Though there were water clocks (invented by the Greeks in 250 BC), striking clocks were invented by the Buddhist monk Yi Xing (in the 6th century). The first mechanical alarm clock was invented by Taqial-Din of the Ottoman Empire in 1559. But the patent holder for the above clock was French inventor Antoine Redier in 1847. The use of the …

The indoor game of ‘real’ tennis was played in the Middle Age. During the 19th century it overflowed on to the lawn, where players made up their own rules. In 1874 Major Walter Wingfield invented rules for lawn tennis. Even by 1890, however, ‘real’ tennis rackets were still being used.

The Potato chip was invented in 1853 by George Crum, Moon Lake Lodge resort in Saratoga Springs, USA. French fries were popular at the restaurant and one day a diner complained that the fries were to thick. Although Crum made a thinner batch, the customer was sill unsatisfied. Crum finally made fries that were to thin to eat with a …

The Popsicle was invented by 11 year old Frank Epperson in 1905 quite by accident. Epperson had left a fruit drink out overnight with a stirrer in it, and it froze, making a new treat. Originally called ‘Epsicle’, it was later renamed the Popsicle.

Hello, Hullo, Hallo, Hull-oo-oo-oo. You may say it softly or you may holler at the top of your voice, but the person at the other end knows that all you are trying to do is get in touch with a greeting. Legend has it that Thomas Alva Edison was the first to say hello over the telephone. But Edison didn’t …

Dr. John stith pemberton (1830-1888) was an American pharmacist, who invented Coca in 1886. He had invented a very popular drink called French wine of Coca, which contained French Bordeaux wine, cocaine and caffeine (from the Kola nut). With the band of alcohol consumption in 1885, Pemberton changed the formula omitting the French wine. Instead, he added sugar and citric …

Two relatively obscure captains, Arthur Barlow and Philip Amada, were sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to explore the New World. They sailed along the coast between Chesapeake Bay and Florida and claimed the whole area in the name of Queen Elizabeth I. When they returned to England in 1584 they reported to Raleigh that the land they had found was …

George Calvert was a favourite courtier of King James I, who made him Lord Baltimore and promised him a grant of land in the region of Newfoundland. Baltimore sailed for his new territory but decided that the place was too cold and barren for him. He complained, and the new king, Charles I, agreed to give him part of Virginia …

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, all early employees of PayPal, founded YouTube. Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was founded on February 15, 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC, was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now …

The Red Cross was founded by a Swiss, Jean Henri Dunant, after he had witnessed the terrible plight of the wounded at the Battle of Solferino in 1859. Five years later, in 1864, the first Geneva convention was called to establish a code of conduct for nations at war, and Dunant obtained the convention’s agreement that both wounded soldiers and …