matilda effect, in which notable discoveries made by women have often been misattributed to the men they worked with.

Here are some notable inventions in history that are frequently credited to the wrong person, from the flush toilet to the iPod.

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The Flush Toilet

No name in the history of toilets is more famous than that of plumber Thomas Crapper, partly because his name appeared on the once-ubiquitous Crapper brand of toilets, and partly because Crapper is a humorously appropriate name for a toilet (the slang word “crap” existed before Thomas Crapper). Crapper, however, did not invent the flushing device with which he is so associated. He did patent the U-bend and floating ballcock — key components of the modern toilet — in the late 1880s, but he never held a patent for the flush toilet. Much earlier, in 1596, John Harington, an English courtier and the godson of Queen Elizabeth I, described what can be considered the first flush toilet, which involved a 2-foot-deep bowl and a massive 7.5 gallons of water per flush. (Only two working models were made, one in Haringon’s own home and one in Queen Elizabeth’s palace.) The first patent for a flushable toilet was granted to the Scottish inventor Alexander Cumming in 1775.

The Telescope

The Italian polymath Galileo Galilei is often credited with inventing the telescope, and it’s easy to see why. He gave birth to modern astronomy with his telescope-assisted discoveries about our moon, the moons of Jupiter, and other celestial bodies. Galileo made his first telescope in 1609 after hearing about the “perspective glasses” being made in the Netherlands. But the first person to apply for a patent for a telescope was Dutch eyeglass-maker Hans Lippershey in 1608, a year before Galileo. His telescope could magnify objects only three times, but it was nonetheless a landmark in the history of optics. (By comparison, by the end of 1609, Galileo had developed a telescope that magnified objects 20 times.) Whether Lippershey should be credited as the inventor of the telescope remains an open debate, as it is entirely possible that others created similar devices before he filed his patent.

The Lightbulb

Thomas Edison is often — and incorrectly — given all the credit for inventing the lightbulb. But the lightbulb was actually the result of a process that began before Edison was even born. In 1802, English chemist Humphry Davy used a voltaic pile (invented by Alessandro Volta, after whom the volt is named) to create the first “electric arc lamp” between charcoal electrodes. His rudimentary lamp was too bright and burned out too quickly, but it was nonetheless an important breakthrough. Other scientists worked to refine the lightbulb, but problems with filaments and batteries made these early bulbs impractical for everyday use. In 1860, English physicist Joseph Swan developed a primitive electric light that utilized a filament of carbonized paper in an evacuated glass bulb. Lack of a good vacuum and an adequate electric source ultimately made it inefficient, but it did pave the way for later innovations, including those by Edison. Edison purchased some of his predecessor’s patents, improved upon them, and came up with his own lightbulb, which, while not the first overall, was the first to be commercially viable.

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The Automobile

One commonly held misconception is that Henry Ford invented the automobile. In reality, the development of the automobile can be traced back to Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French military engineer who, in 1769, built a steam-powered tricycle for hauling artillery. Due to its steam-powered nature, not everyone accepts Cugnot’s invention as the first true auto. Instead, that distinction often goes to vehicles made by two Germans, Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, who — working entirely separately — developed their own gasoline-powered automobiles in 1886, in two different German cities. Benz actually drove his three-wheeled vehicle in 1885, and it is regarded as the first practical modern automobile and the first commercially available car in history. As for Henry Ford, his name is forever remembered in auto history for the Model T, which he mass-produced using an innovative moving assembly line, making automobiles available to middle-class Americans.

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Monopoly

Since the 1930s, it’s been common knowledge that Charles Darrow invented Monopoly, an idea that both he and the game’s manufacturer, Parker Brothers, freely propagated (it was printed in the instructions for decades). But it’s not quite true. Darrow got the idea for the game — which made him a millionaire — from a left-wing feminist named Elizabeth Magie. Magie created and patented an early version of Monopoly, called The Landlord’s Game, in 1903, about three decades before Darrow. Darrow learned about the game from a couple who had played it in Atlantic City (which is where many of the game’s street names come from) and made a few changes: The original game included a wealth tax, public utilities, and was designed as a protest against the big monopolists of her time. It had two sets of rules, one that allowed players to create monopolies and crush their opponents, and an anti-monopolist version that rewarded all players when wealth was created (the latter demonstrating what Magie believed to be a morally superior path). It’s only in recent years that Magie has started to receive the credit for inventing one of the world’s most popular and iconic board games.

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The iPod

Portable digital audio players have existed since the mid-1990s, but it was Apple’s iPod that revolutionized the industry upon its release in 2001. Yet it wasn’t the engineers at Apple who invented the iPod — not entirely, at least. British inventor Kane Kramer actually developed the technology behind the iPod as far back as 1979. His credit card-sized music player, which looked very similar to the iPod, could store only 3.5 minutes of music, but he was sure the storage capacity would increase over time. Unfortunately for Kramer, internal problems at his company ultimately led to his patent lapsing, at which point the technology became public. Apple later acknowledged Kramer’s involvement in inventing the technology behind the iPod.

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7 Fascinating Facts From the History of the World’s Fair

1964 world’s fair view

The first world’s fair, known as the Great Exhibition, took place in London in 1851. Held in the Crystal Palace — a massive exhibition hall made of glass and iron — the fair displayed marvels of industry and science as well as works of craftsmanship and art from around the world. Since then, more than 100 world’s fairs have been held in over 20 countries, and countless inventions have made their debut at these massive events, from the telephone to cotton candy. Though the world’s fair has declined in popularity in the United States, it remains popular throughout much of the rest of the world. Here are seven highlights from the history of these fascinating exhibitions.

One Fair Sparked a Frenzy for Plastic Pickles

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (named in honor of Christopher Columbus) was ripe with opportunity for food sellers. But H.J. Heinz — an American purveyor of pickles and ketchup — was frustrated with his booth placement. While the main floor showcased food exhibits from Germany, Great Britain, Mexico, and other nations, Heinz was stuck on the second floor where there was little foot traffic. He devised a marketing plan that promised a free prize to anyone who visited his booth: a small green plastic pickle pin. The pins were a massive hit; the crowds that flocked to his booth were so large that the floor reportedly sagged around the display. By the end of the exhibition, Heinz had given away more than 1 million pickle pins, paving the way for his brand to become a household name.

