Posts

January 28 is National Kazoo Day

Today is National Kazoo Day when kazoo players celebrate the long history of the instrument in America.

national kazoo dayNo one knows the exact date of the kazoo’s invention. A popular story holds that it was designed in the 1840s by an African-American man named Alabama Vest.

German clockmaker Thaddeus Von Clegg constructed a prototype which Vest introduced at the 1852 Georgia State Fair as the “Down-South Submarine.”

The closest we can get to verifying that account is to confirm that a state fair did occur in Macon, Georgia in 1852.

The modern metal kazoo was patented by George D. Smith of Buffalo, New York, on May 27, 1902.

We don’t know why it wasn’t mass-produced until a dozen years later. The factory, which became known as the Original Kazoo Company, now operates a museum open to kazoo fans who are willing to make the pilgrimage to Eden, New York.

Down south? The Kazoo Museum in Beaufort, South Carolina, opened in 2007, has a “collection of nearly two-hundred unique kazoo-related items.” It’s located in a kazoo factory on 12 John Galt Road, an address sure to delight Ayn Rand fans.

Budding kazooists should keep in mind that the kazoo is a membranophone, which modifies the player’s voice via a vibrating membrane. Players must hum, not blow, into the kazoo, varying pitch and volume to produce different sounds.

Because no adnational kazoo dayvanced musical training is required, a player has the potential to become a virtuoso almost immediately. That fact may also be what keeps the kazoo from getting the respect it deserves.

Kazoo lovers across America are trying to change that with the Keep America Humming Campaign to Make the Kazoo the National Instrument. Campaign founder Barbara Stewart says:

“We have a national bird, a national song, and a national debt. Why not kazoo as a national instrument?” Why not?

Happy National Kazoo Day!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

January 27 is Thomas Crapper Day

thomas crapper dayToday is Thomas Crapper Day and commemorates the death, in 1910, of the man widely believed to have invented the flush toilet. Although that is, as they say, crap, Crapper was a shrewd marketer, leveraging his status as plumber to the British royal family to popularize indoor plumbing. He owned the first showroom of bathroom facilities and publicized the toilet at a time when no one spoke of such “necessities.”

Crapper is one small part of the largely untold history of the device that transformed the world. Humans have been building indoor plumbing for millennia. Excavations have shown evidence of flushing toilets dating back as far as 2600 B.C., during the mature Harappan phase of the Indus Valley Civilization.

John Harrington (also spelled Harington) invented a version in 1596 with a cord that, when pulled, would allow a rush of water from the “water closet,” flushing away waste. He installed one at his home and also built one for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I. He called it the Ajax as a play on”jakes,” a slang term for toilet in use at the time. He may be the reason we sometimes call it a “john.”

An author, Harrington wrote “A New Discourse upon a Stale Subject: The Metamorphosis of Ajax.” Superficially, its subject was his invention; in truth, it was a thinly-veiled allegory about political stercus (manure) poisoning the state. The book got him banished from court for a time, and the queen referred to him as her saucy godson.

(Side note: A scent called Stercus was introduced at Smell Festival 2014 in Bologna, Italy. The perfumer named his brand Orto Parisi to honor his grandfather, who fertilized his garden with his own excrement. The bottle was displayed on a slab of dried, pressed manure inside a golden frame. Order here if you dare.)

thomas crapper day

Yup, that’s a tray made of poop.

Fellow Brits refined Harrington’s design. Alexander Cumming invented the S-trap in 1775, which used a sliding valve called a “stink trap” to seal the bowl’s outlet and prevent sewer stench from entering the home. It is still in use today. Two years later, Samuel Prosser patented the “plunger closet,” which featured a separate flush tank.

After noticing that toilets he installed in London tended to freeze in winter, Joseph Bramah replaced the sliding valve with a hinged flap and also developed a float valve system for the flush tank. Many sources state that a coworker named Mr. Allen devised the apparatus. But Bramah received the patent in 1778 and, as a result, we can’t even find Allen’s first name in historical records. In 1852, George Jennings patented his own improvements and later constructed London’s first public toilets.

At last, we’re back to where we started. When did Thomas Crapper receive patent #4990, prominently featured in his advertisements? He didn’t. Albert Giblin was awarded patent #4990 for his “Improvements to Flushing Cisterns” in 1898. (Many sites mistakenly report the year as 1819. We have located the original patent and drawings.)

thomas crapper day

Adam Hart-Davis of Exnet used the British Library to painstakingly track down all patents awarded to Thomas Crapper. According to him, “Mr. Crapper took out exactly six, starting in 1881 (#1628) to do with ventilating house drains, and ending in 1893 (#11604) for a mechanism to flush a lavatory by means of a foot lever. None of his patents was #4990. None of his patents was for a valveless water-waste preventer (WWP).”

It’s possible that Giblin, of whom little else can be learned, sold his patent to Mr. Crapper. What we can state with certainty is that Thomas Crapper and Company, claiming to be “The Original Patentees and Manufacturers of Bathroom Appliances,” is still in business today.

The company website tells the story of Crapper’s design of the first automatic flush toilet with a springloaded seat that would fly up, pulling rods which would trigger the flushing action. Unfortunately, with time and use, the rubber buffers attached to the seat’s underside began to break down and become sticky.

“This caused the seat to remain down, attached to the loo pan for a few seconds as the user got to his feet. Seconds later the seat, under stress from the powerful springs, would free itself and sweep violently upwards – striking the unfortunate Victorian on the bare bottom!”

