Christianity’s Spread Through England and Carolingian Renaissance

Christianity was introduced to England in the 2nd century AD. It was spread through Roman merchants that shared stories about Jesus with the locals of the lands they were visiting. By the 4th century pagan beliefs were still being practiced, but there was also a strong following in England.

Carolingian Renaissance

The Carolingian Renaissance takes place among the reigns of Charlemagne (768-814) and his son Louis the pious. This renaissance is a sort of revival for preserving material from the past. Mostly the preservation of religious texts.

Charlemagne wanted to bring back a Roman Empire that the ancient Romans would have been proud of. To accomplish this goal, he searched for people skilled in arts, like writing, painting, and building. He wanted to encourage education among the people.

In 787 Charlemagne wrote a letter to the bishops and abbots saying that all cathedrals and monasteries were to establish a school. Clergies and common folk were to be able to learn reading and writing in these places. Some of these schools would become some of the earliest universities.

It’s because of the Carolingian Renaissance that we have this easier to understand writing system. Before the Carolingian Renaissance things were written in all capital letters with no spaces and no punctuation. JUSTIMAGINETRYINGTOREADSOMETHINGLIKETHAT

The Light Switch to Coca-cola

The light switch was invented by John Henry Holmes in1884. If not for the light switch it’d be much more dangerous and inconvenient to turn light on and off. You’d have to unscrew them whenever you wanted to turn them off!

Skyscrapers were invented by William Jenney (born in 1832 in Massachusetts) in 1884. This allowed more people to live in one building and also allowed buildings to be built much bigger.

The dishwasher was invented by Josephine Cochrane (born in 1839 in Ohio) in the year 1886. She invented the washing machine as a more gentle method of washing dishes after her dishes kept getting chipped when washed by hand. This allows people more free time to do other things.

James Clerk Maxwell came up with the theory of electromagnetic waves. His theory was proven by Heinrich Hertz (born in 1857 in Germany) in the year 1887.

Coca-cola was made by John Pemberton (born in Georgia in 1831) in 1886. Coca-cola originally had cocaine in it. Not a lot, only 9 milligrams. It gets its name from the kola nuts it used. The kola nuts also gave it its caffeine. Learning about the new coke and classic coke debacle was probably the most interesting thing I learned throughout these lessons.

I think having stars and such sing in coke commercials boosts sales because if people like the song or the musician in general they will have a positive association with them and coke.

Motion Pictures to Steam Turbines

Motion pictures were made by Eadweard Muybridge in 1877. Light bulbs were invented in 1878 by Thomas Edison, who experimented with hundreds of materials till he found one that worked well in the lightbulb. Then the thermostat was invented in 1883.

The steam turbine was invented in 1884 by Charles Parsons. This invention has supplied electricity to countless American homes over the years. It turns steam into rotation and energy. Westinghouse eventually made a bigger version of Charles’ design that could handle more heat which allowed it to generate more energy.

In 1879 James Ritty, with the help of his brother, invented the cash register. The cash register is probably the most interesting of inventions because of why Ritty invented it. The cash register was invented because Ritty ran a saloon and needed a way to keep his employees from stealing money.

Ritty surprisingly had trouble making the cash register a success. I think if maybe he just had tried harder to explain its benefits and marketed it better it would have taken off, but ultimately he made the choice to sell his patent. The people Ritty sold the patent to had better success with selling the invention as they marketed it better.

1875-1878

The layout of the QWERTY keyboard was made by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1878 after inventing the first typewriter in 1867. He made the QWERTY keyboard not because he wanted people to slow down, but because letters that were frequently used together would cause typewriters to jam. The idea that he created this keyboard layout to make people slow down is a common misconception.

In 1875 George Green created the electronic dental drill. This drill made it so dentists could work more quickly and their patients wouldn’t have to endure as much pain. In fact, it was advertised for its speed.

Alexander Graham Bell created the telephone in 1876. Alexander was born in Scotland in 1847 and had a passion for music and art. He became interested in studying acoustics after his mother became deaf.

The carpet sweeper was made by Melville Bissell who was born in New York in 1843 after his wife, Anna, complained about how hard it was to get sawdust out of the carpet. The carpet sweeper was easy to use and quiet as well.

Thomas Edison, who is sometimes referred to as America’s greatest inventor, invented the phonograph in 1877. This allowed sounds to be recorded and then played back. It is now better known as a record player.

1870-1874

In 1870, William Lyman (born in Connecticut in 1821) invented the first rotary can opener. Before that was invented there was no easy or convenient way to open a can. It usually had to be opened with a hammer and chisel.

Mail order catalogs were made in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward (born in New Jersey in 1844). At the time general stores were the only thing supplying small, rural areas which meant they got to raise the prices as much as they wanted and people would still have to buy their products. Aaron was able to give his customers lower prices because he didn’t need to pay any store workers.

For a long time, there was no good way to protect one’s ears from the cold, at least not until in 1873 when Chester Greenwood (who was born in Maine in 1858) made the first pair of earmuffs at the age of fifteen. He was a very determined inventor all his life, having somewhere around ten or a hundred patents throughout his lifetime. Acoustic earmuffs were eventually made in World War 2 for pilots since they had to sit next to the loud engine of their aircraft.

Riveted blue jeans were made by David Levi in 1873. The rivets in the jeans helped make the jeans stronger at the seams were they had been weaker. They were more durable than any other pair of paints back in those days.

Henry Parmalee (born in Ohio in 1846) invented the automatic sprinkler system in 1874 and installed it into his piano shop. Automatic sprinklers help to quickly put out fires and minimize damages.

1869

Air brakes were created by George Westinghouse (born in New York in 1846). Before they were invented, stopping a train was a rather slow and dangerous process. People would have to climb on to the top of it to turn the brakes on. Air brakes became a huge success because when George Westinghouse demonstrated his invention a wagon got stuck on the tracks and the train was able to stop just in time! This is a good example of why inventors need to make extra sure their invention works properly before showing it off to the world.

Traffic lights were made by JP Knight (born in England in 1828). Traffic lights help control traffic to keep people safe. Deaths from car crashes are much more frequent in areas where traffic laws aren’t obeyed, so it is very good we have these.

The tape measurer was patented by William H. Paine in 1860. The tape measurer has a spring coiled inside of it that helps bring the measuring tape back into the contraption in a blink of an eye. The pipe wrench is another interesting invention. It helps people put together or disassemble pipes with its unique design that gives it the ability to have a tight grip on round pipes.

The clothes hanger was made by O. A. North in 1869 to help clothes from getting wrinkled. Before that clothes were stored in chests.

Ticker Tape

Ticker tape was a long, thin strip of paper that was constantly being updated with the latest stock price information. It was created in 1867 by Edward Augustin Callahan. It gets its name from the ticking sound it makes while printing.

Callahan created ticker tape because he saw many messenger boys rushing about and decided to create a more convenient and productive way for the information to be delivered to brokers’ offices. He built off of the existing inventions of the telegraph (made by Samuel Morse in 1835) and the printing telegraph (made by Royal Earl House in 1846). Callahan was later inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 for inventing ticker tape, that goes to show how useful the invention was.

Other inventor’s eventually improved upon Callahan’s invention. Edison’s version corrected the problem with lag. Old, used ticker tape was used in “ticker tape parade’s” where it was thrown over the streets like confetti. Today ticker tape is no longer used. It has become obsolete with the invention of the internet. Now all the information that would usually have been printed on ticker tape can digitally be uploaded instantaneously without the need to waste paper.

The Invention of the Post Card

A post card is a simple one-page card. They were much cheaper to send than a normal card, but could only hold a short message. They usually had a pretty picture on the backs of them.

John P. Charlton, with the help of Hymen Lipman, was the inventor of the post card. Lipman was the one with the idea to add a decorative border to the cards. Others before them had similar ideas, such as the British comedian in the Berner’s street hoax. Berner made a bet with his friend that he could make any house the talk of the town, so he sent the one page letter to himself. Charlton was the first to patent the invention and successfully sell it in the 1860s.

Charlton was a stationer. A stationer is someone who sells office supplies, such as papers and pens. Since he and Lipman were both stationers and worked with letters a lot of the time, they came up with the idea of the post card.

This is what the back of a post card may look like. There’s a place to write the short message you wish to send to your friend or loved one, a place to write where the postcard is going, and a place to put a stamp, though in this picture the stamp is already on the post card. Normally there would just be an empty box in the upper right-hand corner.

The Pencil Eraser

The pencil eraser is a bit of rubber that’s usually pink and fixed to the end of a pencil with a piece of metal. It makes erasing pencil marks easy and quick, but we didn’t always have it this easy. Back before the eraser was made, people used to use erasable wax tablets, rocks to smudge mistakes out in parchment, and bread to erase mistakes. Bread was probably the most like an eraser today as it was used on paper to erase mistakes, but it got old and moldy rather quickly.

Rubber originally got its name because Joseph Priestley found that it was good at rubbing off markings from a pencil, so he named it rubber. Edward Nard found out why rubber was called this when he accidentally grabbed a chunk of rubber instead of a piece of bread when he went to erase something he wrote. He noticed when he went to use the chunk of rubber that it was good at erasing graphite. He then went on to start selling rubber in cubes.

Hyman Lipman worked as a stationary in Philadelphia. A stationary is someone that sells office supplies. With his experience in working with and around office equipment, he combined the pencil and eraser, deciding this was a useful invention that would be convenient for many.

Today there are many different kinds of erasers. Erasers can now be made of different materials besides rubber. Some erasers can even erase ink from a pen!

History of Antiseptics

Antiseptics kill germs. It has helped lower the death rate substantially and even makes it less likely for people to get sick in the first place. It originally started off as just washing one’s hands in chlorinated lime solutions.

Ignaz Semmelweis was the one who discovered antiseptics. He was born in Budapest in 1818. He was born to a wealthy family as the fifth kid out of ten. He went to the University of Vienna in 1837 and graduated with a PhD in medicine in 1844 at age 26.

Ignaz worked for Vienna General Hospital. It had two clinics, though one had a substantially higher mortality rate than the other. Ignaz noticed this and became very distraught about this, so much so he became miserable.

Ignaz began to study the two clinics, trying to figure out what was so different about the two that so many people were dying in one but not the other. He eventually came to find the major difference between the two, the type of people that worked there! One employed medical students that were still being taught, while the other employed midwives. He then realized that the women in the bad clinic were dying much more frequently due to the medical students being exposed to dead bodied while the midwives were not.

To help stop this, Ignaz created the field of antiseptics in 1847. He tried to spread his message to other doctors, but he never really got to see his discovery take off in his lifetime. Doctors actually got quite aggravated by his discovery. They thought he was saying their hands were filthy and that because of it, they were bad people. He even got fired from his job and was later sent to an asylum where he spent the rest of his days.