People and experiences — Page 2

Stories in “People and experiences”.

• A painting technique helped solve typing errorsSecretary Bette Nesmith Graham was frustrated when small typing errors meant redoing a page. Painting over mi…
• Her son’s blotting paper became a coffee filterMelitta Bentz experimented with blotting paper from her son’s notebook in a perforated container to improve c…
• Her land game was designed to question monopoliesLizzie Magie patented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 to demonstrate problems with land monopolism. Later version…
• He sold the safety-pin patent for four hundred dollarsWalter Hunt developed his safety pin in 1849, using a protective clasp and a coiled wire that kept the point…
• Her umbrella could put on a different colorAmong Beulah Louise Henry’s inventions was an umbrella with interchangeable, differently colored snap-on clot…
• The cloudy solution was not thrown awayStephanie Kwolek’s cloudy solution was the sort usually discarded. Concern that it would clog the spinning eq…
• She could choose the open air even when a bed was availableBotanical collector Ynes Mexia preferred sleeping outdoors even when indoor accommodation or a bed was availa…
• She tried it as material for a diaper coverMarion Donovan experimented with materials in her attic and repurposed a lightweight shower curtain into a wa…
• The pole-vault champion also developed a construction toyA. C. Gilbert shared the pole-vault gold medal with Edward Cook at the 1908 Olympics. In 1913 he developed th…
• The Lego founder’s range included a wooden duckLego founder Ole Kirk Christiansen moved from woodworking and household goods into wooden toys. By 1935 his r…
• He filled the riding-act pauses with other performersPhilip Astley presented trick riding in London. In 1770 he hired acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers and a…
• Four horses pulled against his resistanceStrongman Louis Cyr’s performances included resisting the pull of four draft horses, two on each side. Accoun…
• The Mighty Atom was still performing in his eightiesJoe Greenstein, known as the Mighty Atom, continued strongman performances into his eighties. Accounts record…
• She added baskets to a Niagara tightrope crossingMaria Spelterini crossed the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope in July 1876. On a subsequent crossing she strapped…
• Her husband became part of the strength displayCircus strongwoman Katie Sandwina performed feats including lifting her husband overhead with one hand. A rep…
• The inventor brought his equipment to a real rescueIn 1916, Garrett Morgan was summoned at night to a Cleveland tunnel disaster. He and his brother arrived in p…
• Goodyear did not found the company named GoodyearCharles Goodyear is associated with the development of vulcanized rubber. The tire company bears his name, bu…
• The 1988 patent followed years of developmentOphthalmologist Patricia Bath conceived a laser device for cataract surgery in 1981. Following research inclu…
• The melted-candy story is not securely documentedPercy Spencer’s microwave work is often introduced through a candy bar melting in his pocket. Credible primar…
• A study of an unread script filled 180,000 cardsAlice Kober studied the frequencies and patterns of Linear B signs. When the Second World War made paper hard…
• The missing accessory became a guest’s concernA guest memoir recalls Lord Berners putting Woolworth imitation pearl necklaces on his dogs. When a visitor r…
• Mytton spent thirty minutes in the CommonsJohn Mytton became MP for Shrewsbury in 1819. He is recorded as spending only thirty minutes in the Commons t…
• A curtain changed the appearance of recitationFaçade combines Edith Sitwell’s poems with William Walton’s music. Performances placed the recitation behind…
• Satie bought seven identical suitsIn 1895, Erik Satie used proceeds from a small legacy to buy seven identical dun-colored suits. This became t…
• Borge read the marks as sound effectsPianist and comedian Victor Borge’s Phonetic Punctuation routine added exaggerated sound effects for periods,…
• The dye emerged beside a search for quinineIn 1856, William Henry Perkin was working toward synthesizing quinine when experiments produced an intense pu…
