A First Time for Everything

Our lives are filled with so many firsts. Our first pair of baby shoes, first haircut, first day of classes, first kiss. When you think about it, we live our lives in a series of first-time events. Every "first" is a marker, a milestone, a pivot that shifts the trajectory of our personal stories. It's these firsts that punctuate the mundane, transforming the ordinary into the memorable.

Consider, then, the firsts that have shaped not just individual lives, but the course of human history. The first flicker of an electric light bulb, the inaugural flight of an airplane, the initial keystrokes on a computer keyboard. These moments weren't just groundbreaking; they were ground-making, laying the foundation for the modern world we inhabit today. Yet, behind each of these innovations lies a cornucopia of trial, error, and oftentimes, just sheer serendipity.

But how often do we pause to ponder the origin stories of some of the everyday objects and technologies we now take for granted? From the humble beginnings of the telephone to the revolutionary inception of the internet, each invention has a tale that is as fascinating as it is illuminating. As we delve into these narratives, we'll uncover the curious and sometimes quirky journeys that led to the firsts which continue to shape our lives in ways we might never have imagined. So, let’s embark on this exploration of firsts, and appreciate the ingenuity and audacity of those who dared to dream them into existence.

The Eruption of the Bicycle: The eruption of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa in 1815 had a significant, albeit indirect, impact on the invention of the bicycle. This catastrophic event, one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history, spewed vast amounts of volcanic ash into the atmosphere, leading to dramatic climate anomalies.

The following year, 1816, became known as the "Year Without a Summer" due to the severe global cooling effects, which resulted in widespread crop failures and food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. The agricultural crisis caused by the eruption led to a shortage of fodder for horses, which were a primary means of transportation at the time. In response to this shortage, there was a pressing need to develop alternative forms of transportation that did not rely on animal power. It was against this backdrop that Baron Karl von Drais invented the "Draisine" in 1817.

His human-powered, two-wheeled invention, also known as the "running machine" or "hobby horse," was conceived as a practical solution to the transportation challenges posed by the post-Tambora climate disruptions. Thus, the eruption of Mount Tambora indirectly spurred the innovation that eventually led to the development of the modern bicycle.

·      On January 25, 1979, Robert Williams became the first human to be killed by a robot. He died when he was hit on the head by a mechanical arm at a Ford casting plant.

WWI Gave us Kleenex: One of many inventions that can attribute its success to World War I is disposable tissues. Before the tissues were known as such, the Kimberly-Clark Corporation developed them as cheaply produced paper-based liners for gas masks. These tissues replaced the inside of wartime respirators only when a cotton shortage occurred, as cotton was a precious commodity for field dressings and bandages. After the war, Kimberly-Clark came up with the idea in 1924 of repurposing these tissues as disposable face towels women could use to remove makeup.

By the early 1930’s, through consumer feedback and strategic marketing, Kimberly-Clark realized that people were using these tissues to blow their noses. The company changed its marketing strategy and relabeled the disposable face towels as disposable tissues, and Kleenex was born.

·      In 1903, The Great Train Robbery was released becoming the first action movie, the first fiction film, and the first American western. It was 10 minutes long and had 14 scenes.

The First Casino in America: Say the words “America” and “casino” in a single sentence, and most people will picture only one place. Glittering Las Vegas basically is American gambling, and it’s tempting to assume that the first casinos on the continent appeared here. However, you’d have to go back a whole lot further than the founding of Sin City to find the first American casino.

In 2015, archaeologists uncovered a treasure trove of gambling material in a cave in, ironically of all places, the US state of Utah. Used long ago by an obscure Native American tribe known as the Promontory people, it appeared to be a place where elites of the time gathered to bet on dice games in multiple caves. This casino existed sometime in the 13th century.

It’s thought that the casino might have been a way for the Promontory to build social bonds with their neighbors and thus avoid being annihilated in a war for resources. If that was the plan, it certainly worked. Even as other Utah tribes were in decline, the Promontory were going from strength to strength, proof, perhaps, that there is a positive side to gambling after all.

·      In 1883 Sir Hiram Maxim created the Maxim gun. It was the world’s first machine gun which would go on to revolutionize warfare and was used in both World Wars.

The First Ransom Note In US History: When Christian Ross of Philadelphia opened a letter on July 4, 1874, he had no idea that he was holding a slice of US history in his hands. If he had known, it’s unlikely he would have cared.