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Baby Incubators Started as a Carnival Attraction

The baby incubator — a lifesaving device in which premature or sick infants can develop — was invented in the 19th century by French obstetrician Stéphane Tarnier, who got the idea after seeing baby chicks being incubated at a zoo. The invention was widely adopted decades later, thanks to the work of two men, Pierre Budin and Martin Couney. Determined to popularize the groundbreaking technology, Budin and Couney displayed six incubators complete with real premature babies at the 1896 Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin, in an exhibit they dubbed “Child Hatchery.” The exhibit was so popular that Couney went on to set up a permanent exhibit in an unlikely location: the Coney Island amusement park in New York. For the next four decades, Couney managed a neonatal intensive care unit that saved thousands of babies while doubling as a carnival attraction. Despite not being a licensed doctor, Couney is now widely credited with the adoption of the baby incubator into mainstream medicine.

Thomas Edison’s New X-Ray Machine Was Almost Used When President McKinley Was Shot

The 1901 Pan-American Exposition was held in Buffalo, New York, and showcased many cutting-edge advancements in science and technology. But it was also the site of tragedy. While greeting the public at the fair, U.S. President William McKinley was shot twice by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. The first bullet only grazed McKinley, but the second bullet hit him in the stomach, and the medical team could not locate it. As fate would have it, one of Thomas Edison’s new X-ray machines was on display at the fair. Edison had an assistant bring a machine to the house where McKinley was staying, but the medical team decided the President’s condition was too unstable to undergo the X-ray procedure, and the device was never used. McKinley passed away a week later, leading some to wonder whether Edison’s invention might have saved his life.

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Chicago Almost Became Home to a Bigger Eiffel Tower, But Got a Ferris Wheel Instead

Four years after the Eiffel Tower was built for the Paris International Exposition of 1889, a Chicago committee started to plan its own world’s fair, soliciting ideas from U.S. architects that would “out-Eiffel, Eiffel.” Proposals included a 1,500-foot tower made of logs and what would have been the first bungee tower. The architect of the Eiffel Tower, Gustave Eiffel, even offered to build a larger version of his namesake landmark. Instead, the Chicago committee opted for something unique: the world’s first Ferris wheel, built by and named for George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. At 250 feet in diameter, and sitting atop 140-foot-tall towers, the Ferris wheel took riders higher than the crown of the Statue of Liberty. While the original Ferris wheel in Chicago has since been replaced by the Centennial Wheel, visitors from around the world continue to enjoy the architectural legacy of the world’s fair at Navy Pier.

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A World’s Fair Helped a Woman Inventor Launch the Modern Dishwasher

In 1883, an American socialite named Josephine Cochrane grew frustrated with the tedious task of washing the fine china she used to entertain guests. She vowed, “If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I’ll do it myself.” In 1886, Cochrane received a patent for her dishwashing machine, which could wash and dry up to 240 dishes in two minutes with its innovative use of water pressure. However, Cochrane struggled to sell her invention due to the high cost of manufacture, as well as the sexism of the time; potential investors wanted Cochrane to resign and turn over control of her company to men. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago gave her the platform she needed — after publicly demonstrating her machine, Cochrane was awarded the event’s highest prize, for “best mechanical construction, durability, and adaptation to its line of work.” Orders from restaurants and hotels throughout the region skyrocketed, paving the way for the modern dishwasher.

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Video Chatting Was Initially a Flop

It’s easy to assume that video chatting is a recent invention that came along with the advent of the internet. But video chat technology has a history going back more than half a century. The public’s first contact with video chat was at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, where Bell Labs debuted a “picturephone” that enabled fairgoers to make video calls with strangers across the country at California’s Disneyland. Long lines formed and Bell Labs (along with its parent company, AT&T) believed the technology would be a commercial hit, with executives projecting that a million picturephone sets would be sold by 1980. Alas, the device failed to take off, largely due to the high price tag. Bell Labs attempted to roll out various iterations of the picturephone in the following decades, but it wasn’t until the advent of the internet that video chat finally took off.

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A Snake Oil Salesman Was a Showstopper

Today, the term “snake oil” signifies fraudulent goods and deceptive marketing, and it all started with a man named Clark Stanley, nicknamed “the Rattlesnake King.” Stanley introduced a “snake oil” product to the American public at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, claiming to have learned about it from Hopi medicine men. As part of a dramatic live demonstration, he cut open a rattlesnake and submerged it in boiling water, skimming off the fat that rose to the surface to create “Stanley’s Snake Oil.” Spectators were wowed, and Stanley’s product became an immediate hit. But while the oil from certain snakes, such as Chinese water snakes, does have medicinal properties, oil from most snakes native to the U.S. does not. What’s more, Stanley’s product was later found by the FDA to not contain any snake oil at all, but rather beef fat, red pepper, and turpentine, forever making snake oil synonymous with fraud.

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6 Items You Would Find in a Kitchen 100 Years Ago

Woman using hand mixer

Over the past century, the typical home kitchen has undergone a significant transformation, reflecting both social changes and new technology. In the 1920s and ’30s, kitchens were primarily utilitarian spaces with a focus on functionality and easy-to-clean surfaces. Appliances were limited, hand mixers had cranks, and gas ovens, which had replaced wood or coal-burning stoves in most homes, were starting to themselves be replaced by electric ovens.

The post-World War II consumerism of the late 1940s and 1950s brought bigger kitchens for entertaining and more labor-saving appliances, including blenders, mixers, and dishwashers. The kitchen space became more streamlined and functional, and the 1960s and 1970s brought countertop food processors and microwave ovens into the mainstream.

Open-plan kitchens and islands became increasingly popular in home design throughout the 1980s and ’90s, indicative of the kitchen’s role as a hub for family and friends to gather. That trend continued into the 21st century, along with a significant shift toward high-tech kitchens, smart appliances, and a focus on sustainability. Today’s kitchens — reflecting the changing ways we prepare, store, and consume food — look dramatically different than they did a century ago, making many once-popular items obsolete. Here are six things that your grandparents and great-grandparents might have had in their own home kitchens a century ago.

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An Icebox

Before the widespread availability of electric refrigerators, iceboxes were used to keep perishable food cool. These wooden or metal boxes had a compartment for ice at the top, and fresh ice was delivered each week by an iceman. The design of the icebox allowed cold air to circulate around the stored items, while a drip pan collected the water as the ice melted. Naturally, iceboxes fell out of fashion as electric fridges went mainstream. In 1927, General Electric introduced the first affordable electric refrigeration, which relied on a refrigerant for cooling rather than ice.

