Who Came Up With That? | Retrospect Ep.197

In this week’s episode we discussed the surprising origins behind everyday innovations and the brilliant (and sometimes overlooked) minds who created them. Who really invented the telephone? Jason and I give you a fast-paced dive into the world of inventors, game-changers, and the ideas that shaped our lives.

Our Links:
Retrospect

Transcript

Invention, history, innovators, printing press, electricity, flight, visionaries, podcast, everyday life, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Mary Anderson, traffic light, ballpoint pen, toilet paper.

Jason  0:01  
History remembers kings and conquests, revolutions and rebellions, but behind every era, every Turning Point and every leap forward, there was an idea behind that idea, a person today we journey into the past to uncover the real inventors, the overlooked thinkers and the minds that sparked change across centuries, and shine a light on the individuals whose innovations shaped civilization, Sometimes celebrated, sometimes forgotten and often misunderstood, who truly invented the printing press? Was it Gutenberg, or was it someone else lost time, who first harnessed electricity or imagined flight or dreamed of a machine that could think? This episode isn't just a podcast about objects. It's about people, visionaries who challenge the world around them, often in obscurity, sometimes in defiance, and always with one foot planted firmly in the future. So whether you're a student of history, a lover of invention, or just someone who's ever wondered, wait, who came up with that you're in the right place. But here's a twist, invention isn't always a lightning bolt from the sky. Sometimes it's messy, sometimes it's stolen, and sometimes it's not even clear who really did it first.

Ian  2:00  
Welcome to the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Jason. Hello, everyone. Stoney had some stuff happen again. Everything's all good. He's all everything's fine, but we're

Jason  2:16  
we're forging on without him with this episode. Dynamic Duo, yeah, it's back to the way it was. So it's so funny there. For a while it was just you and stuff. I know, I know. And it's just sometimes it just works out that way. You know, life, life throws us, you know, different things that we just got to deal with. It's

Ian  2:37  
the summertime, so, you know, it's all good. I'm taking some time off in the end of July, so we're gonna probably try and timing of episodes. We're gonna be a bit yeah, so it's all good, yeah,

Jason  2:47  
we'll be fine. I mean, I'm set. I'm getting ready to go on vacation. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be, matter of fact, when this podcast drops, yeah, I will be in Glacier, Montana.

Ian  2:59  
Okay, I'm excited for you because I have never, I've never been to Montana, but I've been told

Jason  3:05  
you've lived in Canada. I know, I know it's kind of similar.

Ian  3:08  
I love the mountains, I love the trees, I love the wilderness. And I've been told by many people that I would love to go. I would, I would have a great time in Montana. Yeah,

Jason  3:18  
it's, it's, I've been there back in 2021 but had a great time. Beautiful, beautiful country. We're gonna be staying at the same lodge I stayed at then. And so we're excited, and I'm looking forward to it, hopefully this storm out in the Gulf does not interfere or delay or most of my group is actually flying out of New Orleans, really, it's just my, my girlfriend and I are flying out

Ian  3:50  
of Baton Rouge. Okay, okay, so

Jason  3:54  
I'm more worried about them, yeah, then and us. But hey, anything like nothing happens and

Ian  4:02  
anything for cheaper airfare,

Jason  4:05  
yeah, I guess, you know, they all talked about flying out of New Orleans. I was like, Yeah, you know, I mean, if it was a direct flight, yeah, I would say, okay, would be worth it. But since we're all still having to connect in Dallas and then jump on the same plane from Dallas to Kalispell. Well, it's, it's just what it is. But yeah, we have an interesting episode today. This, actually episode was, was suggested to me by my my girlfriend, Tracy. Love it about, you know, who invented some of these things that we take for granted, yeah, and our everyday life. And it's, it's pretty interesting, you know, I never think about, you know, you know, like, think about you who invented the toothbrush, oh, right, or toilet paper, or something so simple, yeah, that, you know, it was like, Good lord, what did people do? But. For these things, you know, how did, how did, how did we function? But, you know, obviously people did, and there was somebody out there that recognized the need, and the noggin started kind of working. It's like, How can I possibly create something to help in this regard. And it's amazing how you know, it's ideas, you know, you know people come up with, you're confronted with a situation that everyday life, that you deal with, and it's like there's certain people that just all of a sudden go, you know, I feel like maybe something, maybe we can do something to kind of help with this. So,

Ian  5:43  
but yeah, so, and there's and there's the obvious ones. You know, the people that I feel like everyone knows about already, the the Thomas Edison's, the Alexander Gran Bell, but I'm always curious about, and I feel like this show specifically would be remiss if we didn't mention Nikola Tesla. I feel like we always, we got a we got a soft spot, good old Tesla, we got a soft spot for Nikola Tesla here, I feel like, but those are all the big names. I feel like everyone knows. And sometimes I feel like there's also certain people that go unnoticed. Or are they the actual ones that invented the thing, or was it somebody else, and, you know, claims that, you know, circulate around,

Jason  6:22  
well, I mean, like, you know, speaking of, you know, electricity and stuff like that, you know, you know, Edison. I mean, he's, he's the one typically known to, you know, as, when it comes to the light bulb and all that, right, because he, he basically perfected and commercialized incandescent bulb in 1879 but the story actually goes back decades before. Actually in 1802 Humphry Davy, a British chemist, created the first electric light, an arc lamp, using a piece of carbon. And then in the 1840s Warren D LaRue, a British scientist enclosed a platinum coil in a vacuum tube very close to a working bulb. So

Ian  7:08  
I've heard a lot of things about Thomas Edison and how he was a he would like take people's inventions. Oh, yeah. A lot of mean things about Thomas Edison, about him not being very well,

Jason  7:23  
you know, if you really probably were around these people when they lived, right? You know, I mean, they're like, they're human beings with all the same vices as everybody else. And you know, they are products of their time in which they were living. So, yeah, yeah, this is a time when, you know industrialization and new inventions, and so I'm sure he's pretty ruthless, right, and some of this stuff. But actually, in 1874 five years before Edison, two Canadian inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans, actually patented, patented the electric lamp. They eventually sold the patent to none other than Thomas

Ian  8:07  
Edison. See, there you go.

