Today in History – March 9, 1964 – First Ford Mustang rolls off assembly line. Ford sold 22,000 of the sporty car on the first day of sales in April 1965. The Mustang was one of the most successful product launches in automotive history with over one million units sold in its first 18 months. [...]

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Today in History – July 31, 1790 – first U.S. patent went to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement “in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.” President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson signed the patent. Only two other patents were granted that [...]

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Today in History-March 3, 1831–Thomas Jennings became the first African-American to receive a patent for his invention of ‘dry-scouring’, a process better known today as dry-cleaning. As a free man, he established a local business in New York in which he sold clothing. However, customers became disgruntled that there was no means to effectively clean [...]

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Today in History – February 18, 1901 – First vacuum cleaner patented by Hubert Cecil Booth, an English structural engineer. This design had the disadvantage that it had no way to collect the dust and never became a commercial success. In 1907, James Spangler, a janitor working in Canton, Ohio, was not aware of this [...]

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Today in History – February 13, 1959 – the first Barbie doll goes on sale. Barbie’s inventor, Ruth Handler, was inspired by seeing that her daughter, Barbie, and her girl friends enjoyed playing with adult female dolls, but most dolls at the time were baby dolls. Handler created 3D models of dolls that she thought [...]

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