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Bonkers Origins Of 26 Famous Inventions

Turns out, people used to douche with Lysol.

Bonkers Origins Of 26 Famous Inventions

October 01, 2021

A lot of everyday items in your life have some pretty movie-worthy origin stories. Like for example, Silly Putty came about as a result of a failed attempt to make car tires. Today we'll take a look at that and 25 other origin stories behind famous inventions:

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CRACKED.COM ador BAY The Mighty Ducks became a legit hockey team. The marketing Mighty ploy Ducks just of Anaheim the movie were created leaving as a as was theaters. Many scoffed at the idea of a Disney- branded team, but the Ducks are still at it and have won a Stanley Cup. (They no longer belong to Disney, though). — CBC, Esquire

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Bonkers Origins Of 26 Famous Inventions — 14 Mesmerizing Machines That Run The World Behind The Scenes

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CRACKED.COM STEVE JOBS DIDN'T ALLOW THE IPAD IN HIS HOME. The founder of Apple thought they were too addictive for his children. — Inventors Who Can't Stand Their Own Creations

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Bonkers Origins Of 26 Famous Inventions — 17 Badass Gadgets You Didn't Realize You Needed

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Super or Mario IN Bros. 2 IV Mondensarat Girline A 350 0340ml BOMBY BOM The American version of SMB 2 is just a reskin of a and Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. CRACKED.COM — Rarely Seen Prototypes Of Modern Gadgets

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A wire strung across poles in a city is a legalistic solution to a religious problem. For Orthodox Jewish religious purposes, the wire turns the area it encloses into a symbolic home, called an eruv. Orthodox Jews are prohibited from carrying food, medication, and even children outside the home on the Sabbath, for example - but this wire neatly solves that. CRACKED.COM — Invisible, Super-Smart Gadgets That Are Hidden All Around Us

20

The Insectothopter looks like a dragonfly. During the primitive times of the '70s, the CIA designed a dragonfly drone that carried a listening device. It was propelled by a tiny gas engine in its thorax and had a frickin' laser attached to its head. BEAM SWITCHING CIRCUITRY FIG. 1 Sadly, it only had a INTAKE VALVE 200-meter range and 60 FIG. Z seconds' worth of juice. CRACKED.COM — 16 Ridiculous Gadgets Used By IRL James Bonds

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Manufacturing microchips requires rooms kept clean to ridiculous standards. Suits for clean rooms They're 10,000 times cleaner than a hospital operating room - because one speck of dust could ruin a microprocessor while it's being made. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Florida State University

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Silly Putty

SILLY PUTTY silly 4+ WAS A FAILED PUTTY The ORiGiNa ATTEMPT AT MAKING CAR TIRES. WARNING In the '40s, the U.S. government asked private companies to create a synthetic rubber substitute to make up for shortages caused by the war. General Electric created a particular mixture of chemicals that was just too squishy to make car tires, but proved very popular as a toy. CRACKED.COM — Everyday Objects That Started Out As Something Else Entirely

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When the telephone was invented, people were scared that it would attract evil spirits and the Devil. The invention was so poorly received that newly constructed phone lines would often be sabotaged and stolen. CRACKED.COM — The 16 Dumbest Ways People Freaked Over New Tech

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Reading in bed is immoral! CRACKED.COM People warned that reading by candlelight could cause fires. But seeing how rarely this actually happened, it's now suspected that people actually feared bed reading encouraged masturbation. — The Atlantic

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Both Sir Frank Whittle (a British engineer) & Hans von Ohain (a German physicist) came up with the first jet engine independently and while serving on opposite sides of World War II. The two met after the war ended. the '18 Y CRACKED COM — 12 Uncanny Instances Of Simultaneous Invention

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California

California was a fictional land. Spanish conquistadores didn't know they had reached a peninsula- they thought they were in mythical California, the island populated by griffin- riding Amazons in the 16th- century book The Adventures of Esplandián. No Amazons or griffins were found, but the name stuck. CRACKED.COM — San José Public Library