• Dunlop’s practical tire had an earlier predecessorJohn Boyd Dunlop developed pneumatic tires for his son’s tricycle in Belfast in 1887, then extended the work…
• A date and place marked the copying breakthroughOn October 22, 1938, Chester Carlson and Otto Kornei produced a xerographic copy in Astoria, New York. The im…
• Diemer taught the salesmen to blow bubblesWalter Diemer worked as an accountant while experimenting with gum in his spare time. His 1928 bubble gum dev…
• The ink would not flow through a fountain-pen tipJournalist László Bíró noticed the quick-drying ink of newspaper printing. Its viscosity prevented it from fl…
• Sydney’s recurring chalk inscription had an authorArthur Stace repeatedly chalked Eternity on Sydney footpaths in the early morning. His activity began in 1932…
• Stanley Green’s campaigning materials outlived himLondon campaigner Stanley Green produced his own pamphlet, which went through eighty-four editions. After his…
• Tokyo became a ten-metre panorama from memoryIn May 2005, Stephen Wiltshire drew a ten-metre panorama of Tokyo from memory after a brief helicopter flight…
• Underwater figures acquire changing surfacesJason deCaires Taylor has installed underwater sculptures in places including Grenada’s Molinere Bay. Marine…
• Willard Wigan makes works for tiny spacesBritish sculptor Willard Wigan makes works that fit inside needle eyes or on pinheads. In 2010, the BBC repor…
• Anna Coleman Ladd used portrait skills for wartime masksDuring World War I, Anna Coleman Ladd made cosmetic masks for soldiers with facial injuries. She used pre-inj…
• Vaucanson’s flute player had a practical obstacleIn 1737, Jacques de Vaucanson built a life-size flute-playing figure with twelve tunes. Its fingers were not…
• Robert-Houdin’s chest changed the apparent contestRobert-Houdin’s Light and Heavy Chest let a child lift a wooden box before an adult failed to do the same. An…
• Mouchot demonstrated solar-powered ice makingAt the 1878 Paris exhibition, Augustin Mouchot and Abel Pifre displayed an engine using concentrated solar he…
• Houdini also performed a large stage illusionHarry Houdini made an adult elephant vanish at New York’s Hippodrome. This was a non-escape stage illusion, a…
• Sophie Blanchard carried celebration into the skyWhen Napoleon’s son was born, Sophie Blanchard flew over Paris and dropped leaflets announcing the birth. She…
• Giffard’s airship faced a limit imposed by windIn September 1852, Henri Giffard flew his steam-powered airship about twenty-seven kilometres from Paris. It…
• Markham’s westward flight ended in CanadaBeryl Markham left England alone for North America in September 1936, intending to reach New York. Fuel starv…
• Nancy Wake recalled a long ride for communicationsAfter her wartime team lost its radio and codes, Nancy Wake recalled borrowing a bicycle to reach another rad…
• Lilian Bland’s aircraft needed another attemptEager to test the engine of her Mayfly aircraft before its tank was ready, Lilian Bland improvised with an em…
• Dutrieu’s bicycle acts already left the groundBelgian cyclist Hélène Dutrieu moved from racing to stunt performance. In 1903 she rode a vertical loop and d…
• Quimby worked across aviation, journalism and filmHarriet Quimby obtained a US pilot’s licence in 1911 and also wrote films directed by D. W. Griffith that yea…
• Ruth Law’s engine stopped over ManhattanAfter a nonstop flight from Chicago to New York State in November 1916, Ruth Law continued to New York City t…
• Scott’s early hop complicates a first-flight claimBlanche Scott’s training aircraft had a throttle limiter intended to keep it on the ground. A shift in that l…
• Fountaine’s diaries waited until 1978After Margaret Fountaine died in 1940, her butterfly collection and a box containing diaries were deposited a…
• Rescued children stood up decades laterThe BBC presented Nicholas Winton’s work helping rescue children in 1988. In a subsequent programme, more tha…
• Payeng kept planting after the first small attemptIn 1979, Jadav Payeng saw dead snakes on a treeless sandbar in Assam, India. He planted twenty bamboo seedlin…
• A storm destroyed Neale’s rebuilt pier the next dayTom Neale began living on Suwarrow in the Cook Islands in 1952. Visitors suggested rebuilding a ruined pier.…