It became known as the “Bottom Slapper” and was not a commercial success. (One could say it was a hit and then it wasn’t.) We trust that the royal family, who contracted Crapper to install plumbing fixtures at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, were never subjected to that indignity.

thomas crapper day

Manhole covers bearing the company name have become minor tourist destinations. One in particular outside Westminster Abbey, another site supplied by Crapper, has become a popular spot to take brass rubbings. Some of the enthusiasm for this activity may be due to the misconception that the term “crap” as slang for human waste originated with Thomas Crapper. In fact, it predated him by hundreds of years.

He may have been indirectly responsible for the American habit of calling a toilet “the crapper.” Every time U.S. soldiers stationed in Britain during World War I used a bathroom, they saw “CRAPPER” in the porcelain of the toilet and sink. The association between “crap,” “Crapper,” and the act of crapping in a Crapper was so irresistibly hilarious that they brought it home with them, and their descendants continue to use it every day—-in word and deed.

thomas crapper day

If this holiday, focused as it is on a distasteful bodily function, seems undeserving of your attention, ask yourself this question: If you could only choose one, which could you live without? Your toilet or your iPhone?

Take that, Apple.

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

January 19 is Tin Can Day

tin can day

Today is Tin Can Day. On this date in 1825, the first U.S. patent for the invention of the tin can was awarded to  Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett. Like many things, the story of the tin can is not without intrigue. (Tintrigue?) A little history:

France

Paris confectioner Nicolas Appert invented a method of sealing foods in glass jars, then placing them in boiling water, effectively sterilizing them, decades before Louis Pasteur demonstrated that heat killed bacteria.

In 1810, Appert entered a competition sponsored by the French military. He won a cash prize in exchange for making his findings public. The preserved goods were a boon to the armed forces, especially the French navy, which had no fresh food for long stretches while at sea. Appert is considered by many to be the “father of canning,” despite never using cans.

England

There were drawbacks to Appert’s system: glass was heavy, fragile and prone to rupture from internal pressure. Later in 1810, British merchant Peter Durand received a patent from King George III to preserve foods in tinplated cans.

Durand is well-known as the inventor of the tin can but his patent application reveals it was “an invention communicated to him by a certain foreigner residing abroad.” Evidence suggests that Frenchman Philippe de Girard came to London and used Durand as an agent to patent his own creation.

On January 28, 1811, Sir Charles Blagden, a fellow of the Royal Society, wrote of Girard’s frequent visits to test his canned foods on the members. “M Girard came and brought his preserved foods…The broth had been kept since August last, he said. The milk and beef six weeks…His patent is taken out in the name of Durand.”

Why not file in France? Girard had recently designed a flax-spinning loom for which Napoleon promised a reward of one million francs but never paid. But there’s no record of Durand paying him for the rights.

In any case, Durand sold the British patent to Bryan Donkin for one thousand pounds. In 1818, Durand received a U.S. patent for the same design he’d sold in England. Perhaps Durand should be hailed, not as an inventor, but as a recycler. (Girard continued to innovate, without much financial success, until his death in 1844.)

United States

Until America won its independence in 1783, the power to grant patents was that of the British crown. The United States Constitution of 1787 first included provision for the Congress to issue patents:

The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The first Patent Act, “An Act to promote the progress of useful arts,” was enacted in 1790 and enabled any two of the secretary of state, the secretary of war, and the attorney general to grant patents lasting 14 years for new inventions and innovations that were “useful and important.”

We have finally arrived at our stated destination. Daggett and Kensett received their patent for the process of “preserving animal substances” on January 19, 1825. More than 4,000 patents had been granted in the United States by that time, one of them Durand’s.

So who should we credit for the tin can? We’re not sure but one person we should all thank is Ezra J. Warner, who patented the first can opener —decades later—on January 5, 1858.

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

January 13 is National Rubber Ducky Day

national rubber ducky dayToday is National Rubber Ducky Day, also known as Rubber Duckie Day. It is always celebrated on January 13th. While we could find no official birth certificate, we discovered some cool facts about the classic bath toy.

In the late 19th century, the burgeoning rubber industry introduced rubber tires, bouncy balls and all manner of molded items. The first rubber duck–a decoy, not a toy–was patented by George Nye on October 26, 1886.

The first patent for a rubber duck toy was issued on May 8, 1928, to L.L. Smart. It was weighted so when it was tipped, it would return to its upright position.

During World Wars I and II, rubber became a valuable commodity, subject to rationing.  Manufacturers began to make rubber duckies of cheap, readily-available vinyl plastic, but never changed the name. (“Vinyl plastic ducky” doesn’t have the same ring.)

The rubber duck as we know it was designed by Russian-American sculptor Peter Ganine, who patented the “uncapsizeable duck” on April 26, 1949, and reproduced it as a plastic floating toy.

national rubber duck day

Ganine was also known for his elaborate chess piece designs including the three-dimensional chess set featured on the Star Trek television series.

On February 25, 1970, a Muppet named Ernie on Sesame Street sang an ode to his favorite toy. “Rubber Duckie” reached 16 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

“Rubber Duckie, you’re the one. You make bathtime lots of fun. Rubber Duckie, I’m awfully fond of you.”

A shipment of 28,000 rubber ducks and other toys bound from China to Washington State went overboard in a storm on January 10, 1992.

Some floated north and became trapped in the Arctic ice pack, which slowly moves east. The trapped ducks traveled up to seven years in the ice before thawing in the North Atlantic and floating on to the eastern U.S., England, and the world. They’ve been washing ashore ever since.

Thousands are still floating today. The next time you go to the beach, you may find one waiting for you. It will have faded to white but will otherwise be ready to trade the open seas for your bathtub.

Happy National Rubber Ducky Day!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays