With the advent of steam engines, various icebreaking vessel designs began to appear. Since the main propulsion of steam ships at that time was the on-board paddle wheel, it was necessary to break the ice in front of the wheel. In this regard, there were projects of ships breaking the ice with blows of heavy objects. In 1837, the wooden paddle steamer "City Ice Boat No. 1" was built in Philadelphia (USA).The world's first icebreaking vessel of a modern type was the Russian tugboat "Pilot", built in 1864 by Kronstadt entrepreneur M.O. Britnev.

John Logie Baird’s televiser was formally demonstrated in 1926, but Stooky Bill’s head was televised in 1925, on October 2. Around the same time, other inventors were working on their ideas for a fully electric television. Vladimir K. Zworykin had applied for a patent for an electron scanning tube in 1923 - but could not get his television to work until 1934. Meanwhile, Philo Farnsworth demonstrated the first successful electrical television transmission in 1927.The first electric model won a face off against Baird’s machine in 1935, and the mechanical television stopped being made in 1937. The patent for the first electric TV as we know it today was won in the late 1930s by Philo Farnsworth, born in 1906 to an american family of farmers living in Idaho.

The history of the compass started more than 2000 years ago during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD). The first compasses were made of lodestone, a naturally magnetized stone of iron, in Han dynasty China.It was called the "South Pointing Fish" and was used for land navigation by the mid-11th century during the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD). Shen Kuo provided the first explicit description of a magnetized needle in 1088 and Zhu Yu mentioned its use in maritime navigation in the text Pingzhou Table Talks, dated 1111–1117. Later compasses were made of iron needles, magnetized by striking them with a lodestone.

Alexander Graham Bell was a scotish doctor. He worked with deaf children and understood the way sounds caused vibrations. While only in his 20's, he discovered a way of converting vibrations into variations in electric current - and back again. His telephone had a diaphragm (a thin metal sheet), which vibrated when spoken to: close behind the diaphragm was an electromagnet, which convened the vibrations into electric signals.

Bells telephone had a single transmitter/ receiver: when you had finished speaking into the microphone you held it to your ear and listened to the other person's voice.

In 1877 Thomas Edison invented a better, separate, microphone using carbon granules behind the diaphragm. Apart from that, today's telephone is as Bell invented it.

2781450795. Cousteau, a french scintist, told Emil Gagnon (a french inventor) exactly what he wanted. Emil Gagnon made Aqualung. With unregulated compressed air supplies, and with sea pressure increasing with depth, there was always a danger of an underwater swimmer's lung collapsing.

The aqualung has a special valve regulating the air supply. As the diver breathes out the pressure of his breath opens an outlet valve, which also shuts off the air supply as he breathes in, the internal pressure falls and the outside water pressure closes the outlet valve and switches the compressed air supply back on. The air flows in until the pressure in the valve is the same as the pressure of the outside water. Then it cuts off.

13031. first magnetic recording device used wire and then later steel tape was invented by a danish scintist,Valdemar Paulsen in 1898 . It was designed to record telephone messages.

In 1935 the first plastic recording tape was introduced: it was coated with iron oxide (tape today is often coated with chromium oxide). Early tape recorders were bulky machines with the tape running from one large reel to another.

In the 1960s Philips introduced the compact tape-cassette. This was a complete, easy to handle, plastic package of twin spools and narrow recording tape.

The cassette led to Sony's invention, in 1979, of the Walkman. It was a complete, portable, stereo cassette player, little larger than a cassette box. There was no room for a loudspeaker, so earphones were provided, with tiny super-efficient plastic membranes.

The electric light bulb was an almost unbelievable coincidence: two inventors produced almost the same idea, independently, at about the same time. Joseph Swan,a scotish scintist, was the first by a whisker, but didn't patent his idea. Edison, an american inventor, started making bulbs, and accused Swan of copying. Luckily for Swan, there was a small difference between the processes. The problem was solved by Edison and Swan forming a joint company to produce bulbs in America. The modern light bulb consists of a filament (coiled tungsten wire through which electricity flows. The filament becomes extremely hot and glows brightly inside the glass bulb. Early bulbs used bamboo, and even coated cotton thread, as a filament. Tungsten is better.

Joseph Niepce invented a way of recording the image on a metal sheet coated with chemicals in 1826. In 1939 another Frenchman Louis Daguerre introduced a better way of preserving the image. Many "Daguerreotype" pictures still remain. One problem with the Niepce and Daguerre processes was that they were "one-offs"; copies could not be made.

Аn Englishman William Fox Talbot was the first, also in 1839, to capture a negative picture - in which blacks and whites are reversed - from which positive (right way round) copies could be made.

The father of all present day computers was designed by Charles Babbage. It was to make long calculations and analyze them. J232, 000 was provided by the British government to build it. Babbage’s huge computer machine was to have been programmed from a punched paper tape. The calculations were to be made by means of thousands of rotating gear-wheels, and moving levers and rods.

Had all the parts been really well made, it would have worked slowly. But they weren’t.

703221513. gum came about as a result of a failure. A substitute for rubber was being sought. At first, the sap of the South American sapodilla tree, called chicle, was thought to be suitable. But it proved to be not elastic enough. Then Adams - part of the investigating team - remembered that the South American Mayan people chewed sickle and thought that, flavored, it might be sold in America. It did.

During World War II American soldiers were sent supplies of chewing gum. This helped to increase its worldwide popularity. Nowadays, chewing gum ingredients are listed as "gum base, sugar, syrup and softeners; the base is largely synthetic. But it doesn't taste too bad.

Bicycles or bikes are an important means of transportation in many parts of the world. The first bicycles turned up in Europe from Germany in the first half of the19^th century but the word “bicycle” only appeared later, in 1868. There are more bicycles in the world than cars. A lot of people have realized that cycling is an easy way to get around and a great way to cut down on pollution. More and more cities have special places where people can borrow a bike and ride around the city. Over the past few years, a bicycle infrastructure has been created in Moscow. Cycling in the centre of Moscow in summer is one of the most pleasant and quickest ways of seeing the city.

We are always told that we should clean our teeth regularly to keep them healthy and to have fresh breath. It is believed that people started using a kind of paste to clean their teeth around 5000 years ago. However, the ingredients of these tooth powders were very different from ours. For example, the people of ancient Egypt used salt, mint, dried flowers and pepper to create tooth powder. Later, in the 18th century, in some countries in Europe, people brushed their teeth with burnt bread. The first toothpaste appeared in 1890, in Great Britain. At first it was sold in jars. Then special tubes were designed to make the toothpaste more comfortable to use.