• Tabei’s Everest ascent followed an avalancheAn avalanche buried Junko Tabei and others on Everest on 4 May 1975. Sherpa guides dug them out without fatal…
• Goethe admired Howard’s cloud classificationBritish meteorologist Luke Howard proposed a cloud classification in 1802, naming types including cumulus, st…
• Bell also climbed in the AlpsGertrude Bell, known for Middle Eastern travel and archaeology, was also a mountaineer. After she and guides…
• A hundred beads helped count a survey journeyNineteenth-century surveyor Nain Singh and colleagues trained for British expeditions to Tibet. A prayer-bead…
• Doris Self competed long after an airline careerFormer flight attendant Doris Self set a Q*bert world record under tournament settings in 1984, aged fifty-ei…
• Marchand wished he had noticed the warning cardIn January 2017, 105-year-old Robert Marchand cycled 22.547 kilometres in an hour. Afterwards he said he coul…
• Kowalski sprinted and threw in the same meetIn 2015, Polish athlete Stanisław Kowalski competed at age 105. He ran the hundred metres, put the shot and t…
• She could run, but could not crouchA plane crash injured Betty Robinson in 1931. She eventually ran again, but could not kneel for a sprint star…
• From dirt roads to Olympic goldRacial segregation denied Alice Coachman access to proper sports facilities. She ran barefoot on dirt roads a…
• She waited for the start in the bushesDenied entry to the 1966 Boston Marathon, Bobbi Gibb hid near the start and joined the runners. She finished…
• Someone tried to remove her race numberKathrine Switzer registered for Boston in 1967 using her usual signature, K. V. Switzer. During the race, an…
• Rejected by the race, she crossed the ChannelA Channel swimming competition rejected Florence Chadwick in 1950 because she was not well known. She organis…
• He reached the line, but did not officially finishDerek Redmond injured his hamstring during the 1992 Olympic 400-metre semi-final. He continued, supported by…
• Barefoot gold, then gold with shoesAbebe Bikila won the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome barefoot. Four years later in Tokyo, he wore shoes and won…
• From a leg brace to three Olympic goldsChildhood polio weakened Wilma Rudolph’s left leg. After treatment, she learned to walk without a brace by ab…
• He arrived for running in a three-piece suitFauja Singh turned up for his initial coaching dressed in a three-piece suit. His coach had to start with the…
• A letter addressed simply to Terry Fox, CanadaIn 1980, Terry Fox attempted a cross-Canada run on a prosthetic leg to raise money for cancer research. His i…
• The actress’s award went to the wrong person on stageAt the 1985 Emmy Awards, Barry Bremen reached the stage before winner Betty Thomas. He said he thought she wa…
• A chicken decides the bingo numberFruita, Colorado, celebrates Mike, a chicken that survived for about eighteen months after losing most of its…
• A tiny forklift retrieves the stockAstronomer Clifford Stoll sells glass Klein bottles online. He stores stock in the crawlspace beneath his Oak…
• The obituary appeared while he was in AustraliaBritish politician John Stonehouse disappeared from a Miami beach in November 1974, leaving clothes behind. H…
• A gorilla who made his bed and drank teaJohn Daniel lived with humans in Uley, England, from 1918 to 1921. Accounts describe him making his bed, drin…
• Newspapers competed over two stray dogsIn 1860s San Francisco, Bummer and Lazarus became celebrated canine companions. Newspapers dramatized their r…
• The cat’s salary came as cat foodTama became stationmaster at Kishi Station in Wakayama in 2007, with passenger greetings as her main duty. In…
• The space cat received her name after returningA cat designated C341 survived a French suborbital flight from Algeria on 18 October 1963. The media named he…
• A dog found the stolen World Cup trophyThe World Cup trophy was stolen from a London display in March 1966. A week later, Pickles found the newspape…
• A department-store lion met his former owners in KenyaChristian was bought from Harrods in London in 1969. As he grew, his owners sought expert help to return him…