Jason  8:09  
So Edison was very astute, and was able to recognize, hey, this is probably going to be a big thing. Let me, let me. Let me jump on this. So, you know, I'll give him credit, as you know, he recognized something and applied his skill set to make it happen. I mean, so right, you could say what you want about him, but I mean, he's the one who brought the energy and right to everything to make it happen. I'm not

Ian  8:40  
sure if you have stumbled across this name, but I wanted to talk about one that is potentially not known, or not well known at all, is Mary Anderson, who invented, like the first windshield wiper. Yes, and I saw that and and also it was event. And, like, she invented it before cars were like widespread and apparently he never really made a dime for it, because it was never commercially available. So it says that she was an Alabama woman who who patented the early version of one such overlooked item, and it was the windshield wiper. And I was really, I was really interested to hear about that. And it says that though her, like, particular model was never, like, put into commercial production. It says that that her invention, like, helped, like, make that kind of product, like a yeah things, yeah in 1903

Jason  9:37  
exactly, she was visiting New York City during a snowstorm, yeah. And she noticed street car drivers struggling to see through their windshields, and she imagined a spring loaded arm with a rubber blade that could be operated from inside the vehicle.

Ian  9:53  
It's crazy how we use something like that all the time. She patented

Jason  9:56  
her device, but the time manufacturers. Rejected her idea crazy. They believed drivers would find the wiper distracting. There's probably a lot of truth to that, maybe. But I mean, and it said, Two decades later, windshield wipers became standard, but Anderson never saw a dime. Crazy, just a reminder that being first doesn't always mean being rewarded.

Ian  10:20  
Yes, that's the hard part about some of that stuff. Is that sometimes, sometimes being the first person to invent a product or to, like make a thing, especially if you like perfect it, and have like, many iterations of it, I think you can be like the first is the best. I feel like sometimes in some applications, but sometimes it doesn't always work out that way, especially if either either getting taken advantage of or you sell your patent to somebody else. But that's interesting to think

Jason  10:49  
about. Let's look at the telephone. Okay,

Ian  10:53  
I know that there. I know there's some

Jason  10:55  
everybody associates a telephone with Alexander Graham Bell, right? In fact, he patented that, you know, he did all that in 1876 but there's always bit of a backstory to this stuff. And as I said, nothing's really ever clean. They said an Italian inventor named Antonio Musha, if I'm pronouncing that, Bucha developed a voice communication device in the early 1850s and even demonstrated it publicly. Unfortunately, he was unable to afford the final patent paperwork, yeah, and so he really never got credited for it, but the US Congress actually acknowledges, acknowledged his contributions in 2000 to 126

Ian  11:45  
years later. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, the one I had heard was there was a, there was a potential, like patent race between Alexander Graham Bell and Alicia Gray, yeah, now Alicia gray back and forth, yeah, some sort of big thing that was, yeah, I have

Jason  12:01  
basically, yeah. I mean, I have the same thing here. She submitted a patent for a similar device on the same day as Bell. Bell beat him by just a few hours. Some historians suspect Bell had inside knowledge of Gray's design, but officially, the credit still goes, Wow, still belongs to Bell. So as I said, not all clean, yeah, but you know, who knows people?

Ian  12:27  
Yeah, that's crazy to think about how you're a couple hours from like being known throughout history.

Jason  12:34  
Of course, at the time, they don't know what, no, what's gonna happen. They probably just recognize, hey, this is a neat, yeah, a neat device, man. This could help, you know, be able to try to communicate lower, long distances, with with people. And

Ian  12:50  
I feel like in the, like, the 1800s slash early 1900s it was like there was a lot of that kind of stuff where, like, like being an inventor was like a thing. Not to say that there's not something like that now, but like, I feel like that was such a before that being an inventor, I guess, was not really like a thing, or like a patent holder. I guess because that was such like a new concept, I think, or this is what it seems like. So to have, like, people just run around creating things,

Jason  13:19  
yeah, well, I mean, that's, this was an age of discovery. I mean, these the 1850s kind of 1900 that 50 years was crazy. There's a lot of things happening at time. It was a, it was a time of transition, and there was just a lot of movement on that front when it came to, you know, starting to kind of harness the physical world and making things a lot easier for for us. So, yeah, I've got some I've got another one here who invented the ice cream cone. Okay,

Ian  13:56  
I don't even know where to begin. When. I guess, when was it? Well, 1800 Yeah,

Jason  14:00  
they said most point to the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, where a Syrian concessionaire named Ernest homeway Selling zalabia, a crisp waffle pastry. Wow, saw that an ice cream vendor nearby and had run out of dishes. So the ice cream vendor had run out of dishes. He rolled his waffle into a cone and handed it over. Wow, creating the first modern ice cream cone, or so the story goes, right, right, right. But, you know, once again, here's, here's the, you know, kind of the but. But, at a tallow Marchione, an Italian immigrant in New York had actually patented the I the cone shaped ice cream mold three years earlier in 1901 Hmm, so. Question is, and who invented the cone? Right? Zombie popularized that. Mahoney may have done it first. It's another case of invention versus mass recognition. Yes, yes. A theme you'll notice over,

Ian  15:14  
oh yeah. Like, I dude, the idea of the World's Fair is such an interesting I went to a World's

Jason  15:21  
Fair in New Orleans in 1984 really, now I

Ian  15:24  
knew they still had those, oh yeah, because I was, like, the one, especially the ones that were the we there were talking about, like, in the 18 to early 1900s or whatever, like, that's,

Jason  15:33  
that's where the gondola across the Mississippi River came from. Really, wow, yeah, yeah, you can catch the gondola across the river, right, right?