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A Butter Churn

Before commercial butter production made it possible to buy butter at the market, churning cream into butter was an activity done at home. The hand-crank butter churn was introduced in the mid-19th century, and it became the most commonly used household butter churn until the 1940s. In the early 20th century, the Dazey Churn & Manufacturing Company began producing glass churns that could make smaller quantities of butter much quicker than the larger, time-intensive churns. Once the butter was churned, it could then be poured or pressed into decorative molds for serving.

A Hoosier Cabinet

A Hoosier is a freestanding, self-contained kitchen cabinet that was popular in the early 1900s, named after the Hoosier Manufacturing Company that made it. Also known as a “Kitchen Piano” due to its shape, this kitchen necessity offered homemakers ample storage space and an additional work surface. Hoosier cabinets had numerous drawers and shelves for storing cookware and utensils, as well as features such as a flour bin with a built-in sifter, a sugar bin, a spice and condiment rack, a bread bin, a pull-out cutting board, and a cookbook holder. The all-in-one cabinet fell out of favor as kitchen designs began to incorporate built-in cabinets and islands for additional storage and counter space, but they’re still sometimes used for decorative storage.

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A Manual Hand Mixer

While the iconic KitchenAid stand mixer was patented more than 100 years ago in 1919, electric hand mixers weren’t commercially available until the 1960s. Before then, beating eggs or mixing other ingredients was done by hand, often with a manual hand mixer (also called a rotary egg beater). First developed in the 1850s, hand mixers had two beaters that rotated when you turned a crank. Though the style and mechanisms evolved over the years, manual hand mixers were still widely used in the 1920s, when only two-thirds of American households had electricity.

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A Wall-Mounted Coffee Grinder

Even though ground coffee was available in bags and cans in the 1920s, and instant coffee was gaining popularity, household coffee grinders, such as a wall-mounted coffee grinder (or mill), were still a common kitchen appliance. According to a 1918 New-York Tribune article on the art of making perfect coffee, “The real coffee lover will always have a mill in the kitchen.” The wall-mounted, hand-crank style had a glass container that could hold a pound of coffee beans, and a container with tablespoon markings to catch the ground coffee.

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A Recipe Card Box

There was a time when treasured family recipes were written on 3-by-5-inch index cards and stored in a box on the kitchen counter. Before the 1920s, most recipes were passed on by example — young women would learn how to make their grandmother’s pot roast by helping her in the kitchen. As such, handwritten recipes were generally a list of ingredients, often without quantity, and vague directions. As kitchen science developed, magazines began advertising recipe subscriptions delivered as preprinted, perforated cards. Women also started writing their own recipes on blank cards to collect and exchange, and the recipe box proved to be a more decorative and lasting storage solution than a shoebox. Like many vintage kitchen items, this nostalgic throwback still has novelty appeal, but the recipe box has largely been replaced by digital recipes stored on apps and websites.

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6 Otherworldly Facts About the Space Race

Astronauts and cosmonauts

As tensions rose on Earth during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union also vied for celestial supremacy. The space race between the two superpowers began shortly after World War II, and captivated the public until tensions finally eased in the 1970s. With the help of top scientists and talented pilots, Americans, Soviets, and other nations sought to do the seemingly impossible by conquering the final frontier. These decades were marked by scientific achievements and setbacks that make this space-obsessed era one of the most fascinating periods in the 20th century. Here are six facts about the space race.

Fruit Flies Became the First Animal Sent Into Space in 1947

Long before humans reached the stars, fruit flies became the first living organisms to be intentionally blasted into space. Beginning in 1946, the U.S. military conducted a series of experiments in New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range with future space flight in mind. Utilizing V-2 ballistic missiles — which had been seized from Germany by the U.S. after World War II — the government propelled biological samples such as corn and rye seeds as far as 80 miles into the sky — well beyond the 66-mile distance that NASA now considers the limits of outer space. On February 20, 1947, a capsule containing fruit flies was affixed to one of said missiles and launched to a height of 67 miles above the ground. The flies were chosen to test the effects of cosmic radiation on living beings, and were the perfect candidate for a number of reasons, including their small size, minimal weight, and a genetic code analogous to that of humans, containing similar disease-causing genes. As the rocket began its descent, the capsule detached and drifted back down to Earth using a parachute, and the flies remained alive and unaffected.

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Apollo 12 Was Struck by Lightning

In November 1969, just four months after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the Apollo 12 mission took to the skies. But what was scheduled to be a standard launch experienced near-disaster just 36.5 seconds into the flight, as lightning struck the Saturn V rocket. The unexpected event disrupted the onboard control panels, causing astronaut Dick Gordon to confusedly exclaim, “What the hell was that?” before yet another bolt struck at the 52-second mark. With alarms blaring and equipment malfunctioning, the puzzled astronauts continued to troubleshoot the spacecraft while not fully understanding what had happened. Ultimately, the crew shifted the craft to an auxiliary power supply that allowed the mission to continue as planned. Around three minutes into the flight, astronaut Pete Conrad wondered aloud if they’d been struck by lightning, and by the 11-minute-and-34-second mark, the crew was successfully floating in space. With disaster averted, the Apollo 12 astronauts became the second group of individuals to walk on the moon.

Alan Shepard Played Golf on the Moon

While the harrowing stories of Apollo 12 and Apollo 13 are widely known, the Apollo 14 mission produced one of the more lighthearted moments of the space race. On February 6, 1971, during a live broadcast of the Apollo 14 spacewalk, astronaut Alan Shepard produced a retractable six-iron golf club and took four swings on the moon’s surface. Given his bulky spacesuit, Shepard couldn’t grip the club with both hands and swung it solely with his right, causing him to miss the golf ball and connect directly with the lunar surface on both of his first two swings. Shepard hit the ball with his third swing, though it only traveled 24 yards. With his fourth and final shot, Shepard made flush contact and claimed the ball traveled “miles and miles and miles”; in reality, it only reached a distance of about 40 yards, though it remained airborne for longer than here on Earth given the moon’s lack of gravity. After returning to Earth in 1974, Shepard donated the golf club to the USGA Golf Museum in New Jersey, where it remains a popular artifact.

The First Joint U.S.-Soviet Space Mission Occurred in 1975

Despite a heated rivalry that lasted more than two decades, the United States and U.S.S.R. worked together on a joint space mission in 1975. The space race had been in full swing since at least 1955, when the two global powers announced their intention to launch satellites into orbit. The Soviets made history by sending the first man into space in 1961, and America landed the first man on the moon in 1969. After years of one-upmanship, tensions began easing in 1972 with the signing of a space cooperation agreement. On July 15, 1975, the nations jointly embarked on the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which served as a symbolic end to the decades-long space race. This mission included two separate spaceflights led by American astronaut Tom Stafford and Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who later docked their crafts together in space and exchanged an international handshake. In the 1980s, talk of an International Space Station jointly managed by the United States and Soviet Union began, and assembly of the spacecraft began in 1998.

