Today in History: Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier, 1879 Today in History: Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier, 1879 Posted on by Eric Colleary I’m currently back home visiting family in Dayton, Ohio and it just so happens to coincide with a famous bit of local food history. Dayton is famous for many innovations – at one point being home to the most number of registered patents than any other city in the country. The Wright Brother’s airplane, the self-starting car ignition, the UPC barcode and scanner, the pop-top soda can, the electric wheelchair and the mood ring can all trace their roots back to Dayton innovators. However, it was on this date in 1879, when brothers James and John Ritty invented the earliest mechanical cash register for their bar in downtown Dayton. The story goes that bartenders at James Ritty’s Pony House Tavern were skimming money off the bar’s sales. Ritty, understandably aggravated, was returning from a trip to Europe when he noticed a dial on the bridge that counted the revolutions of the ship’s propellers.

Intrigued, Ritty returned home to Dayton and proposed the idea for a calculating sales machine to his brother John, a mechanic. After developing a few prototypes that failed, the brothers developed a machine that replaced the numbers on the dial with dollars and cents. Pressing a key on the machine would add that dollar amount to the total day’s sales, displayed on the dial. There was no cash drawer at this point – just the running tally. Example of Ritty’s early design can be found at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. or at Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. Called “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier,” the brothers opened a small workshop at 10 South Main Street Dayton to manufacture more, but soon found themselves unable to keep up with the demand. They sold the patent to Jacob Eckhert of Cincinnati, a glass and silverware salesman. Eckhert formed the National Manufacturing Company to produce the cash registers, and re-designed the machine to include a cash till and a bell that would ring with each sale. However, by 1884, Eckhert was also in over his head, and he subsequently sold the patent and the company to John H.

Patterson, who re-named the company the National Cash Register Corporation (NCR). To this day, NCR has been a leader in designing and producing cash machines. They added the paper receipt roll, developed the first automated credit system, and later developed the technology that would allow the UPC barcode to become an easier point-of-sale method. But what of Ritty’s bar? The original building on South Jefferson Street (now the site of a Crowne Plaza Hotel ), was originally a school for French and English ladies. The bar itself was commissioned by Ritty from Barney and Smith Car Works in Cincinnati and is made from 5,4000 pounds of Honduran Mahogany and tooled leather.In the late 19th century, at the height of the Pony House’s business (Buffalo Bill Cody, John Dillinger and Jack Dempsey were among the many notable ‘regulars’) beer was a nickel a stein, and a drink would come access to a free lunch spread that included boiled eggs, sardines, blind robins (smoked herring or other freshwater fish fillets), cold meats, pigs feet, pickles, pretzels, crackers and bread.

The bar became a restaurant during prohibition and was open through 1967. When the building was slated for demolition, the famous bar that held the early cash registers was removed and preserved by Bill Eicher of Dayton’s United Moving and Storage. The bar was then purchased and installed a few blocks from its original location, at Jay’s Seafood at 225 East Sixth Street in Dayton’s Historic Oregon District . After a stop at Carillon Park with my dad George and stepmom Marsha to check out Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier, we popped into Jay’s to check out the old bar. The pictures, I’m afraid, do not do it justice. The long bar has three large mirrors embedded in the beautifully carved mahogany. More intricate tooling can be found in the leather that crowns the bar – made to look like the wood surrounding it. In the top center part of the bar is Ritty’s carved, overlapping initials. Today, the bar uses a slightly more modern cash register system….

😉 In honor of the occasion, an Old Fashion Cocktail seemed like a fitting drink… James Ritty | New York | ZoomInfo.com sciencegnus.com [cached] 1879- The first patent for a cash register was issued. (Registered?) James Jacob Ritty with help from his brother John invented the first cash register, intended to combat theft by bartenders in the Pony House Restaurant, his Dayton, Ohio saloon. ... Ritty patented the design in 1879 as "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier." 1884 - Democrat Grover Cleveland, Governor of New York, was elected president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. Blaine's only possible competition for the nomination was General William Tecumseh Sherman who ended speculation that he would run by making what has become known as a Sherman statement: "If nominated, I will not accept, and if elected I will not serve." title [cached] 1879- The first patent for a cash register was issued. (Registered?) James Jacob Ritty with help from his brother John invented the first cash register, intended to combat theft by bartenders in the Pony House Restaurant, his Dayton, Ohio saloon. ...

Ritty patented the design in 1879 as "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier." 1884 - Democrat Grover Cleveland, Governor of New York, was elected president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. Blaine's only possible competition for the nomination was General William Tecumseh Sherman who ended speculation that he would run by making what has become known as a Sherman statement: "If nominated, I will not accept, and if elected I will not serve." Gnovember Gnus Cash register invented and patented by James Ritty - World Wide Invention Association Henri Coanda - romanian inventor, first jet powered aircraft of worlds Cash register invented and patented by James Ritty The cash register is a device for calculating and recording sales transactions. The mechanical cash register was invented and patented in 1879 by James Ritty. Ritty was an American tavern keeper in Dayton, Ohio. He nicknamed his cash register the "Incorruptible Cashier," and started the National Manufacturing Company to sell them. When a transaction was completed, a bell rang on the cash register and the amount was noted on a large dial on the front of the machine.

