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January 19 is Tin Can Day

January 19, 2017/0 Comments/in January

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.

January 13 is National Rubber Ducky Day

January 13, 2017/0 Comments/in January

Today 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.

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!

January 9 is Aviation in America Day

January 9, 2017/0 Comments/in January

Today is Aviation in America Day and commemorates the first balloon ride in the U.S. on January 9, 1793. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, aeronaut extraordinaire, had previously ascended 44 times in cities around the world.

He launched his balloon from the prison yard of Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, PA, and landed in Deptford Township, NJ, 46 minutes later. One of the flight’s witnesses that day was President George Washington.

Blanchard believed he would grow rich from this endeavor despite the faulty business model of selling tickets to something that could be observed from pretty much anywhere for free.

Under the auspices of Philadelphia governor Thomas Mifflin, Blanchard was able to build an “aerostatical laboratory” to hold his balloon, basket and mechanical oddities. It was open to the public every day; admission cost 25 cents per person.

This did not generate enough cash to mount a new expedition. Blanchard hit upon the idea of flying small balloons with animals that would be fitted with crude parachutes, ejected automatically by a fuse and float to earth.

The first drop of a dog, cat and squirrel took place on June 6, 1793. Unfortunately, it was witnessed by “few paying, but many nonpaying spectators,” according to the General Advertiser. There is no reference to the health status of the tiny aeronauts.

Later that year, Blanchard claimed to have escaped his burning balloon with the aid of his (much larger) parachute. There were no witnesses to confirm this event, but he is credited with developing the first foldable parachute made from silk, without a rigid frame. Fido and Mr. Whiskers received no such accolades.

In 1809, the French adventurer died. There are conflicting accounts of the circumstances of his demise. Some state that he had a heart attack before a scheduled balloon flight in Paris. Others insist the heart attack occurred while aloft and caused him to fall from his balloon at The Hague.

Whether he fell from a height of five feet or five hundred feet, the result was the same. He died and today we remember him, not as a businessman, but for his inventive use of animal testing. Happy Aviation in America Day!

December 9 is Cremation Day

December 9, 2016/0 Comments/in December

Cremation Day

On December 9, 1792, the first open air cremation on record in the United States took place in Charleston, South Carolina. The decedent was Colonel Henry Laurens, former president of the Continental Congress, who had once co-owned the largest slave trading company in North America.

Laurens, who suffered from a fear of being buried alive, stipulated in his will that his body be burned on the grounds of his plantation. (One wonders why it never occurred to him to be afraid of being burned alive.) His ashes were then placed in an urn and buried in the family cemetery.

The plantation is now a Trappist monastery, exposed by PETA in 2007 for starving chickens for weeks to increase egg production. Now the monks raise mushrooms instead.

Humble Beginnings

Cremation dates back to ancient Greece and Rome where urns called amphorae were used to store the ashes of the cremated. The Greeks buried them under mounds of earth and stone. Romans built columbaria, vaults containing niches to hold the urns.

Vikings burned the dead atop funeral pyres. They did not place the deceased in boats and set them ablaze. An untended fire over water could not reach or maintain a temperature high enough to incinerate a body, leaving charred remains to be picked apart by birds or washed ashore.

Also, boats were much too valuable to burn every time someone died. They would have spent all their time shipbuilding. Ship captains were sometimes buried with a small ceremonial ship. One of these boats dating back to the 9th century was unearthed in Norway in 1904. It contained sacrificial women and livestock but no burnt timber. Sorry, Hollywood.

The first cremation chamber, called a retort, was constructed by Professor Ludovico Brunetti and introduced at the Vienna Medical Exhibition of 1873. He displayed the furnace with four pounds of cremated human remains and a sign that read: “Vermibus erepti–Puro consumimur igni” (Saved from the worms–Consumed by the purifying flame).”

Dr. Francis J. LeMoyne constructed America’s first modern crematory in 1876 on property he owned in Washington, Pennsylvania, after the local cemetery refused to host it. Housed in a simple brick building, it remains in remarkable condition 139 years later. (Tours are available the second Saturday of May through September from 2 to 4 pm.)

As luck would have it, the New York Cremation Society had just come into possession of its first dead body, Baron Joseph Henry Louis Charles De Palm, a German aristocrat who had apparently died without a penny to his name(s).

The society contacted LeMoyne and requested the use of his facility, seeing it as an opportunity to showcase the superiority of cremation. On December 6, 1876, surrounded by a throng of reporters, scientists and physicians, the baron’s body was produced.

Unfortunately, DePalm had been dead for six months, poorly preserved with potter’s clay and phenol. The gruesome sight of the withered, shrunken corpse did not further the cause. Though the procedure went well, the herbs and pine branches could not alleviate the stench. Newspaper accounts were less than glowing.

It’s said that Dr. LeMoyne built the crematory due to his own fear of being buried alive. (Honestly, does anyone look forward to that possibility?) He died in 1879 and, in accordance with his wishes, was cremated on the premises.

Happy Endings

Cremation’s acceptance grew slowly. Between 1876 and 1901, 25 new crematories were built around the U.S. There were 52 by the time of the Cremation Association of America’s founding in 1913. More than 10,000 cremations took place that year.

Bronze urns became fashionable in the 1920s, some so heavy the floors underneath had to be reinforced. Various styles were favored across the country. Round ones were preferred in the Northeast while rectangular and book shapes sold well on the West Coast. In the Midwest, book, box and vase models were popular, according to Jason Engler, Senior Cremation Advisor to the National Museum of Funeral History, which can be rented for parties and has a lovely gift shop with great items like this “Any Day Above Ground is a Good One®” beer koozie.

In the 1980s, bronze prices soared and urns made of aluminum, cloisonné and other lower-cost materials made post-cremation receptacles affordable to the masses. Times have changed since then: Of the 1.4 million people cremated in the U.S. in 2014, over 300,000 chose to be scattered rather than stored.

If only they’d known about LifeGem, a company that turns ashes into a cocktail ring. Just seal no more than eight ounces of your loved one in a plastic container and ship. (Add a lock of your hair to create a “unity LifeGem heirloom diamond.” Why should the dead have all the fun?)

The carbon is extracted and superheated, which “converts your loved one’s carbon to graphite with unique characteristics and elements that will create your one-of-a-kind LifeGem diamond.” What kind of graphite? Like a pencil? A fishing rod? Fuselage? A neutron moderator in a nuclear reactor?

Specialists transfer the graphite to a machine that will heat and compress it for several weeks. At this point, any resemblance to your loved one is purely ceremonial, DNA long gone, so it’s faceted and etched with your choice of messages to guarantee its uniqueness.

A half-carat colorless LifeGem costs $7,899. Volume discounts are available. Now everyone can have a piece of Grandpa. Just make sure you take him off when you wash the dishes.

Happy Cremation Day!

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