Top 5 Unlikely Inventions for Christmas With the festive season finally upon us, many of us will be reaching for the tools and materials needed to build the perfect Christmas – giving little thought to how these products have become practical staples of not just yuletide tradition but in many cases, everyday function. The cracker, a place-setting must have for family dinners around the 25th, has been developed and redesigned over the last century, from humble origins to the brightly coloured cardboard amusements we decorate our Christmas tables with today. The cracker is not alone, however. By chance, multiple inventions have found a home in our festive rituals. We count down five unlikely inventions that undoubtedly crop up over December.
Top 5 unlikely inventions for the Christmas season 1. Crackers A chance trip to Paris in 1840 introduced the Baker Tom Smith to the French ‘bon bon’, a sugared almond wrapped in a twist of colourful paper. Smith took the traditional motive back to his confectioners in London and after its initial success that first Christmas died down added a short love motto to his bon bons. Smith realised the new product added the personal touch to giving a gift and he began to manufacture bon bons for specific festive holidays. Again by coincidence, Smith was considering how to bring the ‘warmth’ of Christmas to his bon-bon and heard the crackle of the fireplace. He recognised that this sound would add an exciting element and set about perfecting the chemical explosion we now enjoy. The cracker has changed considerably in a century and today, consumers get more than the ‘bang for their buck’. Crackers come in a variety of designs and nearly always include the original motto or joke, a novelty hat plus a small gift.
2. Plastic Chances are that, you’ve either bought, wrapped or gifted a present containing the ever-durable material plastic. From children’s toys to consumer electronics, its highly probable that plastic can be found under your Christmas tree this year and any other since Leo Baekeland accidently produced the first polymer of its kind, Bakelite. Born in Belgium, the chemist Baekeland wasn’t trying to dominate assembly-lines over the next century, in fact all he really wanted to invent was a substitute for the resin shellac. It was during this process that Baekeland realised that under the right temperature and pressure, he could produce a material that was mouldable yet resistant once it set, the original plastic. Baekeland may not have replaced shellac but his fortuitous experiments lead to the “material of a 1,000 uses.”
3. Brandy “The Dutch created the land” but apparently, they also invented the warming winter drink brandy. In the 16th century an unknown Dutch shipmaster invented brandy by boiling wine to remove excess water, as a means to saving cargo space and making it easier to transport on long sea voyages. The idea being that he could reconstitute the concentrated alcohol by adding water back in once on dry land. The result was ‘burnt wine’ or ‘brandewijn’ and was much preferred in its undiluted state. Supposedly, a publican remarked that non-locals struggled to pronounce the Dutch word after a few glasses of the hearty drink and so it popularly known as brandy. Today variations on the original exist the world over, distilled from grapes and other soft fruits. Long associated with the colder months, notably, brandy is a popular addition to the festive drink eggnog and the French cognac is often served après-ski in the mountains.
4. Post-it Notes Christmas is as challenging as it is enjoyable. By now, many of us will be frantically referring to various ‘to-do’ lists and reminder notes to ensure everything is ticked off before the big day. During December, the post-it note becomes essential but back in 1968, inventors Spencer Silver and Art Fry resigned it to the pile, struggling to find a marketable purpose for their new discovery. Working at 3M Laboratories in Minnesota, researcher Silver had just produced a lightweight adhesive that didn’t damage surfaces and could be used multiple times but couldn’t come up with a profitable product idea to apply it to. Years later his colleague, Fry, a member of the local choir, noted that he couldn’t stick notes into his hymn book without ruining the pages. The pair used the new adhesive to solve this problem and in the process, created the yellow sticky square legacy. The final product as we know it, was launched in 1980 and has aided organisation ever since.
5. Slinky Beloved by children everywhere, the slinky has undoubtedly made its way in to numerous stockings over time but this novelty toy is the by-product of another altogether more purposeful invention. In the early 1940s, naval engineer Richard T. James was working in the shipyard tasked with securing sensitive instruments on board the Navy’s ships during World War II. He accidently knocked one of spring prototypes he was working on to floor and watched as it seemingly took on a life of its own, ‘slinking’ around his workspace. Several tweaks followed, as James adjusted the slinky so that it could infamously descend a flight of stairs. By 1945, the finished product was flying off shelves as quickly as it filled them and today, having sold over 300 million worldwide the slinky is a symbol of childhood nostalgia transcending generations.
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