Ian  15:43  
And that's it was, it was because of the World's Fair, dude, that's great.

Jason  15:48  
Well, because of the world, yeah. I mean, to be awarded the World's Fair, you've got to, there's a lot of prep. It's like prepping for the Olympics. You know, a city would need do a lot of things right to prep for because it's World Fair, it's, it's everybody in the world, right?

Ian  16:07  
What is the big one that I'm thinking of? Wasn't there one that was, like, in Chicago or something, or was that was a Chicago World Fair? Well, I think there's one in particular I'm thinking of that was like, the like, a really, I guess it was the one that never happened or something, I don't know, doesn't matter, but that's crazy to think that, like, like you said, like the Olympics. You go there, and there's all these inventions, all these new things. That's

Jason  16:26  
right? That's crazy. And that's where a lot of that stuff is. You'll see, is that right? Oh, yeah. So some other items here. I thought this was interesting, the safety pin, okay? Guy by the name of Walter hunt in 1849 from the United States. He created it in just three hours to settle a $15 debt stop, and sold the patent for $100 Okay, so safety pin, a safety pin, so you imagine how much money that would be, well, I can

Ian  17:01  
only imagine, sold it for $400 something. So simple, so simple. I also like, wonder, like, it's that kind of stuff, like paper clips as well. Like that stuff that's so ubiquitous that I feel like, man, that's crazy.

Jason  17:14  
You know the paper clip? Yeah. Johan voller, okay, 1899 he's from Norway. He said similar designs existed before him, but Valar is often recognized because of noise promotion of his design in the 20th century. Wow, I

Ian  17:35  
was looking into a person named Garrett Morgan who did the three way traffic light. Oh, what did that? What was that about? It says Garrett Morgan invented the three way traffic light. And it was, it clued, like, I think, in the original one, it said, like, caution and what were like warning signals, essentially like a precursor to, like, what the yellow light is. And right? Instead of it being just like a green and a red, he was the one who kind of made, like, a yellow, yeah, a three way, like, okay. And it was basically to, like, obviously, to, like, improve, like, roads safety.

Jason  18:11  
Imagine, I mean, if you just have a red and green right, right, which is what it was, so you're driving, it's green off center, turns red, and you're right, sort of disaster that would right.

Ian  18:25  
It says that it was he, obviously, he did it with the intention to, like, improve road safety by providing, like, a warning and all that kind of stuff, like, instead of coming to a complete stop. And it said it reduced, I don't have numbers on it, but I said it reduced accidents by like, a severe margin. And he received a patent for his three position traffic light in 1923 so it's crazy that that's a I again, I something that you take for granted, the yellow light, or people get upset about, I think, a lot of times. But to think that, like you said, going from green to complete red and you're in the middle of the intersection is a scary thought for me, at least. So

Jason  19:08  
just a few little items that we all take for granted, the ballpoint pen, okay, I think I've heard about this one, invented by a last Laszlo Bureau I wrote, or that's pronounced 1938 Argentina, Hungary. The pin is it's actually still called a hero in many countries, B, I, R, O is they the name? So it's named after its supposed inventor. Nice.

Ian  19:43  
That's really the toothbrush. Oh my gosh,

Jason  19:47  
invented by DuPont D Nemours company 1938 United States. They said the earliest toothbrushes actually date back to 1498 in China,

Ian  19:59  
using. Pig bristles. Excuse me,

Jason  20:03  
using pig bristles. So I guess the little hairs on the pig

Ian  20:06  
I guess, yeah, that's kind of nasty, I think about, but hey, maybe

Jason  20:10  
there's people probably nasty, but it's probably better than not brushing your teeth at all. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I guess the idea people try to figure out why their teeth are falling out to figure out some means of trying to clean your mouth. Can you imagine how breath I smell better

Ian  20:28  
I can, can only imagine? Yeah, I think I didn't look this up. But just talking about, you know, talking about smell is, I don't know who invented or who came up with the idea of deodorant, but that's got to be a interesting thing to think about. Of, you know, something that I feel like I take for

Jason  20:45  
granted. Yeah, it basically was using animal bone handles and

Ian  20:50  
interesting, okay, which I mean, like, you know,

Jason  20:54  
and they say nylon, and it's like, you know why nylon? DuPont scientists invented nylon, and someone realized it could be used to make more hygienic, consistent. Toothbrush bristles interesting. Launching the DR Wes miracle toothbrush. Wow,

Ian  21:14  
didn't DuPont also make, what's the, what's the pan, the stuff they use in, like, making, like, cookware,

Jason  21:23  
Teflon. Maybe, I don't know, maybe you can look it up. Yeah, you're right. Let me

Ian  21:27  
look that up really quick. I guess I'm not mistaken. I think DuPont also did Teflon, which, and I think that was like a big, oh, Teflon, not teflor, my bad. Yeah, Teflon is a brain of synthetic fluoropolymer called poly Tetra flora, ethylene. I don't even pronounce that, right, invented by DuPont in 1938 I think it was also, I think there was some, like chemical stuff that was that came out about that, where it was not actually very healthy. But I think they have, since, right, fixed a lot of that, but Teflon, yeah,

Jason  22:04  
okay, here's another one that we all use. Okay, okay, the toilet paper roll, the flat sheet version, was invented by a guy by the name of Joseph gaiety in 1857 you can cribbed to the United States. 1857

Ian  22:20  
is actually older than I thought it would. I thought that was gonna be more modern than

Jason  22:24  
that. Well, I imagine it's a very early version. Look like it's a role and perforation format patented by Seth Wheeler in 1871 still. Okay, so, you know? Okay, what? What's, you know, people would say, what's, what's the difference, you know? Why it matters, right? You know, before toilet paper, people used whatever was handy, Sears, catalogs, corn cobs, leaves, you name it. Leaves. Deity marketed his paper as medicated, in soothing, really print it with his name on every No,

Ian  23:04  
yeah, I'll be proud of

Jason  23:07  
Yeah, he goes. The real genius was the role format and the preparations where, you know, we kind of looks like toilet paper, right? So, yeah, oh yeah. I mean, it's, it's amazing when some of this stuff, I imagine what people, people use their hand. I mean, maybe, but man, if you didn't have anything by your hand, I can't have to wash your hands, just go to a well or something like that. And just

Ian  23:35  
that's crazy that like,

Jason  23:37  
you know, that's, yeah, how

Ian  23:40  
is how it was different times.

