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Human innovation sure is amazing. We’ve managed to figure out how to count, tell time, use (and abuse) nature’s resources to our advantage, and develop complex social structures… so complex that it boggles the mind to look back and try to imagine how we did it. Much like the way looking at your nose in the mirror for too long will make you feel like a surreal assortment of fleshy blobs, thinking about our longest-unquestioned customs will make you wonder just how our ancestors decided on that over the generations.
But who has the patience to think about such existential questions? Not you, you may think as you get up to get a snack, contemplating the impressive variety of salad toppings, sandwich fillings and sweets we’ve also managed to come up with as a civilization.
Here are some tweets cursing and praising the ingenuity of the "inventors" of the simplest concepts we take for granted. There may not be much historical accuracy to be found here, but sometimes it’s easier to blame some hypothetical guy.
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#1
chi-wei shen 5 years ago
Autocorrect is always ducking around with us, may it's inventor rust in peas.
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There are a lot of funny stories throughout history of how these old inventions came about, but it’s hard to tell which ones are rumors and which ones are true sometimes. While there’s a widespread legend that potato chips were accidentally invented in 1853 by a cook who felt like he couldn’t please a customer who demanded improbably thin fries and sent out what he thought were ruined crisps in frustration, investigation of the historic restaurant that claims this legend turns up some inconsistencies.
Historians did manage to find a New York Herald article praising an unidentified woman who worked at the restaurant and had a knack for frying potatoes a few years earlier than that, so it may be more likely that this great idea came to a potato pioneer who knew exactly what she was doing.
#13
Non-New-Toni-An 5 years ago
Mmmmm a bloody Mary with some salt, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco is soooooo good
#20
Nicola Roberts 5 years ago
Thomas Midgley Jr. Invented leaded petrol and CFCs in fridges/aerosols. It would be interesting if you could quantify his impact on our world.
#22
Kim Mahood 5 years ago
With cooking i always imagine someone accidentally dropped something in the fire/water/stood on some grains, tasted it and was like mmm!
#26
Samantha Lomb 5 years ago
Its called I wish this really tough meat was edible, lets boil it to death and try to make it palatable by adding potatoes and other veg
#33
chi-wei shen 5 years ago (edited)
The inventor of the wheel is still alive. His name is John Micheal Keogh, from Hawthorn in Australia. On 24 May 2001 he had the audacity to file for a provisional patent for a wheel with the Australian Patent Office. It was published on 2 August 2001 under the name "Circular transportation facilitation device". For this application the 'inventor' received the IG Noble prize of 2001 (together with the patent office).
#34
#39
Kim Mahood 5 years ago
Ew.. Living in britain i had to look these up. They look like they taste mostly of food colouring...
#41
Cathy Gaines 5 years ago
He invented time? ... Like now the sun is this bright we call it noon!
#45
#46
Lara Verne 5 years ago
It was lady. Guy copied it, because he thought it would look good at him :D
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What do you think ?
I’m Foxxy and I know it 😉 5 years ago (edited)
I know this isn’t an invention but I have always wondered how and why someone thought that making coffee from the beans a civet shits out is a brilliant idea and then the person who decided to make it the most expensive coffee in the world. And there are people that actually pay for that s**t.
David Higginbotham 5 years ago
Back in the eighteenth century when Sumatra and Java were part of the Dutch colonial empire in the East Indies, Arabica coffee was introduced as a cash crop, using plants brought in from the Arabian Peninsula. The Dutch plantation owners forbid the indigenous workers from sampling the fruits of their labor. But the locals noticed that the palm civet also ate the coffee cherries that they were harvesting, and that the coffee beans appeared in the animals’ excrement seemingly unchanged. The locals then cleaned and roasted the beans, and began to brew their own coffee from them. Eventually, the plantation owners caught wind of the local’s superior brew, tried it, and were swayed that it was indeed the better coffee. https://theexoticbean.com/blog/coffee-types/history-kopi-luwak-coffee-from-civets/
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tuzdayschild 5 years ago (edited)
Guy who invented bandaids: This finger is cut, maybe infected, so let's go for a trifecta and cut off all circulation to the blood as well.
Jane Alexander 5 years ago
they're more to contain the mess than about the wound.
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howdylee 5 years ago
WAIT... why are we so sure these are all guys inventing this stuff??? ;) (just poking the bear)
Full Name 5 years ago
Historically, probably. Yeah or at least some dude took credit for it (often times not even maliciously, but because it wouldn't have been taken seriously if people found out that a woman invented it. Female rights have come a LONG way, thankfully).
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I’m Foxxy and I know it 😉 5 years ago (edited)
I know this isn’t an invention but I have always wondered how and why someone thought that making coffee from the beans a civet shits out is a brilliant idea and then the person who decided to make it the most expensive coffee in the world. And there are people that actually pay for that s**t.
David Higginbotham 5 years ago
Back in the eighteenth century when Sumatra and Java were part of the Dutch colonial empire in the East Indies, Arabica coffee was introduced as a cash crop, using plants brought in from the Arabian Peninsula. The Dutch plantation owners forbid the indigenous workers from sampling the fruits of their labor. But the locals noticed that the palm civet also ate the coffee cherries that they were harvesting, and that the coffee beans appeared in the animals’ excrement seemingly unchanged. The locals then cleaned and roasted the beans, and began to brew their own coffee from them. Eventually, the plantation owners caught wind of the local’s superior brew, tried it, and were swayed that it was indeed the better coffee. https://theexoticbean.com/blog/coffee-types/history-kopi-luwak-coffee-from-civets/
Load More Replies... tuzdayschild 5 years ago (edited)
Guy who invented bandaids: This finger is cut, maybe infected, so let's go for a trifecta and cut off all circulation to the blood as well.
Jane Alexander 5 years ago
they're more to contain the mess than about the wound.
Load More Replies... howdylee 5 years ago
WAIT... why are we so sure these are all guys inventing this stuff??? ;) (just poking the bear)
Full Name 5 years ago
Historically, probably. Yeah or at least some dude took credit for it (often times not even maliciously, but because it wouldn't have been taken seriously if people found out that a woman invented it. Female rights have come a LONG way, thankfully).
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