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Inventors Trivia

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The City and South London Railway opened the world's first deep-level electric railway on December 18th, 1890, from King William Street in the City of London under the River Thames to Stockwell.

Today, the London Underground Limited (LUL) is a major business with 2.5 million passenger journeys a day, nearly 500 trains, serving over 260 stations, around 16,000 staff and vast engineering assets.

Average scheduled train speed (including station stops) 20.5 mph (33 kmh).

Maximum tunnel depth below mean sea level is 70ft (21.3m)

Maximum tunnel depth below ground level is 221ft (67.4m)

According to company lore, Ole Evinrude, a Norwegian immigrant, got the idea for an outboard motor while on a picnic with his sweetheart Bessie. They were on a small island in Lake Michigan, when Bessie decided she wanted some ice cream. Ole obligingly rowed to shore to get some, but by the time he made it back the ice cream had melted. So Ole built a motor that could be attached to his rowboat, and founded the Evinrude company in 1909.

The first underground and underwater rail system in the world, the New York City Subway, began operating in 1904. Almost 8,000 men participated in building the 21-mile (33.6 km) route. The project's chief engineer was William Barclay Parsons.

The safety pin was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt. He sold the patent rights for $400.

An Englishman invented Scotland's national dress - the kilt. It was developed from the philamore - a massive piece of tartan worn with a belt and draped over the shoulder - by English industrialist Thomas Rawlinson who ran a foundry at Lochaber, Scotland in the early 1700s and thought a detachable garment would make life more comfortable for his workers.

It is recorded that the Babylonians were making soap around 2800 B.C. and that it was known to the Phoenicians around 600 B.C. These early references to soap and soap making were for the use of soap in the cleaning of textile fibers such as wool and cotton in preparation for weaving into cloth.

Disc Jockey Alan Freed popularized the term "Rock and Roll."

The patent number of the telephone is 174465.

George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.

The Roman civilization invented the arch.

Benjamin Franklin was the inventor of the rocking chair.

King Gilette spent 8 years trying to invent and introduce his safety razor.

Thomas Edison had a collection of over 5,000 birds.

Benjamin Franklin had poor vision and needed glasses to read. He got tired of constantly taking them off and putting them back on, so he decided to figure out a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He had two pairs of spectacles cut in half and put half of each lens in a single frame. Today, we call them bifocals.

Dutch engineers have developed a computerized machine that allows a cow to milk itself. Each cow in the herd has a computer chip in its collar. If the computer senses that the cow has not been milked in a given period of time, the milk-laden animal is allowed to enter the stall. The robot sensors locate the teats, apply the vacuum devices, and the cow is milked. The machine costs a mere $250,000 and is said to boost milk production by 15%.

On November 23, 1835, Henry Burden of Troy, New York, developed the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. Burden later oversaw the production of most of the horseshoes used by the Union cavalry during the Civil War.

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