Jason  23:42  
You know, it's, I'm saying it's, uh, that'd be a good episode. Early sanitation, yeah, uh, practices. That would be a great, pray, a great podcast episode,

Ian  23:52  
man, the more you think about it, like, I feel like, like, modern plumbing is something I feel like I take for granted, a lot of Oh yeah, especially like just running water

Jason  24:04  
all the way back. I mean, if you think about modern plumbing, I mean, the origins of that really go back. I mean, really the Romans, oh, right, with the idea of the aqueducts and water. I mean, so and they would dump their waste, and that water water would take the waste out. And that's why you didn't have the disease, and that's why. So when you see the breakdown of kind of those things, and you kind of get into the more of the dark ages of Europe, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, right, you see, you know, kind of people kind of revert right back to a more primitive version and, right, just, you know, you just, you can imagine, just, I mean, what sort of diseases would outbreak if people just dump in there? Oh, yeah, they're, they're, they're, you know, they're waste out in the in the street, you know, that's a lot, along with all the horses and everything that I'm walking. So, yeah. You could see the flies and mosquitoes and everything else while people got so sick.

Ian  25:04  
All right, that's the whole reason with like, rats and all that kind of stuff, too

Jason  25:09  
crazy. Another big one here.

Ian  25:12  
It's a zipper. The zipper, okay,

Jason  25:15  
yeah. Whitcomb Judson in 1893 the clasp locker, the modern design was perfected by Gideon sunback in 1930 What a name. Yeah. Judson's early design was, you know, was based on reliable and clunky and sunk, yeah? Sunback, a Swedish American engineer, improved the interlocking teeth system, creating something that works smoothly and held firmly, and it was first used. It's big use was in World War One. Oh yeah, boots, flying suits and money belts. Wow. So now here's one that you and I both, okay, whole, very dear.

Ian  26:03  
What's that the coffee filter? There you go. Yeah. Oh man, a coffee

Jason  26:07  
Melita bints in 1908 in Germany. Okay, you know, what was the? What was going on? Say, coffee grinds in your cup, right? Everybody's, you know, if their filter kind of fails, and they, like all those

Ian  26:22  
old timey percolate, right?

Jason  26:25  
So what happened was, this person, she punched holes in a brass pot and lined it with her son's blotting paper.

Ian  26:34  
What? And it worked. Yeah,

Jason  26:38  
she goes. She patented the filter and founded the Melita company, still thriving

Ian  26:44  
today. Oh, yeah, I know Melita filters,

Jason  26:47  
so that's interesting. She goes, you know, her invention made coffee smoother, less bitter and much more pleasant, changing coffee culture forever. So, yeah, everybody out there just, I think,

Ian  26:59  
if I'm not mistaken, I have Melita coffee filters in my cabinet. Oh, really, yeah, for my pour overs. I there's like a natural paper, like a natural brown paper that I've used as, like my filter. And, yeah, so that's, that's interesting.

Jason  27:14  
I have a techno Varma, okay, coffee pot at my house.

Ian  27:18  
I this is not, this is not really, you know, it's a little deviating, a little bit. I was watching a video recently about, like, the first Mr. Coffee, coffee pod, like the actual, like, glass, you know, old time. I say old time, like the it was, I think it was first released, like, the 70s or the 80s, of like, the that old design of like, it even has, like, the color scheme and like, it has such an interesting, like, actual, like method in which it works. It's like a piece of metal that, like, bends when it heats, which is like, what keeps, like, the regulation of the water, right? Anyways, it was crazy to look at that. And I was like, Man, how coffee technology has

Jason  27:58  
the only thing I really don't have. I have a have a little small coffee grinder, right? I would like something a little bit more larger, yeah, that way I can kind of store my grinds.

Ian  28:11  
There's some great options out there. Oh, I know, but that's plenty. That's another conversation for different episode, because you and I could be, I could talk about Stoney is not here to keep us alive. Yeah, exactly

Jason  28:23  
Stoney like saying, Okay, y'all need to get back on topic, guys. So the some more things here, bar soap. Oh my gosh. Okay. So actually, there is no single inventor of this, at least, you know, from what I've been able to find, okay, they say soap making dates back to Babylon, which 2800 you know, before the Common Era. Or, you know, BC, right? You know, my modern bar soap mass production starts, really in the early 1800s brands like Pears soap in England began marketing it as a luxury and hygiene product, not just for laundry. Okay? And then they had a chemistry breakthrough and discovery how to isolate fats and lye made soap easier and cheaper to produce at scale, bringing cleanliness into the modern home. So it's amazing that at one time, soap would have been considered a

Ian  29:25  
luxury. Oh, yeah, so and also, like, wasn't like, didn't they use, like, like, straight lie a lot of times. Like, even though it's I know, like, I think it's toxic, they would still like, use like, small amounts of that. Oh, that's crazy to think about. One that I have that's kind of funny here. It's more of a modern person, but I thought it was interesting one to throw in here. Yeah, is the name Lonnie Johnson. She was, or, I think it's a she let me see. Was a NASA inventor, a NASA engineer turned toy inventor. Yeah, and they made the Super Soaker, the, like, big water gun. Yeah, that we all, I think I feel like everybody had, at least in my generation, I feel like everyone had a Super Soaker. And I was like, it's crazy that, like a