• The railway tested its baboon assistantIn 1881, South African railwayman James Wide bought Jack, a baboon, and trained him to operate signals under…
• The explorer also wrote about his catTrim was born aboard ship in 1799 and accompanied Matthew Flinders on voyages mapping Australia’s coast in 18…
• He made some of the mess he was rewarded for clearingBritish assistance dog Endal helped Allen Parton with shopping, laundry and handling ATM cards. Parton also r…
• The distillery cat had a record near 29,000 miceTowser caught mice at Scotland’s Glenturret distillery from 1963 to 1987. Her Guinness-recognised total was 2…
• His captors doubted the parachute-free escapeIn March 1944, RAF airman Nicholas Alkemade jumped from a burning bomber without a usable parachute. Trees an…
• The mail-train dog needed a jacket for his souvenirsIn the late nineteenth century, Owney travelled with mail bags and became a favourite of American postal work…
• The returning dog appeared as himself on screenBobbie disappeared during his owners’ visit to Indiana in August 1923. He returned to their Oregon home in Fe…
• Entering a country’s waters did not count as visiting itGraham Hughes travelled to every country using public surface transport. Under the record’s rules, entering t…
• The bedroom intrusion happened; the long conversation is disputedMichael Fagan entered the Queen’s bedroom at Buckingham Palace on 9 July 1982. Early reports described a prol…
• Around thirty thousand fans followed a dressed-up squirrelTommy Tucker became an American celebrity in the 1940s, appearing before children and at war-bond events in s…
• Alfa and Beto carried a travelling libraryIn the late 1990s, Colombian teacher Luis Soriano began visiting rural communities with a library of seventy…
• The owner built an underground hall but never hosted a dance thereThe fifth Duke of Portland had rooms and tunnels built beneath his English estate in the nineteenth century.…
• The cat toured town while his owner was at workIn 2009, Casper’s owner in Plymouth, England, discovered that her cat was riding buses. Drivers described him…
• Fido was present when his monument was unveiledFido became known in Italy for continuing to wait at a bus stop after his owner died during the war. In 1957,…
• Old comrades confirmed the veteran’s identity during a pension inquiryAlbert Cashier served in the American Civil War and continued living as a man after leaving the army. When hi…
• A survivor described Titanic’s sinking on Titanic-headed paperAfter surviving Titanic in 1912, Japanese passenger Masabumi Hosono wrote an account in Japanese aboard the r…
• The navy enlisted a dog to solve his train-fare problemJust Nuisance, a Great Dane in Simon’s Town, South Africa, followed sailors onto trains. When the railway obj…
• The ship’s dog had a pass for Scottish busesDuring the Second World War, Bamse lived with a Norwegian ship’s crew stationed in Scotland. The sailors boug…
• A wine-cellar excavation grew into decades of tunnellingWilliam Lyttle began digging a wine cellar beneath his London home. From the 1960s into the 2000s, the work e…
• An animal painter sought police permission to wear trousersNineteenth-century French painter Rosa Bonheur visited livestock markets to study animals. She preferred trou…
• An unopened chute and a snowy slopeIn January 1942, Soviet airman Ivan Chisov bailed out of an attacked bomber. He lost consciousness before ope…
• Rescued on a railway station floorIn January 1943, Alan Magee was thrown from a damaged American bomber over France with an unusable parachute.…
• A penguin and an unlikely favouriteIn 2017, Tobu Zoo in Japan displayed character cutouts from Kemono Friends. Humboldt penguin Grape-kun spent…
• Out of his enclosure, still at the zooIn 1985, San Diego Zoo orangutan Ken Allen repeatedly escaped from his enclosure. During escapes he strolled…
• A rescued cat with a huge audienceSockington was found outside a Boston subway station in 2004. His owner later began posting from the cat’s im…
• The sergeant laid an eggFrancis Fagan acquired duck Siwash in a New Zealand raffle. In 1943 she became a US Marine unit’s mascot and…
• Faith found her own way to moveFaith, a dog in the United States, was born with an impaired front limb and became known for walking on her t…
