ATMs

Inventor Luther Simjian moved to America from Armenia at the age of just 16. He later took over 200 different patents for inventions that ranged from flying simulators to computerized indoor golf ranges. In 1939 Simjian started planning the world’s first working ATM. However, only in the 1960s was he able to get a New York City bank (today’s Citicorp) to install his invention in their branches. The machine was not trusted by the public. “It seems the only people using the machines were a small number of prostitutes and gamblers who didn’t want to deal with tellers face to face,” Simjian revealed.

Superglue

Superglue was an accidental invention because the inventor intended on manufacturing gun sights. Dr. Harry Coover, who was an employee at Kodak realized that the chemical he was using was able to bond exceptionally well. They could be stuck together and was extremely difficult to separate. He abandoned the project but it ultimately came into the civilian market in 1958, 16 years following its actual invention.

Medical Penicillin

Do you know who Howard Florey is? Well, he was the Australian scientist who took the initiative to study the science behind what we now call medical penicillin. He was not a friendly man and had even been quoted as saying “I would work with the devil himself-if he were good enough”. In 1938 Florey began his work with a small group of scientists along with Ernst Boris Chain. The duo later won the Nobel Prize for Medicine along with Sir Alexander Fleming.

Space Technologies

Using German technology that was utilized for the construction of the V2 rocket, the Americans and Russians soon began launching their first satellites. The landing on the moon happened and the International Space Station was established. Now we can learn a lot about the universe, more than ever. We can now make use of satellites and our lives have become simpler and more complex than ever due to these scientific advancements.

Nescafe

There was a time in history that surplus coffee beans were left unused in warehouses in Brazil. This took place during the time of the Great Depression so buyers demanded some change. It was then that Nestle came up with a way to tackle this issue. Soluble coffee had been produced but not in the way that Nestle’s revolutionary 1938 process of drying the coffee extract with carbohydrates did.

Radar

The British did a lot of work in perfecting this. During the time of the Battle of Britain, the need for detecting incoming air-raids was on an all-time high. This paved way for the radar to be innovated. This is still used in our day to day lives in the form of speed cameras. The most common yellow box speed-cameras make use of radar technology in determining the speed at which photos are taken.