Wilbur and Orville Wright weren’t just lucky to make the first flight. They played with flying paper models in their youth, and by 1901 they had made hundreds of wind tunnel tests. In 1902, their glider was the biggest flying machine ever built. Orville Wright wrote, “We now hold all the records! The largest machine…the longest time in the air, the smallest angle of descent, and the highest wind!”
They called on the machine making skills of Charles E. Taylor, and by February 1903 they had an engine. By June, they had built a propeller. They headed for Kitty Hawk, North [more...]

In 1834, Charles Babbage (1792-1871) designed the Analytical Engine, the precursor of the computer. He was unable to obtain funding for it from the government, who thought it would be worthless.
There are many examples of inventions that were way ahead of their time. So much so that some would not come into use for another thousand years and some would only come into general use almost 100 years after they were designed.
The first fax process was patented in 1843 by Alexander Bain, but fax machines went into service only in 1964. In 1888, Frank Sprague completed an electric railway, but [more...]

Great minds thinks alike. When Johann Vaaler patented his paperclip in 1901, there already were similar designs by William Middlebrook and Cornelius Brosnan. Vaaler is credited with being the first to design a paperclip because of drawings he made as early as 1899.
In 1669, the principles of differential calculus were determined by Sir Isaac Newton in England and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Germany at about the same time. (The name is derived from the Latin word for “pebble,” referring to the use of pebbles for counting.)
One hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent for the telephone in 1876, Elisha [more...]