The dry goods merchant was worried sick. His four-year-old son Charles had vanished three days earlier, and the city’s fledgling police department had been no help at all. The official line was that Charles had been taken by drunks who would return him “once they had sobered up.” The letter suggested otherwise. Inside was a demand for $20,000 (more than $550,000 in today’s money) to get Charles back. It was the first ransom letter sent in US history.

Even in today’s age of international manhunts and mass media, the reaction to the letter seems remarkable. Terrified of looking incompetent, the Philadelphia police searched literally every single building in the city. They also posted a $20,000 reward, which probably did more harm than good as the parents of over 600 children tried dressing their sons up and passing them off as Charles in order to claim the reward money. Across the country, roughly half a million ordinary Americans helped search for the missing boy, to no avail. Although his kidnappers were either killed in a botched robbery a few months after the kidnapping, Charles Ross was never seen again. Meanwhile, the ransom note itself (and 23 further ones that followed it) vanished forever, or so it seemed. In 2013, they turned up in a school librarian’s house.

How they got there is a mystery.

·      In 1976, Cray-1 became the world’s first supercomputer. It was installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States and cost $8.8 million.

The Rocket Science Behind the Super Soaker: We assume that the scientists at NASA spend all day working on warp drives and teleporters and such. We figure they're occupied with important science stuff way above our pay grade. Like engineer Lonnie Johnson: He spent his days working in NASA's jet propulsion lab in Pasadena as part of the team that built Voyager, Galileo, and the Mars Observer spacecraft. He helped test the stealth bomber and developed new systems for nuclear reactors. But if you check out his Wikipedia page it barely mentions NASA, instead choosing to focus on other, much more important accomplishments, like a really, really effective toy squirt gun.

Johnson's major contribution to society came in 1982 while he was screwing around at home working on something silly and trivial, like a new type of heat pump. Heat pumps normally use Freon gas, but Johnson was trying to make one that worked off of water alone. When he switched on the pump, water fired out and slammed into the shower curtain with way more force than he’d expected, and the idea of heat transfer suddenly seemed a whole lot less interesting than shooting some poor son of a bitch right in the face with it.

So Johnson turned his new pumping system into the Super Soaker, and Larami Corporation marketed it with the slogan "Wetter is better" (a suspiciously adult slogan for a children's toy…). The product brought in nearly a billion US dollars after a decade of sales, and Johnson used that money to do the responsible thing: That one silly invention has helped his research company develop new methods for generating electricity from heat and more efficient ways to store energy in batteries. And, more importantly, he created a device that beeps when your baby pees.

·      The first video game. Often a source of controversy, if you bypass the whole digital thing, the first time any game was played on a screen was in 1947. Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann created something called the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device. It was a missile simulator that used analog circuitry.

A Lot Later Than You’d Think: Of all the revolutionary technologies we take for granted nowadays, few are more unassuming than the doorknob. That must be pretty high up there on the list of inventions by chronological order, right? Fire, wheel, beer, doorknob. After all, even the Flintstones' house had a doorknob - and we’re pretty sure that that show was rigorously fact-checked for accuracy...

But no, the modern doorknob didn't exist until 1878, when an African-American inventor named Osbourn Dorsey conceived it. Before that, people could only latch doors shut with heavy bars. Dorsey's design aimed to provide a more efficient and practical means of opening and closing doors, enhancing both security and ease of use.

In addition, it provided us all an easy way to keep our stuff safe.

·      The first flashmob confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records took place in New York City in a New York City shop in 2003. Police were tipped off beforehand though.

The First Female President of the United States: No, that’s not a prediction of things to come, nor is it a misprint. Because, in reality, it’s actually already happened. In October 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a titanic stroke that left him bedridden, incoherent, and in need of constant monitoring. Vice President Thomas Marshall moved to have Congress declare Wilson incapacitated, making him de facto president. Unfortunately for Marshall, Wilson had other ideas – and we’re not talking about Woodrow. Edith Wilson shut her husband up in a bedroom to recover and proceeded to take over as acting president.

For the next four months, Edith oversaw meetings, saw governors, senators, congressmen, met with the press and conducted the White House’s internal affairs. While never sworn in, she did everything a president has to do, including making life-or-death decisions that affected millions worldwide. It has even been suggested that she didn’t consult her husband on many of these decisions, meaning that Edith was for all intents and purposes running the country.

Of course, calling Edith the “first” female president depends on how you define “president.” Edith never took an oath of office, potentially disqualifying her. She wasn’t elected, either, but then neither was Gerald Ford. On the other hand, she did everything we expect a president to do. 

·      The first detection of planetary life by a spaceprobe occurred when the Galileo spacecraft made a flyby of Earth on December 8, 1990. During this flyby, scientists decided to use Galileo's instruments to probe Earth for signs of life as if it were an alien planet. They successfully detected the presence of chlorophyll, oxygen, and methane, all of which are indicators of life.

The First Rock: No, we’re not talking about Elvis here. We’re talking about that thing that’s so closely related to a hard place. While we sort of assume that they’ve just been around forever, there actually had to be a first rock on earth somewhere. Well, researchers at McGill University in Canada have discovered the oldest rocks on Earth. As old as 4.28 billion years, these rocks, known as "faux-amphibolites", may be remnants of a portion of Earth's primordial crust - the first crust that formed at the surface of our planet.

·      The first aerial bombardment occurred in 1849 when the Austrians launched several hundred unmanned balloons with the intention of dropping time-triggered bombs over Venice, Italy. Winds were not in their favor and there were very few casualties.

The First Strike: The first known strike in history took place in ancient Egypt on November 14, 1152 BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses III. This strike was carried out by the artisans and workers who were constructing the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

The reason for the strike was primarily due to delays in the delivery of grain rations, which were a critical part of the workers' compensation. The workers became increasingly frustrated with the lack of supplies and the poor working conditions, prompting them to organize and protest. The strike is significant not only because it is the first recorded instance of a labor strike but also because it was documented in detail on a papyrus.

This document provides a vivid account of the events, including the workers' demands and the response from the authorities. According to the papyrus, the workers marched to the mortuary temple of Ramses III and voiced their grievances to the officials. They demanded their overdue rations and refused to continue working until their needs were met. The strike was initially met with resistance, but the persistence of the workers eventually led to negotiations and the fulfillment of their demands. This historical event highlights the early recognition of workers' rights and the power of collective action, setting a precedent for labor movements throughout history.

·      The first perfect Pac-Man score of 3,333,360 points was achieved by Billy Mitchell of the USA on July 3, 1999. A perfect score requires a player to complete all 256 levels without losing a single life and eating every dot, power pellet, fruit, and blue ghost possible.  

The First Barcode: The first barcode was invented by Joe Woodland, who thought up the concept while on a beach trip in Miami. The idea behind the barcode design was Morse code. It wasn’t until advancements in technology years later that Woodland was able to put his invention into practice. In 1972 the barcode’s first trial was done at a check stand in a supermarket, with much success. However, if there were to be a true change in how supermarkets sold products, a universal code was needed. The first code Woodland had designed was circular, and this required adapting, which George Laurer did by developing a rectangular universal code.

On June 8, 1974, the first barcode used on a product appeared on a 10-piece pack of Wrigley's gum.

At 8 am, the gum's barcode was scanned at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, OH.

Ever since, the barcode has remained practically indispensable to our daily lives.

·      On April 3, 1973, Motorola employee Martin Cooper made the first cellphone call, standing outdoors in Manhattan, to Dr. Joel S. Engel, head of competitor Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Cooper made the call on a Motorola DynaTAC, a device that was nine inches long, had just 35 minutes of talk time, and took 10 hours to recharge.

The First Commercial/Passenger Flight: We’ve all heard of the Wright Brothers and their groundbreaking first flight at Kitty Hawk in December of 1903. Well, the first passenger flight hasn’t got quite as much recognition. Aviation history was made on January 1, 1914 when the first commercial flight in aviation history took place. The flight was operated by the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, an early airline established by aviation pioneer Thomas Benoist. The journey was made in a Benoist XIV biplane, piloted by Tony Jannus, a noted aviator of the time.

The inaugural flight carried a single passenger, Abram C. Pheil, the former mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, who paid $400 for the privilege. The flight covered a distance of approximately 18 miles across Tampa Bay, from St. Petersburg to Tampa, Florida, and took about 23 minutes to complete. This was incredible for the time, as previously it would take travelers 11 hours to travel between St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay by railway. The airboat line was not in business for long, but it is believed to have transported 1,204 passengers while it was.

