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Mattel
The first name I looked up was Mattel, you know, the toy giant. I found that the company was founded in 1944 in a rented garage by Ruth
Handler. The company never achieved superstardom until Barbie Millicent Roberts stole the show. Yes, you guessed it, the Barbie doll in 1959. Since then, Mattel has introduced many
successful toys including Hot Wheels, Chatty Cathy, and many others. They also produced a few failures, one notable was the Intellivision, a short-lived TV game to compete with the successful
Atari game system. If you look around at some of the larger game shops, you'll find the classic Intellivision games for your PC. I found the package in March, 2005 at Sam's Club, though
on another trip, they were no longer available.
Palmolive
What an odd name; Palmolive. Dishwashing detergent starring Madge as the soft-hands guru. But how did it really get its
name? I found this story.
Peet Brothers was a Kansas based soap manufacturer that was founded in 1872. Their products included Crystal White Laundry Soap, Crystal
White Soap Flakes, Creme Oil Toilet Soap, Imperial Peroxide Toilet Soap, Sea Foam Naphtha Washing Powder, Borax Washing Compound, and many others. The company's main plant was located in Kansas
City.
In 1864, Caleb Johnson founded a soap company called B.J. Johnson Soap Co., in Milwaukee. In 1898, this company introduced a soap made of palm and olive oils, called Palmolive. It was so
successful that that the B.J. Johnson Soap Co. changed their name to Palmolive in 1917. In 1927, Palmolive merged with Peet Brothers to became Palmolive Peet.
In 1928, Palmolive - Peet joined
the Colgate Company to create the Colgate-Palmolive- Peet Company. In 1953, the company's name was simplified to Colgate-Palmolive.
The First E-mail Message Ever!
Sometime in late 1971, a computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson sent the first e-mail message. "I sent a number of test messages to
myself from one machine to the other," he recalls now. "The test messages were entirely forgettable. . . . Most likely the first message was QWERTYIOP or something similar."
First Motor Driven Vehicle
In 1769, the first self-propelled road vehicle was a three-wheeled military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph
Cugnot (1725 - 1804). He used a steam engine to power his vehicle built per his specs at the Paris Arsenal by mechanic Brezin. The French Army used it to haul artillery at a speed of just 2 1/2 mph.
As useful as this new gadget was, it had its drawbacks. It's main limitation was that it had to be stopped about ever fifteen minutes to build up steam!
In 1771, Cugnot drove one of his speedy little tractors into a stone wall, making him the first person EVER to get into a motor vehicle
accident. Due to lack of funding and personal disasters, Cugnot's experiments with motor vehicles ended shortly afterwards.
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