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Clarence Birdseye
In the early 1900s, many people were experimenting with mechanical and chemical methods to preserve food. After years of work on his own process, Birdseye invented a system that packed dressed fish, meat, or vegetables into waxed-cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under high pressure (patent #1,773,079, 1930). -
Reginald Fessenden
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was a Canadian-born inventor, who did a majority of his work in the United States and also claimed U.S. citizenship through his American-born father. During his life he received hundreds of patents in various fields, most notably ones related to radio and sonar. -
Mary Phelps Jacob
Caresse Crosby was the first recipient of a patent for the modern bra, an American patron of the arts, publisher, and the "literary godmother to the Lost Generation of expatriate writers in Paris." -
Gidoen Sundback
Gideon Sundback was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who is most commonly associated with his work in the development of the zipper. -
John Thompson
John Robert Thompson Jr. was an American college basketball coach for the Georgetown Hoyas men's team. He became the first African-American head coach to win a major collegiate championship in basketball when he led the Hoyas to the NCAA Division I national championship in 1984. -
Karel Capek
Karel Čapek was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel War with the Newts and play R.U.R., which introduced the word robot. He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. -
Frederick Banting / Charles Best
July 27 marks one of the most important days in diabetes treatment history. On that date in 1921, Dr. Frederick Banting, a Canadian surgeon and Charles Best, a medical student, successfully isolated the hormone insulin for the first time. -
Richard G. Drew.
Richard Gurley Drew was an American inventor who worked for Johnson and Johnson, Permacel Co., and 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he invented masking tape and cellophane tape. -
Wallace Carothers and DuPont Labs
n 1931, DuPont started to manufacture neoprene, a synthetic rubber created by Carothers' lab. The research team then turned their efforts towards a synthetic fiber that could replace silk. Japan was the United States' main source of silk, and trade relations between the two countries were breaking apart. -
Willem Kolff
Willem Johan Kolff, also known as Pim Kolff, was a pioneer of hemodialysis as well as in the field of artificial organs. Willem is a member of the Kolff family, an old Dutch patrician family. He made his major discoveries in the field of dialysis for kidney failure during the Second World War.