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Nations Around the World Joined the Space Race

While the history of the space race largely focuses on the United States and Soviet Union, other nations joined the fray in the late 1970s. The first non-American and non-Soviet pilot to reach outer space was Czech cosmonaut Vladimír Remek, who studied flight in Moscow. On March 2, 1978, Remek took off aboard the Soviet’s Soyuz 28 spacecraft and headed for the Salyut 6 space station, where he and his co-pilot conducted research for eight days before returning to Earth. Upon his return, Remek was heralded as a hero by his native Czechoslovakia (now Czechia and Slovakia), paving the way for other nations to send humans into space shortly thereafter. Later that year, Polish pilot Mirosław Hermaszewski and East Germany’s Sigmund Jähn both boarded Soyuz missions of their own. In 1980, the Soyuz program also sent the first pilots from Latin America (Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez of Cuba) and Southeast Asia (Phạm Tuân of Vietnam) into outer space.

Nobody Has Walked on the Moon Since 1972

If you were alive at the time, it’s hard to forget where you were when humans first walked on the moon. While those vivid memories remain, it’s actually been more than 50 years since someone last set foot on the lunar surface. In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first of the 12 people (all Americans) who have set foot on the moon. The final moon walk to date occurred just three years later as part of the Apollo 17 mission, with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt. They landed their spacecraft in the Taurus-Littrow valley, a narrow lunar opening deeper than the Grand Canyon. The pair explored the region for seven hours a day over the course of three straight days, and even suffered a minor accident in the process after Cernan accidentally dropped a hammer on their lunar rover. The astronauts also discovered orange soil as evidence of lunar volcanic activity, which proved to be one of the most important discoveries of any Apollo mission. Before leaving, they left behind a plaque that reads, “Here man completed his first explorations of the moon.” Nobody has returned to the moon since.

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5 of the Most Famous Planes to Ever Take the Skies

Boeing 747

Humans have been fascinated with flight for a long, long time. The ancient Chinese built the first kites, mimicking the shapes of birds, as far back as 475 BCE. Around 300 BCE, the ancient Greek mathematician Archytas built a steam-propelled flying pigeon. And then there was Bladud, king of the Britons, who, according to legend, was so obsessed with the idea of flight that around 850 BCE he donned a pair of homemade wings, jumped off a building, and promptly fell to his death.

It’s safe to say that humans have progressed since the days of Bladud. Flight is now a fundamental part of human society, from the way we travel to the way we wage wars. Since the Wright brothers took the first and most famous powered flight in 1903, aviation has developed at breakneck speed, taking us across the sound barrier and even beyond our own atmosphere.

Here are five famous planes that have shaped the history of aviation and, in so doing, the history of human progress itself.

The Wright Flyer

At Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Flyer completed the world’s first successful flight of a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine. Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright had achieved sustained and controlled aviation, with the best flight of the day covering 838.5 feet in 59 seconds. The Wright Flyer — a biplane with a wingspan of 40 feet and one 12-horsepower four-cylinder engine driving two pusher propellers — should have instantly become the most famous flying machine in history, but it didn’t. The Wright brothers had achieved something so incredible that much of the public — including scientists — remained skeptical. It took time to convince them that the course of human flight had, indeed, been changed forever.

The Spitfire

The Supermarine Spitfire is the most famous British fighter aircraft in history, and it was an iconic symbol of freedom during — and after — World War II. It was a vital Allied aircraft in 1940, helping to defeat wave after wave of German air attacks during the pivotal Battle of Britain. It was also the only fighter plane capable of taking on the deadly Messerschmitt Bf-109E on equal terms. Even today, the sight and sound of a Spitfire in the skies above Britain is enough to send shivers down the spines of anyone watching from below. Special mention must also go to the Hawker Hurricane, which sometimes sits in the shadow of the more famous aircraft. The Hurricane, built 20 years earlier than the Spitfire, shot down more than half of all the enemy airplanes destroyed in the Battle of Britain.

The Spirit of St. Louis

On the morning of May 20, 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, on the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Thirty-three hours and 30 minutes later, he landed safely at Le Bourget Field near Paris, where a delighted crowd of some 100,000 people greeted the pioneering pilot. Lindbergh’s name went down in history, as did the name of his airplane: the Spirit of St. Louis. A single-engine, high-wing monoplane modified to Lindbergh’s specifications, it would normally have seated five people, but extra fuel tanks took up much of what would have been cabin space. Rather than retire the plane after this achievement in aviation, Lindbergh took the Spirit of St. Louis on a tour of the United States and parts of Central and South America, further cementing the aircraft’s fame.

The Concorde

The Concorde was the world’s first supersonic, passenger-carrying airplane, designed and built through the combined efforts of aircraft manufacturers in Great Britain and France. The aircraft made its first transatlantic crossing in 1973, with scheduled supersonic services — run by British Airways and Air France — beginning in 1976. A sleek, tailless aircraft with a distinctive droop nose for landing visibility, it could carry up to 128 passengers. With a cruising speed of 1,350 mph — more than twice the speed of sound — it could fly from London to New York in a little under three and a half hours. Flights, however, were incredibly expensive due to the airplane’s sky-high operating costs. In 1996, British Airways charged $7,574 (more than $15,000 today) for a round-trip flight from New York to London. This placed it way beyond the budget of most customers, and financial losses made the Concorde ultimately unsustainable. Despite its iconic status and breathtaking design, only 14 Concorde aircraft went into commercial service before it was retired in 2003.

The Boeing 747

Dubbed the “Queen of the Skies,” the Boeing 747 revolutionized air travel, allowing people to travel farther, faster, and more affordably than ever before. Taking its maiden flight in 1969, it was the first airplane referred to as a “jumbo jet.” Since then, more than 1,574 Boeing 747s have been purchased, logging a combined total of more than 118 million flight hours and nearly 23 million flight cycles. It has become a true icon of the skies, and one of the most famous planes in movie history, too, with appearances in hundreds of films including Airplane!, Air Force One, Die Hard 2, and Tenet. After more than half a century of faithful service, Boeing delivered its last 747 in January 2023, marking the end of an aviation era.

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6 Facts About Ancient Navigation

FEATURE_HF_navigation-facts

Thousands of years ago, the oceans seemed a lot wider, even unnavigable. Before mariners developed tried-and-true navigation techniques, sailing the seas involved a lot of guesswork — or, if you want it to sound cooler, “dead reckoning.”