·      Dave Kunst of Waseca, Minnesota, at 35 years old, became the first verified person to circle the globe on foot, completing the more than four-year odyssey on Oct. 5, 1974. Kunst went through 21 pairs of footwear to complete the 14,500-mile journey, crossing four continents. 

And Speaking of Flying: On November 21, 1783, Marquis d’Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier became the first humans to fly when they went up in a hot-air balloon. Their Parisian sky ride lasted for 20 minutes but inspired centuries of inventors, dreamers, and jigsaw-puzzle makers.

·      The first author to earn $1 billion USD from writing alone was J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. Need we say more?

Me at The Zoo: After endless cat and other animals doing funny things videos on YouTube, it’s interesting to think that, at one point in time there had to be a first video uploaded. There was and, perhaps not surprisingly, it was an animal video. The first ever video on YouTube was uploaded on April 23, 2005, by one of the platform's co-founders, Jawed Karim.

The video, titled "Me at the zoo," features Karim himself at the San Diego Zoo. In the 19-second clip, Karim stands in front of an elephant enclosure and briefly talks about the elephants' trunks and why they are interesting. This video marked the beginning of YouTube's journey as a major video-sharing platform. It was created to test the functionality of the website and to demonstrate how easy it was for users to upload and share videos online. "Me at the zoo" remains a significant piece of internet history, symbolizing the launch of what would become one of the most influential social media platforms in the world.

·      The first hourglass was created in the eighth century AD by a French monk named Liutprand. It’s said to have played a significant part in the Age of Discovery since it was used aboard ships without being affected by waves, motion, of water. Later, it would become a vital part of board games.

The First Marathon Runner: According to legend, in 490 BC, Pheidippides, a Greek messenger, ran the first marathon. He hoofed it 25 miles from the battle of Marathon to Athens to deliver the news that Greece had won, at which point he keeled over and died from exhaustion.

This happy tale inspired modern runners to follow suit by running their own 25-mile race. Modern-day marathons are now 26.2 miles, the distance between the lawn of Windsor Castle and the royal box at the Olympic stadium after a request by Queen Alexandra in 1908.

·      The first microwave oven was patented on October 8, 1945. The first test “subject” was popcorn.

And the Darwin Award Goes To: The Darwin awards were founded in 1993 to commemorate people “…who tip chlorine into our gene pool, by accidentally removing their own DNA from it during the spectacular climax of a 'great idea' gone veddy, veddy wrong.” Nominee’s must be dead or rendered sterile through their own, generally astoundingly stupid actions. We love the Darwin awards, and the very first winner was an unnamed man who died while trying to steal a soda from a vending machine, inadvertently tipping it over and crushing himself.

And we can think of no better to end this week’s post on than with a “tip of the hat” to the Darwin Awards. History is often seen through the lens of grand battles, monumental discoveries, and profound cultural shifts. Yet, it's in the odd and often overlooked firsts where the essence of the human spirit and ingenuity truly shines. These peculiar milestones, from the first labor strike in ancient Egypt to the unprecedented perfect score in PAC-MAN, tell us more about the relentless pursuit of fairness and mastery than many grander tales. They reveal the raw, unfiltered determination that has always driven us, whether carving out workers' rights under the watchful eyes of Pharaohs or pushing the limits of what can be achieved in a pixelated maze.

The artisans of the Royal Necropolis, fed up with empty promises and hollow stomachs, didn't just halt their chisels and hammers—they etched their demand for dignity into history itself. Their strike wasn't just about rations; it was a declaration of their humanity and worth. Millennia later, in a different kind of maze, Billy Mitchell didn't just rack up points; he mapped out the seemingly impossible and made it a challenge for everyone who followed. Each power pellet he munched was a small defiance against the game's intended limitations, a testament to human perseverance and obsession.

These stories are reminders that the drive for justice and excellence often starts in the most unexpected places. They underscore the truth that every great leap, every stride forward, begins with someone daring to do something differently. In recognizing these strange firsts, we see the threads that connect us to those who came before, each one a quiet rebellion, a step toward a world where limits are tested, and boundaries pushed. It's in these moments of peculiar triumph that we find the raw core of what it means to be human: to strive, to challenge, and to persist against the odds.

See you next week!

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