What new gadget would make going back to school ea...  ...sn’t rouse you in time, how about this 1882 patented “device for waking persons from sleep?&rdqu...  ...iddle school student. See ten more back-to-school patents in a slide show at at Smithsonian.

The motion picture industry was in full swing year...  ...mateur engineer Charles Felton Pidgin. In 1917 he patented an idea for adding word balloons to movies by hav...