During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales. John H. Patterson bought Ritty's patent and his cash register company in 1884. Patterson renamed the Dayton, Ohio, company the National Cash Register Company. Patterson improved Ritty's cash register by adding a paper tape that kept a printed record of all transactions. posted on 04-10-2009 Invention: Cash Register Cash Register clipartguide.com Main Image: The mechanical cash register was invented in 1879 by James Ritty . Ritty was an American tavern keeper in Dayton, Ohio. He nicknamed his cash register the "Incorruptible Cashier," and started the National Manufacturing Company to sell them. Do you know how his cash regester work? When a transaction was completed, a bell rang on the cash register and the amount was noted on a large dial on the front of the machine. During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales at the end of the day, the merchant could add up the holes . New owners and new name s given to cash register John H.

Patterson bought Ritty's patent and his cash register company in 1884. Patterson renamed the Dayton, Ohio, company the National Cash Register Company. Patterson improved Ritty's cash register by adding a paper tape that kept a printed record of all transactions. In 1906, Charles F. Kettering (and employee of NCR) developed an electric cash register (Kettering later worked for General Motors and invented the electric car ignition). The National Cash Register Company was later called NCR, until the company was bought by ATT in 1991; it was given back the name NCR in 1996, when it was split off from ATT. Mordern day cash register A cash register (US English) or till (British English) is a mechanical or electronic device for calculating and recording sales transactions, and an attached cash drawer for storing cash. The cash register also usually prints a receipt for the customer.In most cases the drawer can be opened only after a sale, except when using special keys, which only senior employees and the owner have.

This reduces the risk of employees stealing from the shop owner by not recording a sale and pocketing the money, when a customer does not need a receipt but has to be given change (cash is more easily checked against recorded sales than inventory). In fact, cash registers were first invented for the purpose of eliminating employee theft or embezzlement, and their original name was the Incorruptible Cashier. It has also been suggested that odd pricing came about because by charging odd amounts like 49 or 99 cents, the cashier very probably had to open the till for the penny change and thus announce the sale.Cash registers include a key labeled "NS", which is abbreviated for "No Sale", and opens the drawer, printing a receipt stating "No Sale" and recording it in the register log that the register was opened. Some other cash registers require a numeric password or physical key to be used when attempting to open the till. In some jurisdictions the law also requires customers to collect the receipt and keep it at least for a short while after leaving the shop,[citation needed] again to check that the shop records sales, so that it cannot evade sales taxes.

Often cash registers are attached to scales, barcode scanners, checkstands, and debit card or credit card terminals. Increasingly, dedicated cash registers are being replaced with general purpose computers with POS software.Currently, many cash registers are individual computers. They may be DOS, Windows or Unix based. Many of them have touch screens. They may be connected to computerized Point of sale networks using any type of protocol. Such systems may be accessed remotely for the purpose of obtaining records or troubleshooting. Link Keywords: Nov. 4, 1879: Ka-Ching! The World’s First Cash Register | WIRED Time of Publication: 12:00 am. 12:00 am Nov. 4, 1879: Ka-Ching! The World’s First Cash Register 1879: James Jacob Ritty patents the first cash register. It’s supposed to be a way to keep his bartenders honest. The invention does little to curtail employee pilferage — but it does create a massive industry and enables hipsters several generations later to coin the phrase ka-ching!

Ritty opened his first bar in Dayton, Ohio, styling himself a “ Dealer in Pure Whiskies, Fine Wines, and Cigars .” It was a popular spot but, trouble was, some of money that was supposed to go into the till never quite made it there. Without any sort of audit trail, bartenders could literally make out like bandits — and, even in a world now replete with cash registers, they still can. In my own limited (ahem) experience I have found that a quality relationship with a New York City bartender can easily blossom from the occasional buyback to a night of drinking abandon for the price of a generous tip. But I digress. While on a sea trip Ritty admired a contraption that kept count of how many times the ship’s propeller had turned , and it gave him a sobering idea: What if he could build a device that tallied, in real time, the money his bar took in? Working out the kinks with his brother John, Ritty’s first two attempts at making a mechanical tabulation device were less than successful.

But the third one was the charm, and “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier” forever changed the way we were parted from our money. But not right away. Unlike the inspirational ship’s device, which automatically counted propeller rotations, Ritty’s machine still depended on the kindness of strangers: The clocklike face did display for all to see the cash tally of the moment — but only if the person taking the money, er, “remembered” to enter the transaction. And there was no cash drawer. Money still went into the box (or pocket) where it had previously gone. Also, employees didn’t think much of the device because it complicated stealing for the dishonest ones, while branding the honest ones as prospective thieves. Ritty received U.S. patent 221,360 on Nov. 4, 1879. Nevertheless, the business of making these mechanical devices seemed promising, so Ritty formed a company to build and sell them to other mistrustful captains of industry. After a few years Ritty found that running two thriving concerns became too much for him, so he sold his interest in the cash register firm and stayed in the bar business — perhaps not the best decision he ever made.

Ritty’s cash register company was sold again in 1884 to John H. Patterson, who renamed it the National Cash Register Co. The company survives to this day as NCR — a diversified public corporation which still makes cash registers and has a market cap of $2.86 billion in October 2011. It is another one of history’s little ironies that the problem Ritty hoped to solve with his “Incorruptible Cashier” still looms large, and is attacked now in an entirely different way — with concealed product inserts that set off alarms, out-sized packaging that is difficult to conceal and exploding security tags that cover an offender with indelible ink. This futuristic cash register is an Intel prototype. Image courtesy Frog Design Cash registers — still so called even though at least as many transactions are now completed with credit cards and checks — no longer bear any resemblance to Ritty’s first effort. Yet they continue to evolve as thoroughly high-tech devices whose main selling point to retailers is efficient inventory control and accounting, and to consumers, speedy and frictionless checkouts.