Jason  30:12  
NASA, we had yard was we had yard darts. Oh, there you go. Stabbed you, yeah, we actually did the real thing, the real we shot each other with real BB guns. Oh yeah, hey, Joe stupid,

Ian  30:23  
mine was airsoft my my friends and I had airsoft gun. Airsoft BB guns, we would shoot with each other. So a little less dangerous, but still just as stupid I feel. Yeah, it's

Jason  30:32  
amazing how the stuff we did with with each I mean, it was just, I

Ian  30:37  
mean, I used to have, I used to have, like, a this is going to show you just how kind of backwards I was. Once upon a time, I used to have cinder blocks and big, like, two by sixes, or whatever that I used to, like, prop up and have, like, a bike ramp that I would make, and so, like, I would, like, jump over dirt hills with, you know, like my my bicycle, so I'm, like, my friends and I would have all kinds of dumb stuff that we used to get hurt and, you know, just a bunch of boys being of course, gotta find way to entertain yourself. Rough housing outside. Yeah. Well, we were told at least some we were told to go play outside until the light, the street lights, come on. So we had to do something. But, yeah,

Jason  31:19  
I've got another one here, the clothes hanger. Okay? The inventor is Albert J Parkhouse, and a 1903 from Michigan. He worked at a wire company, you know, basically said co workers complained that there was no coat hooks. Park House bit of wire into two shoulder loops and a hook, and just like that, the wire hanger was born. Dude. He said he never patented it, but his company did okay. Park House received no credit or royal Wow. Another unsung inventor story that's crazy. Oh, yeah. We've now mentioned a couple guys that yeah, or ladies that literally have been forgotten in history. And we have these, right, these inventions that we utilize every single day. My

Ian  32:14  
closet is plastic hangers that like that probably never would have been a thing exactly. Person, yeah?

Jason  32:19  
I mean, that's what I'm saying. These people have been forgotten. So, I mean, it's just and unless you really, you know, you know, kind of take time to go and look at some of this stuff, you'll never find out who they were and

Ian  32:33  
how interesting too, to like be, what an interesting story as well, to like to have been there in that moment where someone's like, Oh, I'm just go ahead and Business Wire, and it's like, well,

Jason  32:47  
you know, you're not probably thinking, I mean, at that moment, it's more of just a reaction to a to it to something, it's like, hey, I need to create something real quick. And you're not thinking of right, long term. I mean, I guarantee there in our everyday life, there's been a situation where we've responded to something because of whatever, yeah, that we have no idea that maybe just that idea could be the next great invention. Yep, we just,

Ian  33:15  
I think we don't think about it. You said earlier in the episode as well, like if people finding some sort of need or finding some sort of niche exactly kind

Jason  33:23  
of think and go, Hmm, I gotta

Ian  33:26  
fix that. Or, how could I,

Jason  33:29  
I said, that's a pretty damn good idea. I may be on to something here. I mean, you know, so yeah, yeah, I'm

Ian  33:37  
trying to think of my own life, if there's ever been situations like that. And I'd be curious to hear if I'm like, the the listeners as well, if there's anything like that that someone has has been in a weird, niche scenario where they've been able to, like, fix or like,

Jason  33:49  
I, you know, the closest I've ever come to just just kind of thinking back over the years at work where I worked, I remember one time there was a, I'm trying to remember the exact kind of the context, but it was, in essence, being able to review

Ian  34:10  
a document, okay, on screen, all right,

Jason  34:14  
and to make notes. And I'm trying to remember, but it was like no one ever thought about doing this, and when I did it, I remember it kind of went, it kind of, oh, yeah, it spread. It was like, Yeah, we didn't think about this. You know, it's kind of when you have these moments in a kind of on a small scale, right? You know, it's like, how

Ian  34:35  
do you make your work more Streamy, more efficient, whatever the

Jason  34:39  
case may be. Of course, it's hard to really pat that kind of stuff, but you know, it's just, you know, when you have that eureka moment, yeah, you know. And

Ian  34:49  
so I've done a video editing for years and years, and a lot of times having, like, a template already made that you can, like, recall back from, and like, like, something that, like, it's just. A foundation to work off of has been, for me, something that, like, I've never, I don't think you can really, you know, I don't think it's anything that's like, super crazy. But for me, it's been super nice to just, like, sit down and like, I have a few like, templates that I can pull from, that like people have looked at and even Stoney, I think, has talked about it whenever I was, like, teaching him some of some of, like, the pointers I was like, this kind of feels tedious, and it feels like it's a bit much, but like, trust me, in the future, like, you're gonna love having this to pull from, right? So we get all this stuff organized now and then later, you don't get to worry about it, right? Yeah. So

Jason  35:36  
here's one that I think everybody has has heard of, uh, sliced bread. Oh,

Ian  35:44  
everyone knows the phrase Exactly. It's good,

Jason  35:47  
the best thing since sliced bread. That's where it comes from. The guys Otto. Frederick, raw

Ian  35:53  
rawater, okay.

Jason  35:55  
Roader, 1928 Wow. United States. So once again, you're in this, this period of time where right a lot of things are, are happening right now. So I was

Ian  36:10  
trying to look at what is, what is the Wow. Okay, I was looking at what is, what was the ending of World War 119, 18. I was curious about that. That's interesting. Sliced bread. He says was 2023 2828 Oh, wow. Okay.

