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On this day in 1891, Almon Strowger obtained a patent for the Strowger switch, which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching. He invented it after realising that he had lost a lot of business to a competitor because that person’s wife was a telephone operator who was routing calls away from Strowger. His invention dug the grave for manual telephone operators, effectively burying that profession. Fittingly, what was Strowger’s profession in his town?
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Canadian physical education teacher James Naismith realised that his athletes lost their fitness during the winter months as all the grounds were frozen. To keep them fit, he invented an indoor sport using a ball and wicker buckets that the janitor used to gather peaches. After every point, they had to use a ladder to retrieve the ball. This was the birth of which global sport?
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In 1902, Mary Anderson was in New York City on a snowy evening in a taxi. The ride was getting constantly delayed because the driver had to stop every few metres to manually do something in order to drive safely. She went back home, designed a simple device, applied for a patent and then offered it to companies, who all said it had ‘no commercial value’. What was this invention, which is now mandatory for all cars?
