Firsts (13 page)

The first portable golf tee was patented by Scottish golfers William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas in 1889. It was made of rubber and lay flat on the ground and had three vertical prongs to hold the ball in place. This first golf tee did not pierce or peg the ground like modern tees and was certainly reusable. Originally,
tee
referred to the area where a golfer played, not the equipment used to elevate the ball. Before this first tee, to elevate the ball, golfers had to build a tiny mound of dirt or sand and balance the ball on top.

In 1969, Robert Gore and his father, Wilbert, of Newark, Delaware, discovered that polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) could be stretched to form a strong, porous material. The laminated fabric allowed water vapor to pass through while completely blocking water droplets. This was an extension of Wilbert Gore’s work; he had been experimenting with insulation for electronic wires since 1958. The 1969 discovery came after the use of high temperature and a slow stretching technique. The Gores patented and trademarked their discovery as GORE-TEX. The fabric is commonly used in sports clothing.

Originally called Alien Registration Receipt Cards, the first “green” card, #A1000000, was issued on August 1, 1940. It was a product of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 and was printed on white paper on Form AR-3. Passed as a national defense measure, the 1940 act required all noncitizens 14 years of age and older to register with the government. Registration, which occurred at post offices, included fingerprinting. The completed forms were forwarded to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for processing. Afterward, a receipt card was mailed to each registrant as proof of their compliance with the law. These first “green cards,” however, did not discriminate between legal and illegal alien residents, but the program did intend to create a record of every noncitizen living within and/or entering the United States.

The first greenhouse was built around 30 C.E. for the Roman emperor Tiberius. The specularium, as it was called, was an open house with walls built of stone above the ground. Fires were kept burning outside its walls to maintain the necessary heat inside. Glass had not yet been invented, so the structure’s partial roof was painstakingly fabricated from tiny translucent sheets of mica. When Emperor Tiberius fell ill, his physicians ordered him to eat a cucumber-like fruit or vegetable every day. The cucumbers were planted in carts that were then wheeled out into the full sun every day and wheeled back into the greenhouse every night. Flowers and other fruits were also successfully produced in this first greenhouse, or as some early authors called it, cucumber house.

Around 1231, the first grenade was used during the time of the Song dynasty. Invented by the Chinese, it was called
chen tien lei,
which meant “heaven-shaking thunder.” The first grenades were packed gunpowder in ceramic and/or metal containers. When Mongol attackers were digging a tunnel to the base of a city wall, the Chinese soldier-defenders lowered a chain that held an iron can grenade filled with black powder. When it exploded, the grenade destroyed the tunnel and everyone in it.

Most historians agree that firearms originated in China in the 1100s C.E., thanks to a depiction of a gun discovered on a wall carving in a Buddhist cave in the Chinese province of Szechuan. The carving, which dates to around 1128 C.E., depicts a demonic warrior holding a bombard belching flames. Called a fire-lance, this first gun was a gunpowder-filled tube—probably bamboo—used as a flamethrower. Archaeologists also discovered a gun in Manchuria dating to the 1200s. It was more of a hand cannon that used some type of gunpowder formula to discharge its stone bullet. Although gunpowder dates to 850 C.E., its first use was in the making of fireworks because it didn’t have the strength of gunpowder used in today’s weapons. It took the Chinese a couple hundred years of experimenting and combining other substances with the early gunpowder to create crude hand cannons and exploding weapons or guns.

As early as 3400 B.C.E., ancient Egyptians used henna, a shrub bush with leaves that yield a reddish dye, to conceal their gray hair. They also used henna to darken their nails and lips. Practically all ancient cultures mention the use of hair colorings. These early hair dyes were made from plants, metallic compounds, or a mixture of the two. The first synthetic hair dye, called Aureole, came into commercial existence in 1909 by the French chemist Eugene Schueller, who founded L’Oréal cosmetics company.

During the Bronze Age of approximately 3500 B.C.E., handheld mirrors were first made and used in Sumeria and Egypt. The mirrors were not made out of glass, but instead of metal sheets. Metals such as copper, bronze, silver, and tin were flattened and polished until they were reflective and set into handles made of gold, wood, ivory, animal bone, and other materials. These first mirrors were reserved for the royalty, but used ones did eventually make their way out to the masses.

According to Genesis 40:16-22 (King James Version), around 1747 B.C.E., Pharaoh’s chief baker was the first person in written history to be hanged. As the story goes, Joseph had interpreted the chief baker’s dream: “Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree, and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.” True enough, after 3 days, on Pharaoh’s birthday, he hanged the chief baker.

In Europe in the mid-1600s, ear trumpets made of metal came into being. The cone-shape trumpet amplified sound down its narrowing tunnel end and into the ear. Various sizes and lengths were developed, shoulder straps were added for carrying, and many were painted black to better blend in with the user’s clothing. A popular type was the London Dome used in the 1800s and early 1900s. Early man also used hollowed-out animal horns, stuck into the ear, to increase hearing abilities.

Hearses were originally hand-drawn until horse-drawn makeshift carts were employed. Dating to 500 B.C.E., hearses conveyed the dead to a church or cemetery. In 1907 in Paris, although not heavily documented, silent electric motorized hearse vehicles were used at times. On January 15, 1909, a motorized petrol-driven hearse was used for the first time in a Chicago funeral procession when funeral director H. D. Ludlow broke from the tradition of the stately horse-drawn hearses that had been in use for centuries. Some of the first hearses also served as ambulances.

