10 innovative for its time of invention, was the result of human suffering.
Often the world is simply a terrible place, and few people know that a lot of stuff there only because of someone else’s pain. But these items firmly in the everyday life of people, and today they are almost all, without thinking about how they appeared. It is about such innovations and discussed today.
1. The great depression and the Second world war – Twinkie cake
During the great depression, when most companies were on the verge of collapse, the Hostess company produced biscuits with a strawberry filling. The problem was that strawberries were sold in just two months. While the economy was collapsing around them, to work for 60 days a year has sharply ceased to be profitable. In the end, the desserts started to add new toppings that were available year round, banana.
Initially, this new product became a hit, but its success was short-lived. After America entered the Second world war, the government has included bananas in army rations. Hostess again had to look for a new filling. In the end, as a temporary filling (during the war) the company used vanilla. To the surprise of the Hostess, vanilla biscuits became even more popular than the banana. Even when the war ended, the filling remained vanilla.
2. Power chord and wounded soldiers
All the rock-n-roll is based on the use of power chords. This can be heard in the songs of AC/DC, Nirvana, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks and Neil young. And there was such a chord, thanks to the Link ray and his 1958 song “Rumble”. Although now this song is considered one of the greatest songs of all time, ray originally didn’t even want to play the guitar. From early childhood, ray had wanted to become a singer. But before you start a career in show business, he was drafted into the army, ray went to fight in Korea. It cost him his dreams.
Jungle Korea was a real breeding ground for disease. Like many of his colleagues, the future great guitarist started a terrible attack of tuberculosis. The disease proceeded so bad that doctors were forced to remove his one lung. Since ray was no longer able to sing, he became a guitarist, eventually creating the foundations of rock ‘ n ‘ roll, punk and metal.
3. Quartz lamps and orphans of the First world war
After the collapse of the German economy following the First world war, the people of this country was on the verge of starvation. Meager rations were given mainly to adults returning from war. As a result, children suffered from hunger. At that time, just an unprecedented number of children developed rickets from lack of vitamin D, calcium and phosphate.
At that time nobody knew what caused rickets. Dr. Kurt Huldschinsky noticed that all of his little patients were very pale, so he made a lamp emitting ultraviolet light to see if it will help the children. And it worked. The UV light cured the disease, and the prototype lamp has been actively used in tanning salons.
4. The first bikes and horses
In 1816, in Indonesia, the eruption of Tambora volcano. During the first 15 minutes killed 4 600 people, and the dust storm that rose from the eruption killed 10,000 people. In the end, the volcano led to the death of 90 000 people out of hunger and disease. For people it was a terrifying event, but for horses Tambora was an unprecedented disaster. Ash from the eruption that was ejected into the atmosphere, reached Europe, where in summer a few months, the Sun eclipsed.
Without sunlight across the continent was destroyed by a crop of oats, and horses, left without food, began to die by thousands. Other crops are not even enough people, so the horses have begun to score. Since horses were the main mode of transport, had to find new travel opportunities. One of the inventors, the Baron Karl Just created the first scooter, called the “dandy horse”.
5. Civil war and Tabasco sauce
In 1850-ies McIlhenny Edmund, was a successful banker. And in 1860 he went bankrupt because the civil war destroyed his business. Left without money, he returned to the house of the parents of his wife on the island Avery island. Accidentally McIlhenny learned that the family home was built on a giant salt mine. He began to produce salt and got rich selling it to the Confederation. When the Union learned about this strategic reserve of salt, the Northern armies were closing in on the salt mine and burned the farm. Fearing for his life, the family was forced to flee to Texas.
When McIlhenny returned to Louisiana after the war, he planted a garden and tried to grow vegetables, but nothing was getting accustomed to salty, burnt earth. Once in New Orleans he met a veteran, who told him about some pepper seeds that were brought from Mexico. McIlhenny, made the first bottle of Tabasco sauce from the seeds. Later his sons began to mass produce the sauce, which was a real hit as it added the necessary flavor of the fresh food available during the recovery period after the war.
6. Hip hop and the murder of Robert Kennedy
The tragic and untimely death of Robert Kennedy was a huge policy implications the 1960-ies. However, it had indirect effects, and the very reason for the creation of hip-hop. In 1968 Michael Viner joined the campaign of Robert Kennedy as assistant. There he met the famous football player Rosie Greer, who was working security at Kennedy.
Greer and Wiener were planning to work in Washington with Kennedy, but when the President was killed in California, they went to work in the movie business. Greer starred in the movie “the Thing with two heads”, and Viner recorded the soundtrack to this film. Among the songs was an easy hit, “Bongo Rock”. After the success of Wiener formed the band “Incredible Bongo Band” and recorded her cover of “Apache” “Apache” performed “Incredible Bongo Band” later became known as “the national anthem of hip-hop”.
7. Treadmill and torture of prisoners
After the devastating Napoleonic wars, England was in dire need of manpower. “Supplier” of new working steel prison. In 1817, sir William Cubitt created the first treadmill that is little resembled a modern training device. The prisoners walked to the stairs that spun the giant wheel. This device, somewhat similar to the windmill (except the blades spun prisoners) has been used for crushing grain, pumping water or giving effect to this mill.
In fact, such “track” was an agonizing torture. People were continuously walking “up the steps” for six hours straight. During this time they were actually up in total to a height of 4 300 metres, i.e. almost half of mount Everest. This happened every day for five consecutive days. Even worse, if the person falls, it could tighten in the wheel. In fact, the prisoners were injured daily.
8. Attraction “Dunking Booths” and racism
“Dunking Booths” was one of the most popular attractions in the world, and it can be found at any exhibition and the carnival all over the world. However, the original ride was designed for a very specific audience. At the end of 1800-ies in America was a very popular game called “the African Dodger”. Behind the curtain with a picture of her painted plants, hid a Negro who had stuck his head into the hole in the curtain. The purpose of the entertainment was to get the ball in the head black and get a prize. Then there was another attraction “Bathe Africans”, in which the metal ball in the goal, and then worked the lever, and a colored man fell into the water.
9. Banjo and slaves
Banjo is a favorite musical instrument in Appalachia. However, this instrument has a very dark past. In the 1600’s, the slave traders who transported slaves on ships, substantial problems have arisen — the slaves in the holds quickly became sickly and died. And this was a problem not because of human suffering, but because of profit loss. Therefore, the slave owners decided that the slaves did, and were healthy, they need to dance. Naturally, the captured people were, to put it mildly, not in the mood to dance. So on the ships and there was a banjo to encourage the slaves to dance. And that the ships of traffickers this tool was brought to America.
10. Cosmetics and prisoners
Surely most don’t even know this name, but each house probably has a Retin-A (tretinoin, or retin-a). It is the active ingredient in most medicines for acne and wrinkles, as well as in cosmetics. Tretinoin is so common in modern society that the world health organization calls it “one of the most important medicines needed in a basic health system”. Almost nobody knows that Retin-A was born through forced experiments on prisoners.
After world war II human experimentation was banned by the Nuremberg code. Apparently, the ban did not touch Philadelphia. From 1951 to 1974, the dermatologist albert Kligman tested new drugs on inmates in prison Holmesburg. He even said that prisoners perceived not as people but as “acres of skin”. It financed the CIA and Dow Chemical company and Johnson & Johnson.
Kligman used prisoners as Guinea pigs, often scraping the skin with tape, pulling nails, pouring Agent Orange on open wounds, giving LSD to patients and forcing people to stay in rooms with radioactive isotopes. One of the many medicines that is designed was tretinoin. How many people have died from these experiments, silent.
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