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1 Lawn sprinkler
Invented in 1920 by Elijah McCoy who the son of runaway slaves in Ontario. McCoy was one of Canada’s most prolific inventors. Among his other 56 creations: the ironing board.
Canada
things invented in
Following on from Peter’s article we took a look at what Canada had given the word and were surprised at some of the answers.
4 Road lines
There once was a time when drivers had no lanes to stay in, until 1930 when John Millar, an Ontario engineer, thought up the simple idea of painting lines on roads.
7 Peanut butter
A pharmacist from Montreal called Marcellus Gilmore Edson thought that his nutty ointmentlike product, patented in 1884, as a food option for people who couldn’t chew.
2 Insulin
In 1923, Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin and gave diabetics a manageable solution to their disease. Until Banting and Best, diabetes had been a life sentence.
5 BlackBerry
Research In Motion is a Canadian company that brought the world the first BlackBerry device, the 850, which was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager.
8 Trivial Pursuit
Here’s one for the orange segment: What board game was invented in 1979 by Scott Abbott, a Montreal sports editor, and Chris Haney, a photo editor, when they couldn’t find all their Scrabble tiles?
3 Bloody Mary
In Canada they call it a Caesar and was invented in May 1969 when bartender Walter Chell was tasked with creating a cocktail that would match the cuisine at a newly opened Italian restaurant. The original Caesar recipe had mashed clams, tomato juice and vodka. The clam / tomato idea was drawn from the flavour of Spaghetti Vongole (tomato sauce with clams).
6 Paint Roller
If you’re painting that spare room you can thank Canada for making the job a little bit easier. Norman Breakey from Manitoba invented this decorating device in 1940, but was never able to produce it in enough quantity to make money. Others made a tweak to the design and marketed it as their own to make fortunes.
9 The Zipper
The zipper has a long history of innovation, but the man credited with the invention of the modern version is Gideon Sundbäck, a Swedish-American electrical engineer. In 1906 he moved to Canada to work for the Universal Fastener Company in Ontario and by December 1913 he had designed the modern z