Slowly, our ancestors moved beyond their initial stabs in the dark. Some looked to the sky, using their new knowledge about the cosmos to help them better understand life on Earth. Others took a keen interest in the seas, learning to intuitively navigate the vast expanses based on their currents and swells.

Nowadays, we have a relatively easy time getting around — thanks, GPS! — but it took a long time to get here. How were Polynesians able to cross thousands of miles of open ocean more than 3,000 years ago? Which seafaring society might have successfully used crystals to find their way? What persistent navigation myth just won’t die? Read on and get your sea legs with these six facts.

Polynesians Were Pioneers of the Open Ocean

In the early days of ocean navigation, explorers stayed pretty close to the shoreline and used visible landmarks to mark their position. However, Polynesians, the first developers of open ocean exploration, set off from New Guinea and moved eastward in about 1500 BCE. After first traveling to the adjacent Solomon Islands, they gradually journeyed farther and farther east. Their vessel of choice was a double canoe with two hulls connected by crossbeams, kind of like a catamaran.

Venturing out into the open ocean, these explorers eventually reached Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and Tahiti. They then traveled more than 2,600 miles north to Hawaii — longer than the distance across the U.S. from Portland, Maine, to Seattle, Washington. By roughly 1,000 or possibly 1,200 CE, the descendants of those early explorers populated the entire Polynesian Triangle, the three corners of which are Hawaii, Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island), and New Zealand.

The Polynesians didn’t have any navigational instruments that we know of, so how did they do it? Although their navigation techniques were passed down orally, historians think they navigated using stars, ocean swells, the sun, the moon, and migratory birds. Some Pacific Islanders navigated simply by using the waves themselves. In 1976, a group of Polynesian canoeing enthusiasts made the Tahiti-Hawaii trip using no navigational instruments and a traditional voyaging canoe — a feat that’s since been repeated several times.

Photo credit: Pictures from History/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Some Early Nautical Charts Were Made From Shells and Sticks

A nautical chart provides not only topographical information, but also details about the behavior of the sea, such as how tidal patterns interact. Today, we can easily read this data on screens and paper, but ancient Micronesian navigators called ri-metos recorded their knowledge using elaborate “stick charts” made from palm strips, coconut strips, and cowrie shells.

As you might imagine, these charts weren’t especially portable, so they were designed to be memorized before a voyage. The charts didn’t follow any kind of uniform style, and some of them were only designed to be read by the person who created them, so they can be hard for modern viewers to interpret. We do know, though, that some charts depicted general ocean patterns, while others contained precise piloting instructions.

Early Magnetic Compasses Bore Little Resemblance to Their Modern Counterparts

Today, magnetic compasses are so ubiquitous that we just call them “compasses.” They contain a magnetized needle that naturally lines up with the Earth’s magnetic field, so the ends point to magnetic north and magnetic south (moving targets that are fairly close to true north and true south, but that can lead to errors when traveling very far north or very far south).

Scientists don’t know for sure who made the first compass, but they believe the first compasses to be used for navigation came from 11th- or 12th-century China. The first European usage of a compass was recorded at the end of the 12th century. These early prototypes used lodestones (pieces of naturally-occurring magnetic ore) or needles magnetized with lodestones that were then attached to sticks or corks so they could float in water.

At first, magnetic compasses were used primarily as backup navigation aids, but as engineers got more savvy, compasses became more reliable. By the 13th century, the compass’s design had graduated to a magnetized needle mounted on a pin at the bottom of a bowl. In time, a directional card with the 32 principal points of direction began to be mounted beneath the needle. The design of the card itself evolved, too: The north point was first marked by a spearhead and a “T” for the Latin word Tramontana, meaning “the north wind.” Around 1490, these symbols were replaced with a fleur-de-lis, which is still commonly seen on compasses today.

Astrolabes Weren’t Just Used for Navigation

The concept of an astrolabe, a device used to measure the positions of celestial bodies, dates back to ancient Greece in the third or second century BCE — although its exact origin is unclear. By the ninth century CE, astrolabes were highly developed and utilized in Arabic cultures. The devices made their way back to Europe in the 12th century, and the mariner’s astrolabe was a standard piece of navigational equipment by the end of the 15th century, just in time for the Age of Exploration.

Astrolabes are used to determine the locations of celestial bodies relative to the user. A disk called a “mater” holds a series of smaller rotating and sliding disks — one with Earth’s latitude lines and another with well-known constellations and stars. A straight “rule,” or bar, spins around that, and a sight helps determine the altitude of the sun or another star that can then be used as an anchor point. Astrolabes often came with specific plates that corresponded to the different latitudes of certain large cities, because the sky’s geography is affected by one’s latitude.

While these devices were very useful for navigation, it wasn’t their only claim to fame: In the Islamic world, they helped determine prayer times and the direction of Mecca. During the Middle Ages in Europe, they were consulted to help with decision-making, much like modern horoscopes. And more mundanely, they could also be used for making topographical surveys.

Photo credit: Astrid Harrisson/ Alamy Stock Photo

Vikings May Have Used Crystals to Navigate

The Vikings, a group of seafaring Scandinavian warriors, were also skilled ocean navigators. They began to populate Iceland — around 500 miles from their native Norway — in about 900 CE, even eventually reaching North America. The specifics of their navigation techniques are somewhat mysterious, but recent research indicates they may have used crystals.

Because they sailed their longships in the far North Atlantic, Viking travelers benefitted from up to 24 hours of continuous daylight, but they encountered a lot of fog, too. Ancient Norse literature mentions “sunstones,” stones that helped their holders find the sun — and scientists now think these may have really existed. In 2011, researchers used calcite crystals to pinpoint the location of the sun within 1 degree. It’s not magic, although it sounds like it: Through polarization, crystals can show sunlight patterns that can’t be seen with the naked eye.

Another study from 2014 suggests these crystals may have been used in conjunction with a sun compass. Researchers simulated 3,600 trips between Norway and Greenland at the spring equinox and summer solstice, two dates marked on a disc believed to be a component of a sun compass. They found that by checking the crystals every few hours, the computer-generated voyages successfully reached Greenland 92% of the time.

That study hasn’t been replicated in the real world yet, but it offers some clues to how Viking navigators were able to navigate without the use of magnetic compasses or astrolabes.

Photo credit: Heritage Images/ Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Navigators Knew the Earth Was Round Earlier Than You Might Think

There’s a persistent myth that Christopher Columbus “proved” the Earth was round in the 15th century during his voyage from Europe to the Americas, but he was many centuries too late. In fact, formally educated people knew the world wasn’t flat starting way back in the third century BCE, while scientists and mathematicians may have known as early as the sixth century BCE. Columbus’ surprise landing in the Americas had nothing to do with thinking the Earth was flat — he just thought the global circumference to be smaller than it is and believed he’d end up in Asia. This tenacious myth comes from a highly embellished 1828 biography of Columbus written by Washington Irving, better known for fictional works such as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

Like the aforementioned scientists and scholars, mariners were aware of the world’s roundness very early on. Sailors observed that when viewing distant ships, the tops of sails and masts were visible before the decks and hulls of the vessels to which they were attached. And as they traveled to different points of the Earth, they also noted being able to see different constellations. Celestial navigation would have been pretty difficult otherwise.

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6 Fun Facts About Cars Through History

Four-wheeled Benz

The story of the automobile is, in the grand scheme of history, fairly short — but cars have come a long way since the steam-powered horseless carriages of the early 1800s. What started as a pastime for enthusiasts and the wealthy spread quickly throughout society, unlocking all sorts of new ways and places to travel. Even as modern cars get more and more advanced, vehicles from the past still capture our imagination, conjuring up images of muscle cars, luxury convertibles, and the open road. So hop in your DeLorean and get ready for five facts from the vehicular past.

Photo credit: PhotoQuest/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

The Model-T Ford Cost $290

At the end of 2022, the average cost of a new car was a whopping $48,681, a record-setting high. So it might be hard to believe that in the 1920s, when cars were still a relative luxury item, you could get a brand-new Model T Ford for just $290, or right around $5,000 in today’s dollars. These days, that’ll barely get you a 10-year-old Ford Focus.

The price wasn’t always that low; when Model-T runabouts first hit the market around 1908, they cost $825, or roughly $17,000 today. The price was still lower than the average person’s yearly salary, though, and that was by design.

“I will build a car for the great multitude,” Henry Ford said of his design ethos for the Model-T in his 1922 autobiography. He envisioned a car that was convenient and high-quality, but “low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one.”

In 1912, there were fewer than 10,000 automobile registrations in the United States. By 1927 — the last year of the Model-T — Ford had slashed the price, and automobile registrations had soared to more than 20 million.

The First Practical Gas Car Topped Out at 10 Miles per Hour

Steam-powered “horseless carriages” date back to the 18th century, but the first practical vehicle with an internal combustion engine was designed by engineer Karl Benz in 1885. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen had three wheels and not a lot of oomph; a journalist who drove a replica of one for Car and Driver in 1986 reported that it “gathers speed like a fog bank cresting a hill.” Its one-cylinder, four-stroke engine generated just one horsepower, and at 400 revolutions per minute, it could reach a max speed of 10 miles per hour (unless it was headed downhill). It was not hard for someone on foot to outrun the car.

Nevertheless, the Patent-Motorwagen was the first modern car to actually hit the market, and more than 25 of them were built between 1886 and 1893. Sales quintupled the following year, with more than 136 selling in 1894 alone.

The 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Was Advertised as the Last-Ever Convertible

Convertible cars were synonymous with “cool” for decades, from the Alfa Romeo Spider to the Ford Shelby. In 1965, at the convertible’s peak, American automakers produced 509,415 of them. But in the 1970s, open-top cars dwindled as one by one, automakers removed them from production. This was due to a few factors: Automobile manufacturers were expecting new safety regulations around rollover accidents; high freeway speeds, air pollution, and the availability of air conditioning made an open car less appealing; and sunroofs, a more comfortable alternative, entered the scene in 1968.

By 1975, General Motors was the only car manufacturer still making convertibles, and in 1976, GM made only one single model: a luxurious white Cadillac Eldorado, which the company claimed was the last American convertible. Each car even had a numbered plaque. When the expected highway regulations never surfaced, convertibles crept back on the market in 1982. Not wanting to be left behind, GM resumed making the convertible Eldorado, angering the small group of people who had purchased the 1976 model thinking it would be a collector’s item.

The Prius Wasn’t the First Hybrid Car

A century before the Toyota Prius’ 1997 debut, Ferdinand Porsche — who later founded the eponymous sports car company — developed a hybrid, gas-electric vehicle. He even put one on the market. At the turn of the 20th century, gas engines hadn’t become standard yet, and one-third of all cars on the road were electric. Porsche, then working for vehicle magnate Ludwig Lohner, devised an automobile that used both gas and electric power by mounting electric motors to the wheel hubs, powered by a generator fueled by gas engines. Electric cars at the time had especially limited ranges, and by integrating the charger into the car, he expanded them considerably. He and Lohner dubbed their invention “Semper Vivus,” Latin for “always alive,” and presented it at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

A second, improved model, the Lohner-Porsche Mixte, actually went on the market for more than a decade, although not at a large scale. At the equivalent of more than $80,000 today, they were prohibitively expensive, so not many of the hybrid cars sold —but they performed well enough for Porsche to win the large car division of the 1902 Exelberg Hillclimb race while driving one.

Photo credit: The Enthusiast Network via Getty Images

Flying Cars Have Existed Since the 1950s

Flying cars are the ultimate futuristic vehicle, cemented in the public imagination by shows such as The Jetsons. Weirdly enough, flying cars actually existed — and were even on the market — years before the animated series premiered in 1962. They just weren’t very practical, and the transition from road to sky, while surprisingly fast, was far from seamless.

Moulton Taylor, a former naval engineer, prototyped the Aerocar in 1949, although the Civil Aeronautics Administration (a precursor to the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA) didn’t certify it until 1956. The main body of the vehicle was a sporty, compact coupe, with detachable wings that could either be carried behind it like a trailer or just left behind entirely. It took less than 15 minutes to transform the vehicle from car to airplane: You’d flip the license plate to attach the tail, then swing the wings up and pin them into place so the Aerocar could take flight.

The car did not go completely unnoticed. Taylor showed one off on the 1950s game show I’ve Got a Secret; it was featured prominently on the 1961 TV series The Bob Cummings Show; and a Portland, Oregon, radio station used one for weather reporting from 1962 to 1963. But the car never really caught on, and flying cars remain the purview of the imagination today.

America’s First Car Race Lasted More Than 10 Hours

The first American motorcar race took place in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day in 1895, and it had one very notable entrant: the Duryea Motor Wagon, the first gas-powered American automobile, driven by co-inventor Frank Duryea.

