Today in History – December 28, 1886 – Josephine Cochrane is issued patent for a commercially successful dishwasher. Josephine Cochrane received the patent for the first commercially successful dishwasher. A mechanical device, turning a crank would provide a continuous flow of either soap suds or hot water to a rack of dishes. She founded a company to manufacture these dish washers, which eventually became KitchenAid. Josephine Cochran unveiled her initial prototype at the 1893, World’s Fair. For many years, only hotels and large restaurants could afford dishwashers. In the 1950s, dishwashers began to make their way to the general public.

Also on this date in history in 1895, world’s first movie theater opens in Paris. Auguste and Louis Lumire held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in March of 1895 and their first public screening of movies on this date in 1895, at Paris’s Salon Indien du Grand Cafe. It all began when a handful of passersby were lured inside the Grand Cafe at 14 Boulevard des Capucines by a poster enigmatically advertising “Cinematographe Lumire.” This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumire  Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumire Factory). After paying a franc, descending into the grandly named “Salon Indien” in the basement, and sinking into armchairs before an empty screen, some of them wondered if they’d been tricked into seeing yet another cheesy magic lantern show. Then, as the audience stared in disbelief, the two-dimensional screen turned into a panorama of movement, a convincing, Frankensteinian display of artificial human life that would forever change the way we spend our Saturday nights.”

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on women inventors and digital movies and sound. For curricular resources, visit the Mechanical Engineering Education and Computer Science Education community site.