Jason  36:28  
You know, here, throw some things out to the ladies, to our to our listener, okay, okay. Who invented the bra? Okay? They say women in ancient Greece wore a type of breast band called an apostomos or a mastodon, destroying the work which flattened or supported the chest. Roman women also wore something similar, called astrophysium in the Middle Ages to the 1800s corsets dominated Western fashion for centuries, designed not for comfort, but to shape the torso,

Ian  37:13  
like anyone who's worn a corset would say the same, not for comfort. Stories, yeah, the

Jason  37:18  
modern bra is accredited. It was credit to Mary Phelps Jacob, okay, after my last it basically says, aka Charisse Crosby. It was in 1914, okay. Once again, here, 14, okay, the United States. And the backstory on this is just she was a New York socialite who hated how her corset showed under sheer dresses. She stitched together two handkerchiefs and some ribbon to create a backless brassiere. It was light comfortable and didn't show through her evening gown. She patented her design as the backless brassiere US patent number 1,115,674 Wow, and sold it to Warner Brothers corset company, what Warner Brothers had a horse not related to the film studio for just $1,500 Wow. That company went on to make millions,

Ian  38:32  
of course, $1,500 though, in 19

Jason  38:36  
even in that but still, can you imagine just what she could have left her family? My gosh, they said it basically evolved very quickly through the 20th century, padded bras, underwire sports bras, invented in 77 by Lisa Lindahl and hinda Miller. And now you know.com, and everything else crazy. And here's another who invented the tampon. Okay? In ancient Egypt, women use softened papyrus

Ian  39:10  
paper. Got it? Yeah? Nice. That sounds

Jason  39:15  
uncomfortable. In ancient Greece, they wrote about tampons are made of lint wrapped around small pieces of wood.

Ian  39:23  
Okay? Again, still sounds very uncomfortable, yeah, other

Jason  39:27  
cultures use wool, grass or rolled cotton, wow, often unsafe and uncomfortable and probably unsanitary as well. The modern tampon was credited to a goblin of Dr Earl Haas in 1931 in the United States. It was the first commercially viable tampon with an applicator. And supposedly the backstory in this is Dr Haas wanted a cleaner, more discreet. Eight menstrual product. His design used compressed cotton and a telescoping paper tube for insertion. Wow. He patented in 1931 and sold the concept to businesswoman Gertrude tendrich, who founded the Tampax brand. Wow, 1933 that's wild. They said they were slow to be adopted due to taboos around menstruation and the idea that internal project products were inappropriate for unmarried women. Marketing in the 30s through the 50s emphasize hygiene discretion and modern and modern womanhood slowly making tampons more acceptable. So, you know, you know men are, you know, it's, it's interesting. You know, men are the ones who patented these designs, right? But women are the ones who largely pushed for their adoption, you know, kind of gave the energy for innovation and right, you know, and business success. Because especially, I can imagine women at that time would have been, that would have been a game changer, right, you know, considering how they had to go about dealing with that so crazy. What those issues? So, yeah, it's pretty interesting on some of this stuff. I mean, do you have anything that

Ian  41:27  
I was looking at? I was curious about who invented denim jeans

Jason  41:32  
and who

Ian  41:34  
was, I think it was Levi Strauss, Levi brand. It was okay in 1873

Jason  41:39  
was the I'm sure, I'm sure he wasn't shooting holes.

Ian  41:44  
Was the birth of denim, or blue jeans, I guess what we call them now. But it was actually a denim, and they obtained their US Patent, like I said, in 18, I think in May of 1873 which is crazy to think about. And again, Levi like the brand that we know and now know, nowadays, it was the first kind of person that kind of made that happen. It was obviously for like, work wear, and it was meant to be more for, like, like a working man, kind of blue collar type. I think apparel that, of course, now has become more of a everyday piece that everyone has, that I feel like is a ubiquitous piece of fashion that everyone has, whether it be for fashion or for function, whatever. But,

Jason  42:26  
and believe me, I urge our listeners out there, hey, if there's any you know, neat things you would like for us to talk about regarding these things, it's always interesting to find out. You know, who actually did some of these? You know that? You know that we utilize just common stuff. Yeah, I wonder who invented eyeglasses.

Ian  42:46  
Well, before you move on, can I can I see some more? Yeah, this little bit, it says that one day, the wife of a local laborer asked Jacob, the which I guess is one of the other people that had created this as well, to make a pair of pants for her husband that wouldn't fall apart. And it said that Jacob tried to think of a way to strengthen his trousers in a way, and then came up with the idea to put metal rivets at certain points of strain, like, obviously in the pocket corners, and, like the button fly and all that kind of stuff like that. And and quickly decided to make a patent out of that. And so, like, it was just kind of thing where, like, like, we're talking about before, people come with a with a need or a problem, and then someone's like, Okay, well, let me try and figure out how's the best way to make this pair of trousers not fall apart with this person who's, you know, working, working hard. And of course, then that becomes, like, this new thing. But anyways, addressing with the eyeglasses, I'm curious about

Jason  43:42  
that. Well, I'm trying to pull up something here on this, and I'm not getting anything right now. It's

Ian  43:50  
this patent, by the way, was number 139,121 for blue jeans. So it's crazy that.

Jason  44:00  
Yeah, it says, right now, supposedly it was, they were invented in 1285, to 1290 Wow, Common Era. It was in Italy. They say, likely in Pisa or Venice, an unknown Italian artist or monk, yeah, came up with the idea. They say here that some historical accounts suggest a Dominican friar name Alessandro Del Espina helped spread the use of eyeglasses after others kept their invention secret. Hmm,

Ian  44:40  
that's 1200 BCE, no of the common error. Oh, okay, okay, 1200 you know the 1200 ad still, that's still, yeah,

Jason  44:49  
they say Salvino D Ahmad a Florence is often falsely credited, but there's no credible historical evidence for that claim. They say. A sermon delivered in 1306 by Dominican friar gordiano di Pisa. He mentioned that eyeglasses had had been invented not 20 years ago, placing their invention around you know that 1285 to 1290 date, probably that's where they're getting that date from, right? So they say early eyeglasses use convex lenses to help people with far sightedness, especially monks and scholars. Can you imagine you poured over candle light you're writing, you know,