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Bonkers Origins Of 26 Famous Inventions — 14 Mesmerizing Machines That Run The World Behind The Scenes

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Pepper Spray

CRACKED.COM THE DEVELOPER OF WEAPONS-GRADE PEPPER SPRAY SPOKE OUT AGAINST ITS USE ON OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTERS. Kamran Loghman, who developed pepper spray with the FBI in the '80s, decries its use on people who have an opinion. — Inventors Who Can't Stand Their Own Creations

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Bonkers Origins Of 26 Famous Inventions — 17 Badass Gadgets You Didn't Realize You Needed

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The First Cell Phone

The first : cell phone IV are Mondensarat Girline A 350 100 Martin Cooper created the Motorola DynaTAC in 1973. The first call a he made was to a wrong number. CRACKED.COM — Rarely Seen Prototypes Of Modern Gadgets

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Those Braille-like bumps on the bottom of a bottle are used for inspection. 30 00 - INTERNATIONAL N Coca-Cola a-Cola - - FAT ALL a and REFRESCO NO RETORNABLE CONT. NET 255 ml NO REZINA The bump pattern identifies the type of bottle. The bumps are machine-readable, kind of like a bar code -automated inspection equipment scans the pattern. CRACKED.COM — Invisible, Super-Smart Gadgets That Are Hidden All Around Us

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We gave exploding flour to the Chinese during World War II COOKING WHAT'S ? AUNT Wasn't JEMIMAS DE POURSE US مصر THE . DATE FINE region AUNT, SIN BOOK! - NO MINA على eno was 6 -1- BALL PIN . KEEP 50 or LAC HT DON'T FUSTY AUNT When a nitroamine EMIMAS We - high explosive is BYS FURN mixed with regular THATS NO LINE THE WAY KI THANKS LIDE 4d den AMT سنا JUST MORE ONE Gue - A The baking flour, you get SMART ON THE HOPS THEM EN AUHT BRO and . 4 a culinary staple that WHEEEE — 16 Ridiculous Gadgets Used By IRL James Bonds

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The Cold War

At least one Cold War-era microprocessor had a message for Soviet spies. consoco - Photo amoce A 1990s VAX computer It was VAX-when you care enough to steal the very best, engraved in Russian on the chip itself for any spies who stole the design. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Florida State University

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The Marlboro Man

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SANITARY PADS STARTED OUT AS BANDAGES FOR always SOLDIERS. - Odor NEW! Lock NOUVEAU the always NUEVO Maxi LeakGuard™ PLUS ABSORBS NEUTRALISE in ABSORBE seconds les NEUTRALIZES en odeurs quelques pendant secondes odors der SOFT houres for hours I Made DOUX Cotton shortages during World War I led the Kimberly-Clark Corporation to develop cellucotton, a substitute made from wood pulp that was much cheaper and more absorbent. Combat nurses found that cellucotton bandages made for great disposable sanitary napkins, so Kimberly-Clark started marketing those after the war. CRACKED.COM — Everyday Objects That Started Out As Something Else Entirely

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Elevators

CRACKED.COM Many people who used elevators in the 1800s were so anxious that they reported feeling extreme dizziness and nausea. — The 16 Dumbest Ways People Freaked Over New Tech

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Soda corrupts the youth! de's Peach sunf SUNDAY GRACKED.COM You might think people would gladly promote soda back during the temperance movement. Nope. They feared soda was a gateway to alcohol, not a substitute, and made kids into wild nocturnal freaks. — A History of Soda Fountains

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TEN DAYS APART, EDMUND WILSON AND NETTIE STEVENS SUBMITTED PAPERS THAT FORMED THE MODERN VIEW OF CHROMOSOMAL SEX DETERMINATION. Even though Wilson beat Stevens to the punch, her discovery was a bit more on point, as she noticed that females have XX, while males have XY chromosomes. CRACKED.COM — 12 Uncanny Instances Of Simultaneous Invention

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