Before UPC barcodes arrived in 1974 , cashiers had to enter a price manually on a set of numbered keys grandly arched on ornate devices that resounded at each transaction with a reassuring sound of the bell — the “ ka-ching ” which has come to metaphorically mean “cashing in.” Transactions are recorded and payment is accepted in wireless devices that look like Star Trek tricorders and, yes, there is even an app for that . Wired.com wrote in 2008 about a prototype Intel cash register that looks like a pinball machine and would, Amazon-style, suggest items you might also be interested in as part of a checkout process. So reliable is the checkout-security aspect at the point of sale that we are now allowed to conduct the transaction by ourselves with minimal supervision at supermarkets, price-club warehouses and ginormous home-improvement stores — a turn of events that would surely make Ritty’s head spin. Source: Various Top photo: The National Museum of American History houses a replica of the Ritty Incorruptible Cashier. The clocklike dial registered the dollars and cents.

(Courtesy NMAH) See Also: James Ritty Invents the First Cash Register Updated August 16, 2016. The First Cash Register - James Ritty James Ritty owned several saloons, including one in Dayton, Ohio. While traveling on a steamboat trip to Europe in 1878, Ritty was fascinated by an apparatus that counted how many times the ship's propeller went around. He contemplated whether or not a similar mechanism could be made to record the cash transactions made at his saloons. On January 30, 1883, James Ritty and John Birch received a patent for inventing the cash register. James Ritty then invented what was nicknamed the "Incorruptible Cashier" or the first working, mechanical cash register. His invention came with that familiar bell sound referred to in advertising as "The Bell Heard Round the World". Still a saloonkeeper, Ritty opened a small factory in Dayton to manufacture cash registers.

The company did not prosper and in 1881, Ritty became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running two businesses, and sold all his interests in the cash register business National Cash Register Company After reading a description of the cash register designed by Ritty and sold by the National Manufacturing Company, John H. Patterson decided to buy both the company and the patent. He renamed the company the National Cash Register Company in 1884. Patterson improved the cash register by adding a paper roll to record sales transactions. Charles F. Kettering designed a cash register with an electric motor in 1906, while working at the National Cash Register Company. He later worked at General Motors and invented an electric self-starter (ignition) for a Cadillac. Today the NCR Corporation is computer hardware, software and electonics company that makes self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, processing systems, barcode scanners and business consumables. They also provide IT maintenance support services. NCR, formerly based in Dayton, Ohio, moved to Atlanta in 2009. The headquarters are now located in unincorporated Gwinnett County, Georgia.

Future headquarters are planned for the end of 2016 at Technology Square (next to Georgia Institute of Technology) located in Atlanta, Georgia. The Remainder of James Ritty's Life James Ritty opened another saloon, called the Pony House, in 1882. For his latest saloon, Ritty commissioned wood carvers from Barney and Smith Car Company to turn 5,400 pounds of Honduras mahogany into a bar. The bar was 12 feet tall and 32 feet wide. The initials JR were put into the middle and the left and right sections looked like the interior of a passenger railcar, with the giant mirrors set back about a foot with curved, hand-tooled leather covered elements at the top and curved bezel mirror-encrusted sections on each side. The Pony House saloon was torn down in 1967, but the bar was saved and today is the bar at Jay's Seafood in Dayton. Ritty retired from the saloon business in 1895. He died of heart trouble while at home. He is entombed with his wife Susan and his brother John at Dayton's Woodland Cemetery.

History of the Cash Register – Cash Registers Online Home › History of the Cash Register History of the Cash Register On January 30, 1883, James Ritty, a saloonkeeper in Dayton, Ohio, and John Birch received a patent for inventing the cash register. James Ritty invented what was nicknamed the "Incorruptible Cashier" or the first working, mechanical cash register. The machine used metal taps with denominations pressed into them to indicate the amount of the sale. There was a bell to ring up sales. It also had a total adder that summed all the cash values of the key presses during a day. His invention came with that familiar bell sound referred to in advertising as "The Bell Heard Round the World". After reading a description of the cash register designed by James Ritty and sold by the National Manufacturing Company, John H Patterson purchased several machines for use in his retail store. Later he decided to buy both the company and the cash register patent for $6500. He renamed the company the National Cash Register Company in 1884. Patterson's, eccentric and aggressiveness, made him a successful businessman.

Eighty four companies sold cash registers between 1888 and 1895, only three survived for any length of time. With Patterson's desire to create bigger, better and more thief proof registers, his company was the most successful of all cash register companies in the late 1800's to early 1900's. Patterson continued to improve on Ritty's cash register invention, adding spare rolls to reconcile the day's transactions in each price range. This worked by building a hole puncher into each cash register while the paper would have separate invisible columns that would stand for cents and dollars. If the paper had two holes punched in dollars column, for example, and 50 holes punched in the cents column, the total would be Two dollars + fifty cents. When a transaction was completed, a bell rang on the cash register + the amount was stored on a large dial on the front of the machine. During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales. At the end of the day, the merchant could add up the holes and therefore his daily cash.

In 1906 a cash register was designed with an electric motor, which made it the first powered cash register. During the period 1888 to 1915 the cash register, clothed in fancy cast-metal cases, spread into nearly every retail establishment. This period is best typified by the cast brass-encased cash registers, many of which are still available in antique markets today. There were cash registers made of materials other than brass. Cast-iron, wood, and even metal stampings were used. Finishes included polished brass, nickel-plate, antiqued copper, paint, and even silver and gold plate. Brass dominated the National Cash Register Company line, which grew to represent 95% of the total market. It is difficult to imagine any type of store without a cash register. Yet before 1879, merchants had no such equipment. Few business owners actually knew if they were operating at a profit or a loss. No wonder then, that cash registers became such a boon to companies. Not only were cash registers theft deterrents, they were instruments of a new analytical approach which resulted in a systematized use of information to produce profits.

Throughout the 1900's many advances have been made in cash registers. Not only have they become harder for thieves to steal, they have made retail and restaurant commerce much easier and more profitable for business owners. Today options such as touch screen computers, scanning of thousands of inventory items, processing credit cards, and printing of items to kitchen printers make the success of business ownership and management much more efficient and effective. Many Cash Register companies produce, market, and sell cash registers today. Some of those cash register companies include SAM4s, Samsung, Sharp, Casio, Royal, TEC, and Sanyo. During the last several years the cash register industry has changed dramatically with the introduction of Point of Sale Systems, or computerized cash registers. These Point of Sale Systems are used in all types of industry, but are prevalent in Retail Stores and Restaurants. The Point of Sale Systems, or computerized cash registers use touchscreen point of sale terminals, allow for scanning of items for easy checkouts, allow customers to process credit cards and gift cards with a one step operation and allow business owners to keep inventory of their items. With the recent changes in technology in the Cash Register and Point of Sale industries, we can expect many great things to happen in the future.

Quick Links Inventors & Inventions Inventors & Inventions Tweet The Direct Action Committee, a group pushing for nuclear disarmament, invented the peace symbol in 1958. The forked symbol is actually a composite of the semaphore signals "N" and "D," to stand for nuclear disarmament. Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float.Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated,and it has floated ever since. [It floats in gasoline, too.] Fortune cookies were invented in San Fransisco around 1914. In 1983 a judge decided that the modern fortune cookie came from San Fransisco. Source The Frisbee originated in the 1950s, when Yale students started the practice of playing catch with the pie-tins put out by the Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The company went out of business in 1957, but a few of their "5 cent deposit"pie-tins remain and are being hoarded by avid Frisbee collectors. Diet Coke was only invented in 1982.

Naugahyde, plastic "leather" was created in Naugatuck, Connecticut. As of 1940, total of ninety patents had been taken out on shaving mugs. A teenager invented a quick-release ratchet and offered the patent to Sears. Sears told him the patent was valueless and gave him $10,000, then went on to make $44 million selling the ratchets. Source It took three years of constant printing to complete Johann Gutenberg's famous Bible, which appeared in 1455 in two volumes, and had 1,284 pages. He reportedly printed 200 Bibles, of which 47 still exist. Madame Alexander dolls were the creation of Beatrice Alexander Behrman, the daughter of Russian immigrants. Mrs. Behrman, whose father operated New York's first doll "hospital," started making dolls in 1923, and her creations soon became famous for their molded heads and limbs, lifelike eyes, rooted hair and elaborate costumes. Mrs. Behrman sold the company to several New York investors in 1988, two years before she died at age 95.

But America's first and only remaining doll manufacturer has not compromised her high standard of quality and unique craftsmanship. Today, most of the company's manufacturing is still done in Harlem, New York, and more than 500,000 dolls a year are sold. Dr. Samuel Langley was able to get many model airplanes to fly, but on December 8, 1903, Langley's "human carrying flying machine", the aerodrome plunged into the Potomac River near Washington D.C., in front of photographers who were assembled to witness the event. Reporters around the country made fun of the idea that people could fly and nine days later, Wilbur and Orville Wright proved them wrong. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola. Self-made millionaire Cyrus Field championed the idea of a telegraph from England to Newfoundland. Britain quickly agreed to subsidize. Congress went along by a one-vote margin. That was in 1856. Laying cable was tough. It kept breaking. The first line - two years later - died almost immediately.

But 10 years later, there were two working lines. Communications changed forever. The first lightweight luggage designed for air travel was conceived by aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. Donald F. Duncan, the man who made the yo-yo an American tradition, is also credited with popularizing the parking meter and introducing Good Humor "ice cream on a stick. {googleAds} {/googleAds} Eastman Kodak's Brownie camera cost $1.00 when it was introduced in 1900. Sylvan N. Goldman of Humpty Dumpty Stores and Standard Food Markets developed the shopping cart so that people could buy more in a single visit to the grocery store. He unveiled his creation in Oklahoma City on June 4, 1937. Frederick Winthrop Thayer of Massachusetts and the captain of the Harvard University Baseball Club received a patent for his baseball catcher's mask on February 12, 1878. The first coin operated machine ever designed was a holy-water dispenser that required a five-drachma piece to operate. It was the brainchild of the Greek scientist Hero in the first century AD.

Ornithologists often use Scotch tape to cover cracks in the soft shells of fertilized pigeon eggs, allowing the eggs to hatch. Scotch tape has also been used as an anti-corrosive shield on the Goodyear Blimp. The power lawn mower was invented by Ransom E. Olds (of Oldsmobile fame) in 1915. The shoestring was invented in England in 1790, Prior to this time all shoes were fastened with buckles. The single blade window cleaning squeegee was invented in 1936 by Ettore Sceccone and is still the most common form of commercial window cleaning today. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino. Edison improved the incandescent lamp in 1879, but he didn't actually invent it. Sir Humphrey Davy is reputed to be the true inventor of the electric light. He passed electricity through a platinum wire and caused an arc lamp to glow as early as 1802. However, Davy did not pursue the discovery.