Ian  45:37  
it's gonna be terrible on

Jason  45:38  
your eyes. It is probably very terrible for your eyes, right? Everybody had bad eyesight back then. Yeah,

Ian  45:45  
I feel like also to kind of throw it back again. We haven't touched on them at all. But obviously, as a person who enjoys planes and likes flying, the Wright Brothers, yep, making airplanes. And of course, you know, being shot down and told they there's no

Jason  45:59  
possible. Well, some say, actually, the airplane was actually, truly, the idea was invented by what's his name, Leonardo

Ian  46:09  
da Vinci. Da Vinci, some fly machines, yeah, which is crazy,

Jason  46:13  
you know, imagine he, you know, I mean, supposedly the idea, I just, I just didn't think he had the practical, yeah, you think about how if somehow he would have invented the airplane, how far now we would be advanced, yeah, avionics. And if, if the airplane would have actually been invented in the Middle Ages, or in the Renaissance, crazy, and then you would have had 500 years of airplane development, by the time you get to the would be the Wright Brothers, yeah, and Kitty Hawk. I mean, it's just unbelievable. What could have been, yeah. I mean, we,

Ian  46:52  
I think about, I think about the difference too that happened in we always talk about how technology gets expedited and pushed forward, usually because of war, or through war, a lot of times we get,

Jason  47:04  
well, that's generally, there's usually some stimulus. And I feel like a lot of

Ian  47:07  
that story, like a lot of the, you know, designs for aircraft happened around, you know, the World War One, and, you know, and forward. So I can only imagine, like you're saying before, is, imagine now going into the 1900s with, you know, 500 plus years

Jason  47:24  
of, yeah, I'm asking about of just perfecting flying and just kind of going through that natural progress, just like what they did with Kitty Hawk. Till now, you've had almost a 500 year head start. Wow, on airplane. I mean, you probably could be, I would think virtually, you would have airplanes that were easily by the time you get to Kitty Hawk. You'd have airplanes that were basically approaching jets.

Ian  47:54  
Then maybe, yeah, if they had the materials,

Jason  47:57  
I'm sure somebody would have come up. I would think once you kind of break the ice with the concept of flying, yeah, and you kind of develop that, then people start thinking, okay, how can we do this and that, everything else. Now

Ian  48:09  
imagine the industrial revolution with planes. Well, you'd have steam powered combustion

Jason  48:12  
engine and stuff like that. That all comes into play. So

Ian  48:18  
I just imagined a steam powered plane, is what I was thinking about,

Jason  48:23  
what are the things that we take for granted, right, that we utilize every day?

Ian  48:31  
I mean, I know that the car, obviously, is one that I think about, that I feel like I take for granted on a regular basis. I think we talked about this sort of thing when we were like when we talked about inventions, right? A while, about a while back, but I'll still say it again, is like, I, sometimes I just the simple fact of, like, hopping your car, starting your car, and it runs, and then you can drive to location and come back safely. Is like the idea that, like, there is a machine inside there that is, like, controlling explosions, right, like the lighting of fuel and using that to propel you forward at, like, a at some rate of speed. It's like, once you like, once for me, at least, I sit down and think about that long enough, I'm like, This is crazy. Same sort of thing when you think about computers, like, the fact that there's like, chips and things in here that are like, allowing me to, like, type on this computer or record, or record this very podcast. It's crazy to think about once you, like, at least for me, once you give it just enough thought, where you're like, man, it's really crazy. How, like, right? It's this thing functions. I as a musician as well. I, you know, I play bass guitar, and so, like, create the bass guitar. I don't, I don't, I know. Like, I know. I think it was around like the 50s or 60s is when, like, the first time they started doing, like, guitar pedals and guitar amps and like making electric, like, electric guitars, so, but like, again for me, like, once you think about the fact of, like, the pickups, which are, like, you know, the things on, like, the. Uh, kind of the body of the guitar that pick up the sound, which is why it's called a pickup, the fact that, like, how this whole thing functions is you hit the string, the string vibrates over the pickup, which is like a magnet, and the magnet then transitions that into like signal that you can then, like, plug into an amplifier, or like a sound system, and again, something that is just so simple, like, I just plug the guitar in, turn the volume up, and then it works. But like, once you sit down for long enough, like there's like magnets and, like, a whole bunch of like, science and technology that kind of makes this whole thing happen. And let's not talk about, like guitar pedals, how, like, I have a distortion, or I've got like, a little reverb, like a spring reverb that sounds like it's all wonky and crazy, like the fact that you have all those different computer chips and things that are making all this sound happen that are it's just like, you know, it's crazy. I love that kind of stuff, because it's like, you take for granted, and you just there. And think about it for a second.

Jason  50:56  
George Beauchamp is CO invented the first electric guitar, okay, Rickenbacker frying pan in 1931

Ian  51:05  
interesting.

Jason  51:07  
Les Paul in the 40s developed solid body electric guitars, namesake of the Gibson. Les Paul, Oh, yeah. And then Leo Fender in the 50s, invented the Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster, iconic model still used today. I

Ian  51:24  
love a good Fender Stratocaster. It's nice, but my favorite is a Telecaster. I hand hands down. I don't own one for myself, but that's if there is one other guitar I want to add to my collection, which I know I probably don't need it anymore, but, you know, I can dream is a is a Fender Telecaster, a little sunburst on it. I would love that.

Jason  51:44  
So, yeah, what other things we have?