The race itself was harrowing. After a blizzard rolled in, the route was cut from 92 miles to 50 miles, and entrants had to wrap their tires in twine for traction. At least 70 racers planned to take part, but only six actually participated, and just four made it significantly past the starting line. Ultimately, only two cars, the Motor Wagon and a Benz, finished the race. Duryea, who took 10 hours and 23 minutes (including stops for refueling and repairs) to complete the race at an average speed of 7.3 miles per hour, took first place and a $2,000 prize. The runner-up rolled through two hours later.

That race sure didn’t go as planned — especially for the drivers that crashed along the way — but it worked out swimmingly for Duryea, at least in the short-term. He and his brother Charles got enough publicity to sell the very first vehicles purchased in the United States. They also made the first American car to enter (and the first to win) the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run (known then as the Emancipation Run), in 1896. Their luck proved to be short-lived, however, and the company folded in 1898.

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5 Ways Albert Einstein Changed the World

Physicist Albert Einstein

German-born physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was so influential, his very name has become synonymous with genius. While working as a patent clerk in 1905 at the age of 26, Einstein submitted four papers to the German journal Annalen der Physik that changed humanity’s perception of time, gravity, and light. Today, historians mark the year as Einstein’s annus mirabilis, or “miracle year” — and he was just getting started.

Much of Einstein’s work is famously dense. Few people other than physicists need to fully comprehend the mind-bending ideas behind the general theory of relativity and Einstein’s other theories, but these discoveries form the bedrock of technologies the rest of us enjoy every day. Here are five ways Einstein’s ideas changed the world, and continue to provide a roadmap for humanity’s future.

GPS Would Be Impossible Without the General Theory of Relativity

Some 10,900 nautical miles above our heads, 31 satellites orbit Earth as part of the Global Positioning System (GPS) — but if it wasn’t for Einstein, those satellites would be little more than space junk. The very foundation of GPS is accurate timekeeping, as satellites need to keep time to correctly log the distance from a ground-based receiver (such as your smartphone). GPS satellites are so precise, the atomic clocks on board are accurate to within three-billionths of a second, a feat impossible without Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. The special theory of relativity states that time flows differently depending on velocity. Because satellites travel at 8,700 miles per hour, they “lose” 7 microseconds per day compared to Earth-based receivers. Additionally, Einstein’s general theory of relativity — an idea published in 1915 that basically elaborates on his previous theory by throwing gravity in the mix — similarly states that distance from a source of mass, in this case the Earth, also affects the flow of time. This means that technically speaking, your head ages slightly faster than your feet because your feet are closer to the Earth (on time scales that are ultimately negligible). Today, GPS takes into account this “time dilation,” so satellites always know where you are when you open Google Maps.

The Explanation of Photoelectric Effect Helped Make Modern Solar Power Possible

It probably comes as no surprise that Einstein won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921, but what many people don’t realize is that the award wasn’t honoring the wunderkind’s groundbreaking general theory of relativity, but rather his revolutionary yet often overlooked explanation of the photoelectric effect. The initial discovery of the photoelectric effect came in 1887 from German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (yes, that Hertz), who noticed that when ultraviolet light hit a metal plate, it created sparks. What was puzzling was that different metals required different frequencies to produce the same effect. Then, in 1905, 26-year-old Einstein solved this conundrum by introducing a new conception of light, which he published in his first paper submitted to Annalen der Physik. He argued that light wasn’t just a wave, as some scientists suggested, but also a stream of particles, later known to science as “photons.” Einstein posited that these photons contained a fixed amount of energy depending on their frequency, and his theory — though derided for years — successfully explained the photoelectric phenomenon. Though solar cells predated Einstein’s discovery by dozens of years, it wasn’t until Einstein’s theory that scientists understood why they worked, which helped make solar panels even more efficient.

Photo credit: Ezume Images/ Shutterstock

Lasers Were Developed Thanks to Einstein’s Quantum Theory of Radiation

Lasers (an acronym for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”) scan your groceries at the supermarket, make self-driving cars possible, and form the backbone of optical communication. And yes, we can thank Einstein for this one, too. In 1917, Einstein published a paper detailing his quantum theory of radiation. The theory basically states that atoms can be stimulated to change energy levels when hit with a specific frequency. If that excited atom is hit with another photon of the same frequency, it’ll produce two coherent photons (traveling in the same direction) while the atom’s electron returns to its ground state. This means you can artificially create a sudden burst of coherent light as atoms discharge in a chain reaction, otherwise known as “stimulated emission of radiation” (the “ser” in “laser”). It wasn’t until after World War II that scientists found a use for Einstein’s discovery; the laser was developed by using mirrors to create light amplification.

Photo credit: MPI/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

The E=MC² Equation Formed the Scientific Basis for the Nuclear Bomb

The final discovery of Einstein’s “miracle year” was the concept that light and energy are equivalent, and that their relationship can be explained with the elegantly simple equation E=MC², meaning energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Describing mass as essentially super-dense energy, Einstein’s equation shows how even small amounts of mass at atomic levels can produce a tremendous amount of energy when multiplied by the speed of light squared — and you probably see where this is going.

This process explains how a neutron fired from a uranium atom splits it into smaller atoms while releasing a tremendous amount of energy. It’s known as nuclear fission, and when the process is controlled, it provides low-emission nuclear energy. When released in an uncontrolled state, it can be used to produce an atomic bomb. Einstein himself never worked on the Manhattan Project, the secret government program to make the first nuclear bomb, but he rubber-stamped the idea in a 1939 letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt that argued for the U.S. to make the bomb before Nazi Germany. Einstein later regarded that letter as the “one great mistake in my life.”

The E=MC² Equation Could Point to the Future of Energy

As previously described, nuclear fission works by breaking apart an element such as a heavy uranium-235 atom into two smaller atoms (krypton and barium). However, something interesting also occurs: If two light nuclei (i.e., hydrogen) can overcome electrostatic repulsion, they fuse together to form a heavy helium-4 atom — sort of like fission but in reverse. Similarly, following the E=MC² equation, this process produces a tremendous amount of energy and heat. This is known as nuclear fusion, and it’s the atomic science that is the energy-producing engine of stars.

On paper, nuclear fusion could provide the answer to humanity’s expanding energy needs. There’s no enriched material involved; nuclear proliferation with fusion reactors isn’t a worry; a meltdown is scientifically impossible; there’s no radioactive material produced as a byproduct; it’s completely carbon-free; and fusing atoms together releases 4 million times more energy than the chemical process of burning coal. There’s just one catch: Building a fusion reactor is immensely complicated. That’s never stopped people before, though. An international coalition of scientists and agencies is hard at work creating the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, which is set to go online in 2025.

