The Unique Origins of 25 Popular Products

By Queuebot in Everything Else on Oct 1, 2009 at 10:03 am

So many of the things we use daily are so old that it’s hard to imagine a time when they didn’t exist and needed to be invented. Almost every invention has an interesting backstory however, here are the origins of 25 things most of use everyday, including the microwave oven:

In 1945, Raytheon engineer and inventor Percy Spencer stood in front of a magnetron—a radar component—and noticed a chocolate bar start to melt in his pocket. Curious about the magnetron’s potential, Spencer obtained a bag of popcorn kernels and watched them pop next to the magnetron. The microwave oven was born.

Radarange, the world’s first microwave oven, was 6 feet tall, weighed 750 pounds, and cost around $5,000.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by redsfaithful.


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  1. Skipweasel
    Oct 1st, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    Despite its origins, the glue on PostIts is now made from boiled slugs.


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