By the time Edison entered the scene, arc lamps had been burning for several decades, but were limited by short life spans. Edison developed a long-lasting filament light in 1877, and in 1879 produced the first long-lasting light bulb. The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf. Because he felt such an important tool should be public property, English chemist John Walker never patented his invention — matches. The hypodermic needle was invented in 1853. It was initially used for giving injections of morphine as a painkiller. Physicians mistakenly believed that morphine would not be addictive if it by-passed the digestive tract. Thomas Edison’s first major invention was the quadruplex telegraph. Unlike other telegraphs at the time, it could send four messages at the same time over one wire. Inventor Gail Borden, Jr. invented condensed milk in the 1850's. After his death in 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless telegraph was honored by broadcasters worldwide as they let the airwaves fall silent for two minutes in his memory.

Pez was invented in 1927 by Eduard Haas, an Austrian anti-smoking fanatic, who marketed peppermint-flavored PEZ as a cigarette substitute. The candy gets its name from the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminze. Haas brought the candy to the U.S. in 1952. It bombed, so he reintroduced it as a children's toy, complete with cartoon heads and fruity flavors. One of the most secretive companies in the U.S., PEZ won't even disclose who currently owns the company. The Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite. Alfred Nobel us ed a cellulose adhesive (nitrocellulose) as the chemical binder for nitroglycerin, which he used in his invention of dynamite. Germany holds the title for most independent inventors to apply for patents. Noxema, the skin cream invented in 1914 by Baltimore pharmacist George Bunting, was originally sold as "Dr. Bunting's Sunburn Remedy." Mr.

Bunting changed the name to Noxema after a customer enthusiastically told him the cream had "knocked out his eczema." Thus, the cream that "knocks eczema" became "Noxema". George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, hated having his picture taken. Root Beer was invented in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, Sr. Because Napoleon believed that armies marched on their stomachs, he offered a prize in 1795 for a practical way of preserving food. The prize was won by a French inventor, Nicholas Appert. What he devised was canning. It was the beginning of the canned food industry of today. Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899. More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers.

Then they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality. Incan soldiers invented the process of freeze-drying food. The process was primitive but effective — potatoes would be left outside to freeze overnight, then thawed and stomped on to remove excess water. The first wooden shoe comes from the Netherlands. The Netherlands have many seas so people wanted a shoe that kept their feet dry while working outside. The shoes were called klompen and they had been cut of one single piece of wood. Today the klompen are the favorite souvenir for people who visit the Netherlands. When airplanes were still a novel invention, seat belts for pilots were installed only after the consequence of their absence was observed to be fatal - several pilots fell to their deaths while flying upside down. The first Bowie knife was forged at Washington, Arkansas. The supersonic Concorde jet made its first trial flight on January 1, 1969. Duffel bags are named after a town of Duffel, Belgium, where they were first made.

The commercial wireless phone was first introduced in Chicago in 1982 by Ameritech. The safety pin was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. He sold the patent rights for $400. The first Fords used Dodge engines. Many ford vehicles now use Nissan engines, especially in Mini-vans. The first portable calculator placed on sale by Texas Instruments weighed only 2-1/2 pounds and cost a mere $150. (1971) In 1937 the emergency 999 telephone service was established in London. More than 13,000 genuine calls were made in the first month. In 1889, the 1st coin-operated telephone, patented by Hartford, Connecticut inventor William Gray, was installed in the Hartford Bank. In 1977, according to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, there were 14.5 telephone calls made for every 100 people in the entire world. Humphrey O'Sullivan invented the rubber heel because he was tired of pounding the pavements of Boston looking for a job.

Hungarian brothers George and L"szlo Biro invented the ball point pen in 1938. Seating on the first scheduled inter-city commuter airplane flight consisted of moveable wicker chairs. There were 11 of them on the first Ford Tri-Motors. After several years, Ford replaced them with aluminum framed leather chairs. The first man-made item to exceed the speed of sound is the bull whip or leather whip. When the whip is snapped, the knotted end makes a "crack" or popping noise. It is actually causing a mini sonic boom as it exceeds the speed of sound. Cornelius van Drebel, a Dutch physician, built and successfully demonstrated the first submarine in 1620. It was a wooden framework covered with greased leather. The propulsion was provided by oars worked from the inside. It was tested in the Thames River in London. Venetian blinds were invented in Japan. Henry Waterman, of New York, invented the elevator in 1850. He intended it to transport barrels of flour. John Greenwood, also of New York invented the dental drill in 1790. The corkscrew was invented by M.L.

Bryn, also of New York, in 1860. Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson, who was (you guessed it) from New York. Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio in 1952, in New York. The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb." In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards. Gutenburg invented the printing press in the 1450's, and the first book to ever be printed was the Bible. It was, however, in Latin rather than English. The toothbrush was invented in 1498. The waffle iron was invented August 24, 1869. The alarm clock was not invented by the Marquis de Sade, as some suspect, but rather by a man named Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1787.