• Feet made for one particular catOscar, a cat from Jersey, lost both hind paws in a 2009 accident. Veterinary and engineering work produced pr…
• The promoted penguin has successorsNils Olav at Edinburgh Zoo is a mascot of Norway’s King’s Guard. The name and associated ranks have passed th…
• A cat needed a mail officerSimon, the cat aboard HMS Amethyst, resumed catching rats after recovering from injuries in the 1949 Yangtze…
• A wheatfield near Wall StreetIn 1982, artist Agnes Denes planted wheat on a landfill in lower Manhattan near Wall Street. The field needed…
• A swimsuit fitting at 56 led to bodybuildingErnestine Shepherd began exercising with her sister after a swimsuit fitting at age 56. She went on to compet…
• A life recorded in five-minute intervalsRobert Shields recorded his everyday life in five-minute intervals from 1972 to 1997. Ordinary tasks such as…
• A throne from discarded materialsJames Hampton worked as a janitor while building a religious assemblage in a rented Washington garage. Over 1…
• The praised painter was a chimpanzeeIn 1964, a Swedish journalist exhibited four paintings by Peter, a zoo chimpanzee, under an invented French a…
• Firefighters topped up a duck’s puddleTrevor, a mallard, appeared on Niue in 2018. On an island without surface fresh water, he lived in a roadside…
• Winter ice for a summer drinkDorothy Molter made root beer for canoeists visiting her home on Minnesota’s Knife Lake. Without electricity,…
• A nine-year-old’s spelling reached printDaisy Ashford wrote a novella about English upper-class society when she was nine. Published in 1919, it pres…
• An undertaker helped automate telephone callsAlmon Brown Strowger worked as an undertaker before developing an automatic telephone exchange, patented in 1…
• Road signs and drinks crates became artNew Zealand-born Australian artist Rosalie Gascoigne worked with found materials, including old road signs an…
• She went for a walk—and covered nearly 3,500 kmIn 1955, 67-year-old Emma Gatewood told her grown children she was going for a walk. She completed the Appala…
• Paintings in a drugstore led to a solo exhibitionIn 1938, collector Louis Caldor spotted paintings in a drugstore window in Hoosick Falls, New York. Their mak…
• It cost 25 cents to look at her paintingsLouisiana artist Clementine Hunter displayed a sign outside her cabin asking 25 cents to view her work. She p…
• Family outings had to fit the videotapeMarion Stokes recorded television news for decades in the United States. Family outings were arranged around…
• His room held a novel of more than 15,000 pagesHenry Darger worked in hospitals in Chicago and kept his creative work private for decades. When he moved to…
• He teaches mobility using echoesAmerican Daniel Kish is a blind expert in human echolocation. He founded an organization in 2000 and has taug…
• A cook survived 60 hours inside a sunken boatIn 2013, a tugboat sank off Nigeria. Cook Harrison Okene survived for about 60 hours in an air pocket inside…
• An artist fills damaged walls with LegoJan Vormann’s Dispatchwork uses colourful Lego bricks to fill gaps in urban walls. A dull damaged patch becom…
• A farmer restored land with improved traditional pitsBurkinabé farmer Yacouba Sawadogo improved traditional zaï planting pits to restore damaged soils. Manure add…
• They escaped slavery posing as owner and servantIn 1848, Ellen and William Craft escaped slavery in the United States by train and boat. Ellen posed as a whi…
• Underwater observations travelled up a telephone lineIn the 1930s, William Beebe and Otis Barton descended in a steel Bathysphere off Bermuda. A cable lowered the…
• A family carer became a collector of fishMary Kingsley cared for her family and read books in her father’s library. After her parents died, she travel…
• A rhinoceros inspired wigs in eighteenth-century ParisClara, an Indian rhinoceros, arrived in Rotterdam in 1741 and was exhibited across Europe. In Paris in 1749 s…
• A street crossing became news of successIn 1928, Morris Frank trained with guide dog Buddy in Switzerland and returned to New York. He crossed busy s…
• A dressmaker built containers for studying sea lifeJeanne Villepreux-Power worked in sewing and embroidery in Paris, including a royal wedding gown. After movin…