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The Surprising Origins of 6 Everyday Objects

Toothpaste on toothbrush

The objects we use in our everyday lives can easily be taken for granted. Simple conveniences such as lighting or the cars that get us from point A to point B are so ingrained in the day-to-day that we don’t stop to think about what life would be like without them — let alone how they even got here in the first place.

Some stories are more familiar than others: Thomas Edison famously toiled for years (and built on the work of others) before finalizing the first practical incandescent lightbulb, while Karl Benz’s 1901 Mercedes became the prototype for all modern cars that followed. But what about our toothbrushes? Air conditioning? Or the most vital of daily tools, the intangible but indispensable Wi-Fi network? Read on to learn about the surprising origin stories of six everyday objects.

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The Basis for Wi-Fi Was Invented By a Hollywood Starlet

The invention of Wi-Fi has sparked plenty of debates and disputes over the years. Various individuals and organizations contributed to its development, and while the specific inventor of Wi-Fi is a matter of contention, one unexpected notable figure played a significant role in laying the foundation that made it possible: actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.

Lamarr is known for her Hollywood career in the 1930s and ’40s, but her accomplishments went beyond the silver screen. During World War II, she teamed up with composer George Antheil to create a secure communication system that would prevent signal interference by enemy forces. This “frequency hopping” system was intended to guide torpedoes, and is widely considered the precursor to not only Wi-Fi, but GPS and Bluetooth technologies as well. However, Lamarr and Antheil’s patent expired before it got used, and only in modern times is the actress receiving the credit she deserves for enabling these transformative technologies.

Air Conditioning Came From a New York Printing Press

Air conditioning has become a necessity for living and working comfortably in increasingly hot temperatures, but the AC unit actually originated as a way to fix a faltering printing press. In 1902, an engineer named Willis Carrier was working at Buffalo, New York’s Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company. He was tasked with finding a solution to control the humidity levels in the plant, which were wreaking havoc on paper and ink quality. His solution, known as the Apparatus for Treating Air, marked the birth of modern air conditioning.

Carrier's system consisted of steam coils and an industrial fan. The cold water in the coils produced excess condensation, which would be blown out of the room to lower humidity and cool the air. It not only solved the printing problem, but also inadvertently introduced a revolutionary technology with wide-ranging applications. While other people had experimented with cooling technology before Carrier, his pioneering work impacted architecture, engineering, and everyday life for generations to come.

Photo credit: Harold M. Lambert/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

Early Toothbrushes Were Made With Hog Hair

If there’s one item most people use every single day, it’s a toothbrush. While the humble oral hygiene tool dates back to ancient civilizations, when frayed twigs were used to scrub teeth, the model for bristle brushes as we know them today didn’t emerge until the late 15th century. According to the American Dental Association, a Chinese emperor patented a brush made of stiff, coarse hog hairs set into a handle made of bone or bamboo.

Hog or horse hair toothbrushes continued to be used for hundreds of years; by the late 1700s, they were even being mass-produced. It wasn’t until nylon was invented by a team at DuPont in 1935 that the material — the world’s first fully synthetic fiber — was put into toothbrushes. By 1938, the revolutionary product hit the market. Called Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft Toothbrush, it wasn’t initially a hit, since early nylon was still far too stiff and abrasive, and brushing one’s teeth still wasn't considered a daily necessity. By the end of World War II, Americans were influenced by the hygiene habits of returning soldiers, and by the time DuPont introduced softer bristles in 1950, a booming industry was born.

Photo credit: Hulton Archive/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

The First Barcode Was Drawn in the Sand on Miami Beach

In 1948, Joseph Woodland, an inventor and grad student at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, was posed a challenge by a local grocer who wanted to speed up his checkouts. Given the limited technology at the time, how could they automate the process? Woodland was keen on the challenge, and pondered the problem while visiting family in Miami Beach. One day, inspiration struck on the beach. As Woodland drew in the sand with his fingertips, a vision of elongated bars, inspired by Morse code, came to him. Using a black-and-white bull's-eye design, he created a code that machines could decipher, pulling both the product information and its price. While early experiments were successful, it took several more decades of work from many thinkers before an IBM engineer designed the rectangle-shaped barcode we know and use regularly today.

While the barcode was originally created to answer supermarkets’ need for a faster checkout process, its true significance ended up being its ability to offer statistical insight into product sales. This innovation revolutionized market research, offering more detailed insights into consumer preferences, while also making manufacturing more efficient. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush presented Woodland with a National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his contributions to American retail and beyond.

The First Disposable Diapers Were Handmade by a Mom

Baby diapers may not be an everyday object for everyone, but anyone who has used them is keenly aware of their indispensability. While disposable diapers are now a multibillion-dollar global business, they began as a humble homemade project. In 1947, Valerie Hunter Gordon was just about to welcome her third child when she decided she’d had enough of washing soiled cloth diapers. She went on the hunt for single-use options; to her surprise, there were none available, so she sat down and made them herself.

Using her Singer sewing machine at her kitchen table, Gordon fashioned the “Paddi” out of gauze, for absorption, and with an outer nylon layer to hold the absorbent pad in place. (The nylon was actually a piece of parachute she got from her husband’s army base.) Snap closures were added for additional ease. As soon as her friends saw what she was making, they wanted some of their own; Gordon figures she handmade more than 600 of them at that time. The Gordons applied for a patent, and by 1949, they were producing the diapers in partnership with a U.K. company. By the 1960s, an American brand known as Pampers came along, and the Paddis business dwindled.

Photo credit: Lucas Oleniuk/ Toronto Star via Getty Images

Kleenex Started as Wartime Gas Mask Filters

Kleenex tissues, like many other new products during the 1920s, were a wartime innovation. With an increased demand for cotton supplies on the battlefield, American paper company Kimberly-Clark developed a cotton substitute made from wood pulp. The company called it cellucotton, and sent it overseas to use as bandages and as filters in gas masks. Following the war, Kimberly-Clark sought civilian applications for its abundance of cellucotton. One employee, Walter Luecke, was inspired by Army nurses who used it as makeshift disposable sanitary napkins. The company initially pushed back, claiming sanitary napkins were “too personal” to produce and market, but it eventually relented, and in 1920, released its first consumer product, the revolutionary Kotex sanitary pads. Shortly after the success of Kotex, the surplus of cellucotton was further adapted into a thinner, softer product that was released in 1924 and marketed as a cold cream and makeup remover: Kleenex.

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