Ian  51:48  
I feel like, I feel like, obviously people, I think love to hate it. But the cell phone is another big thing. The smartphone. I remember when, in like 2000 what was like, seven or eight when, like, the first iPhone came out, oh yeah, and it changed the game. I feel like it was such a big

Jason  52:06  
I remember his mobile technology, right? I remember when you had the big, you know, the, you know, it's just funny how, you know, you move from answering service, yeah, pager to, you know, to a phone, and now it's, you got basically a mini computer in your hand. I remember

Ian  52:26  
my mom and dad had, like, one of those old, like, just green LED screen. Sounds like one of the first ones they ever had, right? And it was like, it was, it worked, it was a it was a brand new thing. And it was like, something that was so, so new. And like, Oh my gosh. Like, you have, my dad got a cell phone. I was like, Oh, this is cool. This is cool. Yeah, look, we're big time now, yeah, because we still had a, like, a home phone, and that's all we had. And it was just, I look back on that was like, Man, that was a simpler time. Boy, what I wouldn't give to kind of go back to something like that again. Oh, yeah. I mean, something that's like, just a, just a phone that you can call on, not like a home phone, but like a cell phone that was, there's no,

Jason  53:07  
I can't even imagine life now without these, this phone. I mean, I just, you know, I live for, yeah, of you know, my early life, there was none of this stuff. And I mean, I remember that. I mean, I just, you just, and you just talked on the phone you were in your home. Oh yeah, yeah, just the idea of talking on the phone when you were out. Just, that's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. Why, whatever. Why would you do that? You know, right? But it's definitely made us, I think it stressed us out more. Oh

Ian  53:38  
yeah, I think that people, they they like to know where everyone is all the time. And I think people forget that, like, once upon a time, you didn't know where anybody was really, you know, or like, like, let's say, for instance, like you and I were gonna go have coffee together. And like you told me, like, hey, let's meet up at the coffee shop for, you know, like, 10 o'clock or something. And that was, like, something that we both, like, either would remember or write down in our calendar together. And like, you would just, like, trust that we're gonna probably meet up together at 10 o'clock at the coffee shop. And people like nowadays will like, send out text messages, and we'll like, Go, like to call people, and like, all that kind of stuff. It's like, you can just, just don't worry about that, just, it's not a big deal. No, it's just, you can. You can just show up and, you know, kind of worry about people, where people are. Or, you know, sometimes I think that there is a benefit to having, like, I understand why certain parents like to know where their children are for certain reasons. But like, at the same time, I think there's, I don't know, maybe I'm too naive, but

Jason  54:44  
what about the microwave oven? Okay,

Ian  54:47  
wasn't that like in the 50s or 60s, or something like

Jason  54:50  
that? Yeah, I think it was in the 40s. 40s, okay? I mean, I think I'm probably

Ian  54:55  
thinking of like the commercial, yeah, what's the what was like the commercial ones that were got very popular. Dealer,

Jason  55:01  
you know, I've always been very curious about the microwave. It basically was an accidental discovery in 1945 Harry Percy Spencer, okay, he was working for the Raytheon Corporation on radar technology during World War Two. Interesting. So yeah, for the 40s, yeah. While testing a magnetron, and for people who don't, that's a vacuum tube that generates microwaves, he noticed something strange. The chocolate bar is pocketed melted. You know, curious. He plays popcorn kernels near the magnetron, and they popped, yep. And next he tried an egg and it exploded. Yeah? He said, these, these, you know, these kind of science, right? They led him to realize that microwaves could cook food, yeah, by rapidly exciting water molecules inside.

Ian  55:56  
I wonder how unsafe that is, just like, just like, hold, well, you know, I

Jason  56:01  
remember in the early, early like, Michael, don't look at the microwave. You know, remember all that stuff. And I don't know if all that still it's but they said he filed a patent for the microwave cooking process in 45 so the first commercial microwave oven was the radar range was released. It was six feet tall. Six feet weighed 750 pounds. Oh, cost $5,000 at the time, which would be $60,000 today.

Ian  56:30  
That's a brand new like, like, really nice call.

Jason  56:33  
It was used mostly in restaurants and ships. Wow, they say in 67 Amana, a Raytheon division released the first affordable countertop microwave for home use, much smaller, cheaper and safer.

Ian  56:50  
Wow. What a commitment. Six foot tall, 700 pounds,

Jason  56:56  
yeah, that thing that we use every day, yeah, that

Ian  56:59  
you can probably buy new at the store for what, maybe 100 bucks, maybe, maybe a couple 100 bucks I've seen, I just like the idea

Jason  57:09  
of the mass produced now, of course, you know, I

Ian  57:13  
just love the idea of them, like, I like the name magnetron. It feels like a futuristic word. I don't know. It just feels like a sci fi term. It's something that's so normal and ubiquitous. Oh yeah, that's interesting. Some

Jason  57:27  
interesting stuff, man.

Ian  57:29  
Well, like I said before, if there's a I'm curious if anybody wants to share a story of something that they have either invented or have made their lives or other people's lives easier. I'm curious about, you know what, what they've got. You can give us comments on Spotify or on YouTube, where you can give us a like, or you can subscribe, you know, on all the platforms you Would you care to listen to us on. We also have an email address get offended together@gmail.com, the website, retrospect, podcast.com, I believe I got it right. Stoney, I was gonna say I'll Estonia probably correct me. But anyways, until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye. And

Jason  58:12  
there you have it, a small but mighty glimpse into the world of invention, the paper clips on our desk, the zippers on our jackets, the brushes in our bathrooms. These things may seem ordinary now, but once upon a time, they were radical ideas born from everyday problems. Behind each one is a story of necessity, of curiosity, of brilliance and sometimes of forgotten names and lost credit, because history doesn't always reward the first. It rewards the one who finishes, the one who markets, the one who's remembered. Here on this podcast, we believe every inventor deserves their moment in the light. So the next time you use something simple, a pen, a hanger, a safety pin, take a moment to wonder who thought of this and what might they have imagined the world could be. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Jason, and remember, behind every great invention starts with a simple question, what if God bless everyone you