Who Discovered the Earth Was Round?

Who Discovered the Earth Was Round?

ByFabien

I was on YouTube the other day and the algorithm recommended to me a video about someone trying to understand how people can still think that the Earth is flat. Flat Earthers is a thing I just can understand myself. It just makes no sense. But this led to the question of the day:

Who Discovered the Earth Was Round?

Yes, at one point in time, all of humanity was composed of Flat Earthers. But it didn’t last as long as you may think. In fact, the idea that the Earth was round has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks.

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What Was the First Animal in Space?

What Was the First Animal in Space?

ByFabien

I was watching an episode of season 2 of Apple TV+’s For All Mankind the other day in which characters were talking about the first animal in space.

The series being an alternative history, I looked up online to know if they had changed bits of the real story and discovered that people search about it in a way that could fit in my blog’s theme—and this gave me an excuse to write about that here.

Yes, I now introduce a new category of articles, not about inventions and discoveries, just about “the firsts.” Of course, it probably will be about inventions and discoveries, but not only. Let’s begin…

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Who Invented the Sewing Machine?

Who Invented the Sewing Machine?

ByFabien

The other I walked past a storefront displaying modern sewing machine models and the price was … high. Surprising for a machine that was so common since… Yes, since when and:

Who Created the Sewing Machine?

For those who are a bit young, a sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Before that, sewing was manual work, and you can still do it that way, but in the clothing industry, it was a revolution.

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Who Invented Aspirin?

Who Invented Aspirin?

ByFabien

I was reading “The Doomsday Book” by Connie Willis the other day. It’s about a pandemic and time travel to medieval times, not always the lightest read as you may imagine. At some point a young character remarked aspirin, thinking it was always there. But in truth, it was not.

Who Created Aspirin?

Everybody knows what aspirin is, of course: a white crystalline derivative C9H8O4 of salicylic acid used for relief of pain and fever, as Merriam-Webster explains it. Aspirin must be synthesized, it does not occur in nature.

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Who Invented the Word Nerd?

Who Invented the Word Nerd?

ByFabien

Being a French, I’m sometimes a little confused about some English words. It’s not surprising, in every language, people just invent new words all the time. I’m also regularly confused when I’m listening to French people talking.

I started this blog as an exercise to just be better at writing in English. It makes sense that I’m starting to look into the vocabulary field. Let’s start with a weird one:

Who Created the Word Nerd?

In France, because of our frequent contact with American culture, we have adopted words like Geeks and Nerds, kind of. I suppose that The Big Bang Theory is also popular here.

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Who Invented the Flush Toilet?

Who Invented the Flush Toilet?

ByFabien

I usually wrote an introduction to explain how I ended up asking myself the question leading to this article. Sometimes, it’s about what I’m reading, watching on TV, or just doing with my life. In this particular case, I’m not sure it’s necessary. I mean, you probably can guess where I was when I thought of:

Who Created the Flush Toilet?

The answer is definitely not Thomas Crapper! Yes, it would have been perfect, but it’s just a joke that took a life of itself. The idea originated from a spoof biography titled “Flushed with Pride” written by Wallace Reyburn and published in 1969.

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Who Invented the Telescope?

Who Invented the Telescope?

ByFabien

Have you ever read H.G. Wells’ War of the World? It was first serialized in 1897, and the main character goes to an astronomical observatory to see explosions on the surface of the planet Mars at the beginning. This made me feel like I really don’t know anything about the history of astronomy (I already know I didn’t know a lot about astronomy already, except for that Pluto story). I asked myself:

Who Created the Telescope?

Before exploring the history of the invention of the telescope, what is a telescope? Let’s take a look at Merriam-Webster’s definition:

A usually tubular optical instrument for viewing distant objects by means of the refraction of light rays through a lens or the reflection of light rays by a concave mirror.

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Who Invented the Piano?

Who Invented the Piano?

ByFabien

For some time now, I’m house hunting. I noticed that houses for rich people often have a piano in them. Maybe it’s a regional thing, but it led me to think about:

Who Created the Piano?

Originally, we didn’t talk about “piano,” but about the pianoforte, because it’s an Italian invention—the name being itself derived from clavicembalo col piano e forte (harpsichord with soft and loud).

The piano evolved from previous instruments such as the clavichord, harpsichord, and dulcimer. Based on its predecessor, it was determined that the piano can be classified as a string instrument but also as a percussion instrument because of the hammer that strikes those strings.

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Who Invented Psychedelic Art?

Who Invented Psychedelic Art?

ByFabien

This week, Cartoonist Kayfabe—a comic book YouTube channel—did a video entitled “Who Invented Psychedelic Art?” about the work of artist L.B. Cole. Watching the video, I never get the answer to the question and I went online to seek it.

Who Created Psychedelic Art?

Well, first, what is Psychedelic Art? According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of psychedelic is:

of, relating to, characteristic of, or being the period of the mid-to-late-1960s that is associated with the psychedelic drug culture.

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Who invented Buffalo Wings?

Who invented Buffalo Wings?

ByFabien

It’s been awhile since I talk about food—since I looked into the history of Peanut Butter. But I was looking into some recipes recently and this led me on a road that ended with Buffalo wings. It picked my curiosity:

Who Created Buffalo Wings?

Weirdly enough, it’s not clear. There are contradictory testimony, confusion about dates, and bars… But it definitely came from Buffalo, New York. We are going to start with the most popular story.

“It was Friday night in the bar and since people were buying a lot of drinks he wanted to do something nice for them at midnight when the mostly Catholic patrons would be able to eat meat again.” — Dominic Bellissimo, New Yorker Magazine, 1980.

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Who invented the GIF?

Who invented the GIF?

ByFabien

I first connected to the Internet at the end of the 1990s, and there were already GIFs. It was mostly little animated logos, some arrows bouncing around, that kind of stuff. I never really thought about it until this week when the death of the creator of the GIF was announced. I was like…

Who Created the GIF?

As you may know, it’s pronounced “JIF.” As you may not know, GIF is the abbreviation for Graphics Interchange Format. As the Cambridge Dictionary explained it, a GIF is a type of computer file, a bitmap image format, that contains a still or moving image.

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Who Invented Cinema?

Who Invented Cinema?

ByFabien

I sometimes cite books I read, but I also watch a lot of movies! I know, not really original. Also, I read books about the history of cinema and other actors’ biography. But I’ve never really taken a look at the origin of the medium. Until today!

Who Created Cinema?

First, as always, we are taking a look at the definition of the word. Merriam-Webster is telling us that cinema is:

1 a: MOTION PICTURE—usually used attributively
b: a motion-picture theater
2 a: MOVIES (especially: the film industry)
b: the art or technique of making motion pictures

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