Perversity, though, characterized his invention from the beginning. The alarm on his clock could ring only at 4 am. Rumor has it that Hutchins was murdered by his wife at 4:05 am on a very dark and deeply cold New England morning. Craven Walker invented the lava lamp, and its contents are colored wax and water. In 1916, Jones Wister of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania invented a rifle for shooting around corners. It had a curved barrel and periscopic sights. The same man who led the attack on the Alamo, Mexican Military General, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, is also credited with the invention of chewing gum. The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. Lazy Susans are named after Thomas Edison's daughter. He invented it to impress a gathering of industrialists and inventors. Cyano-acrylate glues (super glue) were invented by accident. The researcher was trying to make optical materials, and would test their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them. When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the prisms apart.

A device invented as a primitive steam engine by the Greek engineer Hero, about the time of the birth of Christ, is used today as a rotating lawn sprinkler. A machine has been invented that can read printed English books aloud to the blind, and it can do so at speed half again as fast as normal speech. Games Slayter, a Purdue graduate, invented fiberglass. Teflon was discovered in 1938. Alfred Nobel used a cellulose adhesive (nitrocellulose) as the chemical binder for nitroglycerin, which he used in his invention of dynamite. At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Richard Blechyden, and Englishman, had a tea concession. On a very hot day, none of the fairgoers were interested in hot tea. Blechyden served the tea cold—and invented iced tea. The first known item made from aluminum was a rattle—made for Napoleon III in the 1850s. Napoleon also provided his most honored guests with knives and forks made of pure aluminum. At the time the newly discovered metal was so rare, it was considered more valuable than gold.

Hale's 100 inch lens built in the early 1900s was the largest solid piece of glass made until then. The lens was made by a French specialist who poured the equivalent of ten thousand melted champagne bottles into a mold packed with heat maintaining manure so that the glass would cool slowly and not crack. When Alexander Graham Bell Was working on the telephone in 1876, he spilled battery acid on his pants and called out to his assistant, "Watson, please come here. I want you." Watson, who was on another floor, heard the call through the instrument he was hooking up, and ran to Bell's room. Bell's words became the first ever successfully communicated using a telephone. Dutch engineers have developed a computerized machine that allows a cow to milk itself. Each cow in the herd has a computer chip in its collar. If the computer senses that the cow has not been milked in a given period of time, the milk-laden animal is allowed to enter the stall. The robot sensors locate the teats, apply the vacuum devices, and the cow is milked. The machine costs a mere $250,000 and is said to boost milk production by 15%.

Out of the 11 original patents made by Nikola Tessla, for the generation of hydroelectric energy, 9 are still in use, (unchanged) today. The windmill originated in Iran in AD 644. It was used to grind grain. Russian submarine designers are building military submarines out of concrete. Because concrete becomes stronger under high pressure, (C-subs) could settle down to the bottom in very deep water and wait for enemy ships to pass overhead. Concrete would not show up on sonar displays (it looks just like sand or rocks), so the passing ships would not see the sub lurking below. The first umbrella factory in the U.S. was founded in 1928 in Baltimore, Maryland. In the early 1950's, Denver architect Temple H. Buell, often called the Father of the Mall, conceived of and built one of the first shopping malls in the U.S.: the Cherry Creek Mall. During one four-year period, Thomas Edison obtained 300 patents, or one every five days. The Wright Brothers spent time observing the flight of the buzzard to help them solve the mystery of flight.

They realized that the bird retained balance in the air by twisting the tips of it's wings. By creating a wing warping method based upon this observation, the brothers were able to obtain a remarkable degree of maneuverability. In 1832 the Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott devised water beds as a way of improving patients' comfort. In 1769 the British designer Edward Beran enclosed wooden slats in a frame to adjust the amount of light let into a room. These became known as venetian blinds from their early use over Italianate windows. George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four years later, George sold the rights for $200,000. Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972), the mother of 12 children, had good reason to improve the efficiency and convenience of household items. A pioneer in ergonomics, Gilbreth patented many devices, including an electric food mixer, and the trash can with step-on lid-opener that can be found in most households today. Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M.

Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in Alameda, California. Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks. G.I. Joe was introduced at the annual American International Toy Fair in New York on Feb. 9, 1964. George Hancock invented a new game on November 30, 1887. It was played like baseball, except a broomstick was used for a bat and a boxing glove was the ball. Since the game was played indoors, it was originally called "indoor." Walter Hakanson later renamed it "softball." The City and South London Railway opened the world's first deep-level electric railway on December 18th, 1890, from King William Street in the City of London under the River Thames to Stockwell. Today, the London Underground Limited (LUL) is a major business with 2.5 million passenger journeys a day, nearly 500 trains, serving over 260 stations, around 16,000 staff and vast engineering assets. Dr.

Samuel Langley was able to get many model airplanes to fly, but on December 8, 1903, Langley's "human carrying flying machine", the aerodrome plunged into the Potomac River near Washington D.C., in front of photographers who were assembled to witness the event. Reporters around the country made fun of the idea that people could fly and nine days later, Wilbur and Orville Wright proved them wrong. In the year 1886, Herman Hollerith had the idea of using punched cards to keep and transport information, a technology used up to the late 1970's. This device was constructed to allow the 1890 census to be tabulated. In 1896 the Tabulating Machine Company was founded by Hollerith. Twenty-eight years later, in 1924, after several take-overs the company became known as International Business Machines (IBM). Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs.

Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil. In Japan, Western Electric first sold equipment in 1890, then in 1899 helped form the Nippon Electric Company (NEC). This was Japan's first joint venture with an American firm. Northern Telecom, Alcatel N.V. and NEC all had roots in Western Electric. In 1953, Sony Corporation obtained a transistor license from Western Electric Co. that led to its development of the world's first commercially successful transistor radio. Just like today's computers, early telephones were very confusing to new users. Some became so frustrated with the new technology, they attacked the phone with an ax or ripped it out of the wall. In the early 1880's some well-to-do telephone owners started the unusual trend of paying to have a theatre employee hold a telephone receiver backstage, transmitting live plays and operas into their living rooms. The famous emergency hotline, whereby the President could have immediate contact with the Kremlin wasn't established until 1984.

Prior to 1984, the only direct contact to the Kremlin was a cumbersome teleprinter link, supplying text messages that then had to be translated, responses drafted and sent back. William Bourne, a British mathematician, drew plans for a submarine in 1578. But it was only in 1620 that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, managed to build a submarine. He wrapped a wooden rowboat tightly in waterproofed leather and had air tubes with floats to the surface to provide oxygen. Of course, there were no engines yet, so the oars went through the hull at leather gaskets. He took the first trip with 12 oarsmen in the Thames River. It has been determined that less than one patented invention in a hundred makes any money for the inventor. It was Swiss chemist Jacques Edwin Brandenberger who invented cellophane, back in 1908. James J. Ritty, owner of a tavern in Dayton, Ohio, invented the cash register in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits. The monkey wrench is named after its inventor, a London blacksmith named Charles Moncke.

The pop top can was invented in Kettering, Ohio by Ermal Fraze. George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four years later, George sold the rights for $200,000. You could milk about six cows per hour by hand, but with modern machinery, you can milk up to 100 cows per hour. Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in Alameda, California. Kleenex tissues were originally used as filters in gas masks. Bryan J. Patrie, a Stanford graduate student invented the Watercolor Intelligent Nightlight, which informs bleary-eyed midnight bathroom-goers whether the toilet seat is up or down... without turning on a blinding light. Patrie introduced the device in the early 1990's. He explained, "When you get within five feet of the dark commode, it will sense your motion. It looks to see if the room is dark. Then it looks upward by sending out an infrared beam. If it gets a reflection, it knows the seat is up.

If it is, the red light comes on." On the first neon sign, the word neon was spelled out in red by Dr. Perley G. Nutting, 15 years before neon signs became widely used commercially. Out of the 11 original patents made by Nikola Tessla, for the generation of hydroelectric energy, 9 are still in use, (unchanged) today. The first umbrella factory in the U.S. was founded in 1928 in Baltimore, Maryland. In the early 1950's, Denver architect Temple H. Buell, often called the Father of the Mall, conceived of and built one of the first shopping malls in the U.S.: the Cherry Creek Mall. Month after month, the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth. No salaries were paid in full. Often, for weeks, they were not paid at all. In Watson's notebook there are such entries during this period as "Lent Bell fifty cents," "Lent Hubbard twenty cents," "Bought one bottle beer—too bad can't have beer every day." When Bell's patent was sixteen months old, there were 778 telephones in use.

The first "Hello" badge used to identify guests and hosts at conventions, parties, etc. was traced back to September 1880. It was on that date that the first Telephone Operators Convention was held at Niagara Falls and the "Hello" badge was created for that event. The first underground and underwater rail system in the world, the New York City Subway, began operating in 1904. Almost 8,000 men participated in building the 21-mile (33.6 km) route. The project's chief engineer was William Barclay Parsons. An Englishman invented Scotland's national dress - the kilt. It was developed from the philamore - a massive piece of tartan worn with a belt and draped over the shoulder - by English industrialist Thomas Rawlinson who ran a foundry at Lochaber, Scotland in the early 1700s and thought a detachable garment would make life more comfortable for his workers. It is recorded that the Babylonians were making soap around 2800 B.C. and that it was known to the Phoenicians around 600 B.C.

These early references to soap and soap making were for the use of soap in the cleaning of textile fibers such as wool and cotton in preparation for weaving into cloth. Disc Jockey Alan Freed popularized the term "Rock and Roll." The patent number of the telephone is 174465. George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. The Roman civilization invented the arch. King Gilette spent 8 years trying to invent and introduce his safety razor. The Super Ball® was born in 1965, and it became America's most popular plaything that year. By Christmas time, only six months after it was introduced by Wham-O, 7 million balls had been sold at 98 cents apiece. Norman Stingley, a California chemist, invented the bouncing gray ball. In his spare time, he had compressed a synthetic rubber material under 3,500 pounds of pressure per square inch, and eventually created the remarkable ball. It had a resiliency of 92 percent, about three times that of a tennis ball, and could bounce for long periods. It was reported that presidential aide McGeorge Bundy had five dozen Super Balls® shipped to the White House for the amusement of staffers.

At a glance, the Celsius scale makes more sense than the Fahrenheit scale for temperature measuring. But its creator, Anders Celsius, was an oddball scientist. When he first developed his scale, he made freezing 100 degrees and boiling 0 degrees, or upside down. No one dared point this out to him, so fellow scientists waited until Celsius died to change the scale. At a jet plane's speed of 1,000 km (620mi) per hour, the length of the plane becomes one atom shorter than its original length. Western Electric successfully brought sound to motion pictures and introduced systems of mobile communications which culminated in the cellular telephone. On December 23, 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., held a secret demonstration of the transistor which marked the foundation of modern electronics. Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899. Dr. John Gorrie of Appalachicola, Florida, invented mechanical refrigeration in 1851. He patented his device on May 6, 1851.

There is a statue which honors this "Father of Modern Day Air Conditioning" in the Statuary Hall of the Capitol building in Washington, DC. Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson. In 1889, the first coin-operated telephone, patented by Hartford, Connecticut inventor William Gray, was installed in the Hartford Bank. Soon, "pay phones" were installed in stores, hotels, saloons, and restaurants, and their use soared. Local calls using a coin-operated phone in the U.S. cost only 5 cents everywhere until 1951. The first commercial vacuum cleaner was so large it was mounted on a wagon. People threw parties in their homes so guests could watch the new device do its job. The parachute was invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515. Lazy Susans are named after Thomas Edison's daughter. He invented it to impress a gathering of industrialists and inventors. Cyano-acrylate glues (super glue) were invented by accident. The researcher was trying to make optical materials, and would test their properties by putting them between two prisms and shining light through them.

When he tried the cyano-acrylate, he couldn't get the prisms apart. A machine has been invented that can read printed English books aloud to the blind, and it can do so at speed half again as fast as normal speech. The single blade window cleaning squeegee was invented in 1936 by Ettore Sceccone and is still the most common form of commercial window cleaning today. Roulette was invented by the great French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It was a by product of his experiments with perpetual motion. The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf. The hypodermic needle was invented in 1853. It was initially used for giving injections of morphine as a painkiller. Physicians mistakenly believed that morphine would not be addictive if it by-passed the digestive tract. Thomas Edison’s first major invention was the quadruplex telegraph. Unlike other telegraphs at the time, it could send four messages at the same time over one wire. Inventor Gail Borden, Jr. invented condensed milk in the 1850's.

After his death in 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless telegraph was honored by broadcasters worldwide as they let the airwaves fall silent for two minutes in his memory. In the year 1886, Herman Hollerith had the idea of using punched cards to keep and transport information, a technology used up to the late 1970's. This device was constructed to allow the 1890 census to be tabulated. In 1896 the Tabulating Machine Company was founded by Hollerith. Twenty-eight years later, in 1924, after several take-overs the company became known as International Business Machines (IBM). At the turn of the century, most light bulbs were hand-blown, and the cost of one was equivalent to half a day's pay for the average U.S. worker. Camel's-hair brushes are not made of camel's hair. They were invented by a man named Mr. Camel. Western Electric invented the loudspeaker which was initially called "loud-speaking telephone." Phone service was established at the White House one year after its invention. President Rutherford B.

Hayes was the first to have phone service (1877-81). Fifteen years after its invention in 1876, there were five million phones in America. Fifteen years after its invention, more than 33 million wireless phones were in the U.S. According to U.S. law, a patent may not be granted on a useless invention, on a method of doing business, on mere printed matter, or on a device or machine that will not operate. Even if an invention is novel or new, a patent may not be obtained if the invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the same area at the time of the invention. According to Dennis Changon, spokesman for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal, Canada - if all of the commercial planes in the world were grounded at the same time there wouldn't be space to park them all at gates. In 1931, an industrialist named Robert Ilg built a half-size replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa outside Chicago and lived in it for several years. The tower is still there. The first manager of the Seattle Space Needle, Hoge Sullivan, was acrophobic - fearful of heights.

The 605 foot tall Space Needle is fastened to its foundation with 72 bolts, each 30 feet long. The Space Needle sways approximately 1 inch for every 10 mph of wind. It was built to withstand a wind velocity of 200 miles-per-hour. The first revolving restaurant, The Top of the Needle, was located at the 500-foot level of the 605-foot-high steel-and-glass tower at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle, Washington. It contained 260 seats and revolved 360 degrees in an hour. The state-of-the-art restaurant was dedicated on May 22, 1961. Henry Waterman, of New York, invented the elevator in 1850. He intended it to transport barrels of flour. John Greenwood, of New York invented the dental drill in 1790. The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn, of New York, in 1860. Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson, who was from New York. Dr.

Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio in 1952, in New York. Four wheel roller skates were invented by James L. Plimpton in 1863. The first words that Thomas A. Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb." In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards. As an advertising gimmick, Carl Meyer, nephew of lunch meat mogul Oscar Meyer, invented the company's "Wienermobile". On July 18, 1936, the first Oscar Mayer "Wienermobile" rolled out of General Body Company's factory in Chicago. The Wienermobile still tours the U.S. today. Germany holds the title for most independent inventors to apply for patents. George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, hated having his picture taken. Because Napoleon believed that armies marched on their stomachs, he offered a prize in 1795 for a practical way of preserving food.

The prize was won by a French inventor, Nicholas Appert. What he devised was canning. It was the beginning of the canned food industry of today. Bavarian immigrant Charles August Fey invented the first three-reel automatic payout slot machine, the Liberty Bell, in San Francisco in 1899. Joseph Priestly is credited with discovering oxygen, ammonia, carbon monoxide, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide, and nitrous oxide. He was also the first to isolate chlorine. Joseph Swan invented the light bulb in 1879, one year before Thomas Edison did. However, Swan didn't patent the idea and was widely accused of copying Edison who did patent the idea and was therefore recognized as its inventor. Swan continued to be denied recognition until some time later when it was shown that both light bulbs were produced using different processes. Edison and Swan later formed a joint company using the best of both technologies. Miller Reese of New York, patented the first hearing-aid.Unlike the hearing aids that we know today - this original was not portable. Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R.Hutchinson. John Greenwood invented the dental drill in 1790.

The corkscrew was invented by M.L. Bryn in 1860. Four wheel roller skates - James L. Plimpton in 1863.

Question: What sort of machine was invented in 1879 by the American James Ritty?
Answer: Cash Register