Famous Inventions

Since the dawn of civilization, there have been many famous inventions. Some inventions are wacky works of lunatics, some are insidious and destructive and others are boring yet useful items we take for granted in our daily lives. Below are some of the more benign and perhaps unexpected famous inventions from this mix. 

1. Soft Serve Ice Cream. J. Lyons and Company assembled a team of chemists and researchers in the 1940's to create a device that adds more air pockets to ice cream. On the research team was a chemist and British Prime Minister to be: Margaret Thatcher. Margaret may not have brought us world peace, but she did liven up our nights on the town with milky deliciousness. Every time you stop at Dairy Queen, remember this former Prime Minister. 
2. Birth Control Pills. In the old days, you couldn't get it on without expecting to treat a bunch of munchkins to a weekend at the zoo, healthcare and eighteen years of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Women loved the famous invention called "The Pill" in the early days because they were often the ones to raise the youngsters if the dad took off running. Margaret Sanger's famous invention hit the markets in 1960, 44 years after she first dreamt of the idea in 1960. Subsequent doomsday prophecies have been issued by popes and religious leaders ever since. 
3. Gas Mask. Global concentration of power is becoming rampant in the age of the internet. Many people who like to put in their two cents about this outside of elite meetings find that free speech comes more easily with the famous invention called the gas mask. Garret Morgan patented the gas mask, which he called the Safety Hood in 1914. You never saw him disturbing trade meeting delegates, but he did find a good use for his invention in 1916. A fire erupted in a Cleveland waterworks tunnel, and someone called him in to rescue the suffocating workers. Garret was also the inventor of the traffic light. 
4. Tupperware. Earl Sirus Tupper was the genius behind a famous invention that inspired the art of multilevel marketing schemes. Millions of women have thrown parties hoping to sell some of these airtight food preserving bowls and dishes. Consumers were often confused about how to use this famous invention after bringing it home. Knowing that, Tupper yanked them from store shelves and invented the "Tupperware Party" as a method for training people how to use these things and making sales easier. 
5. Chewing Gum. School teachers across the USA are allergic to the sound of youngsters chewing on this strange famous invention. Smokers also find that this invention caters to their oral fixations while they try to quit tobacco. Thomas Adams was a mad scientist style inventor. He played with the sap of the sapodilla tree hoping to make something with it. It turned out that this substance was a poor rubber substitute, and Adams ended up chewing it instead. He soon became the first chewing gum tycoon after lacing this substance with sugar and peddling it to the masses. Judging from snack surveys, it looks like chewing gum is near the top of the list as one of the most famous inventions of all time.