• After a forgery conviction, he sold openly labelled imitationsIn 1985, John Myatt advertised paintings that imitated famous artists while openly describing them as copies.…
• He hired people to demonstrate shopping cartsSylvan Goldman introduced shopping carts at his Oklahoma City supermarkets in 1937. Working with a mechanic,…
• A dyer’s knowledge helped him make identity papersAs a young man in France, Adolfo Kaminsky worked in a dye shop and became interested in colour chemistry. Dur…
• She promoted an unfamiliar fruit with a kiwi-filled lunchFrieda Caplan began selling kiwifruit in the United States in 1962, when it was unfamiliar to many buyers. Sa…
• Her walls, doors and stove became part of a museum exhibitCanadian artist Maud Lewis worked in a small home and painted far beyond boards. She decorated walls, doors,…
• His secret sculpture garden survived a threat of demolitionIn his spare time, Nek Chand gathered demolition waste and built a sculpture garden in woodland in Chandigarh…
• Two neighbours began picking up a beach’s accumulated rubbishIn October 2015, Mumbai lawyer Afroz Shah and his neighbour Harbansh Mathur started clearing rubbish from Ver…
• Burrs caught in fur inspired a reusable fastenerAfter an outing with his dog, Swiss engineer George de Mestral examined the burdock burrs stuck to his clothi…
• A Victorian cook proposed freezing ice cream with liquid nitrogenBritish cookery entrepreneur Agnes Marshall was known for frozen desserts and ran a school, wrote books and p…
• A drive-in experiment began with sheets between treesIn the early 1930s, Richard Hollingshead experimented with watching films from a car at his New Jersey home,…
• An unfinished notebook became a signalling system for shipsIn nineteenth-century America, Martha Coston found an unfinished marine-signalling idea in her late husband’s…
• A ten-year-old recalled a classroom film on a Thai beachDuring a family holiday in Phuket in 2004, British schoolgirl Tilly Smith noticed unusual behaviour in the se…
• The Tabasco business founder omitted the sauce from a life sketchEdmund McIlhenny began selling Tabasco-brand pepper sauce in nineteenth-century America. Yet the article repo…
• A kitchen-table investigation became a mathematics association’s floorInspired by a magazine column, American amateur Marjorie Rice investigated pentagons that could tile a plane.…
• Forced retirement led Maggie Kuhn to form a movementIn 1970, American Maggie Kuhn had to leave her job at age 65. She joined other retirees to start the movement…
• A popular actress’s studio would not reveal her nameCanadian-born Florence Lawrence became popular in early American films. Fans wrote asking who she was, but Bi…
• A solar-training programme does not require literacyBunker Roy’s initiative, founded in India in 1972, became known as Barefoot College. Its programmes teach rur…
• Domino videos begun at ten led to film workAmerican domino artist Lily Hevesh started her video channel at age ten in 2009. She posted anonymously for y…
• A climber changed his prosthetic height for the rockAmerican climber Hugh Herr lost both legs below the knee after a 1982 mountaineering accident. Returning to c…
• A pencil sharpener returned a certificate with the pencilAmerican cartoonist David Rees launched a hand-sharpening service in 2010. For fifteen dollars at the time, h…
• Blinking inspired an intermittent wiper mechanismAmerican inventor Robert Kearns said continuous wipers bothered him while driving in light rain in 1963. He m…
• This nineteenth-century service was more than hair washingIndian-born Dean Mahomed opened a vapour-bath and massage business in Brighton in 1814. Its shampooing involv…
• Peace Pilgrim walked beyond 25,000 milesMildred Lisette Norman began her American walking journey as Peace Pilgrim in 1953, speaking with people abou…
• Cooking affordable meals became an experiment in 1890Ellen Swallow Richards and Mary Hinman Abel established Boston’s New England Kitchen in 1890 to experiment wi…
• Mujica kept his farm home instead of moving into the palaceDuring his presidency, Uruguay’s José Mujica lived on his wife’s farm, where they grew chrysanthemums for sal…