On December 3, 1967, surgeon Christiaan N. Barnard conducted the first human heart transplant. He and a team of doctors and skilled staff at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, spent 9 hours transplanting the heart of 25-year-old auto crash victim Denise Darvall into Louis Washkansky, a retired dentist in his 50s. Washkansky lived for 18 days, until he succumbed to pneumonia. The drugs used to prevent his body from rejecting the new heart had weakened his resistance to infection, but his transplanted heart beat strongly to the end.

On November 13, 1907, at Coquainvilliers, France, French pioneer Paul Cornu first piloted a gasoline-powered twin-rotor craft of his own design. On his second attempt that day, he grabbed the undercarriage as his machine rose into the air and he and his brother tried to hold the craft down. Cornu jumped on one of the handles, and with one hand clinging to the undercarriage, he was able to reduce the aircraft’s lift. Cornu flew as the makeshift pilot for a few short seconds about 6 feet off the ground. He landed on the ground without any damage to the machine or himself, and by a historical stretch, he did pilot the first noted helicopter’s flight.

According to many historians, the fashionable women at Knossos on the Mediterranean island of Crete wore a primitive version of high heels around 2100 B.C.E. The Minoan civilization of that era did use metal tools, and the culture exhibited a high degree of technological and aesthetic achievement. The high heels were crafted of animal horn and bone and strapped to the feet. Around 1600 C.E., high heels were (re)invented in France. Rather than a fashion piece, the French high heel was created in response to the problem of a horse rider’s feet slipping forward in the stirrups while riding.

In 1980, Costa Rica-born Franklin Chang-Diaz, a physics engineer, became the first Hispanic American astronaut. On January 12, 1986, Chang-Diaz became the first Hispanic American in space while onboard the STS-61-C, the
Columbia
space shuttle. During his 6-day flight, Chang-Diaz participated in the deployment of a satellite, conducted experiments in astrophysics, and operated the materials processing laboratory. He received the Liberty Medal, awarded to outstanding individuals chosen as representative of the most distinguished naturalized citizens of the United States, from President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

Ellen Lauri Ochoa became the first female Hispanic American astronaut in July 1991. On April 8, 1993, she became the first female Hispanic American in space while onboard the STS-56, the
Discovery
space shuttle.

The Nobel-Dynamite Trust Company of London, England, was the first international holding company, initiated by Alfred Nobel and his advisers in 1886. Previous to this, Nobel had various stocks and partial ownership interests in several companies, including blasting oil, dynamite, and gelatinized nitroglycerine explosives. Launching a holding company, a company whose purpose was to own shares in other companies in several countries and control and manage their joint business, was a new phenomenon in the business world. The Nobel-Dynamite Trust Company was formed by Nobel’s holdings in British and German companies along with a number of independent German dynamite producers.

In the fall of 1911, Nestor Studios opened in the Blondeau Tavern building at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street in Hollywood, California. This first Hollywood motion picture studio began business as an expansion of the Nestor Motion Picture Company of Bayonne, New Jersey, and was owned by brothers David and William Horsley. General manager Al Christie moved to California permanently to run the facility because the nice weather allowed year-round filming. The Horsley brothers remained back in New Jersey, where they handled the Hollywood studio’s film processing and distribution. The studio had tremendous success with the slapstick
Mutt and Jeff
comedy films and with the westerns they churned out weekly. Other East Coast filmmakers soon flocked to Hollywood, and within a few short years, Nestor Studios, along with several others, merged with the new Universal Film Company.

Sir Barton, a chestnut thoroughbred colt, became the first winner of the American Triple Crown in 1919. At the Kentucky Derby, he led the field of 12 horses from start to finish, winning the race by 5 lengths. Just 4 days later, Sir Barton was in Baltimore and won the Preakness Stakes, again leading from start to finish. Sir Barton next won the Withers Stakes in New York. Shortly thereafter, he completed the first Triple Crown in U.S. history by easily winning the Belmont Stakes. Incredibly, Sir Barton’s four wins were accomplished in a span of just 32 days. During the time, he was owned by Canadian businessman J. K. L. Ross and was in the hands of trainer H. Guy Bedwell and jockey Johnny Loftus.

British engineer Christopher Cockerell invented the hovercraft in 1955. He developed the practical designs that led to the world’s first man-carrying amphibious hovercraft, the SR.N1, to be produced commercially. At the end of May 1959, the 7-ton craft flew, but it wasn’t until June 11 that it made its first public appearance over land and water in front of the world’s press. The 20-foot craft was dubbed the “flying saucer,” and within weeks, on July 25, the SR.N1 successfully crossed the English Channel.

On September 30, 1882, the world’s first hydroelectric power plant began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. It was initiated by local paper manufacturer H. F. Rogers and later named the Appleton Edison Light Company. This first plant was an electricity-producing station that used the natural energy of the river. When it first opened, it was able to produce enough electricity to light the home of Rogers, the plant itself, and a nearby building.

In February 1967, the first short Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was held in Alaska. Fifty-eight dog mushers competed in two heats along an approximately 25-mile stretch of the old Iditarod Trail between Wasilla and Knik. A relatively unknown participant named Isaac Okleasik from Teller, Alaska, won with his team of large working dogs. A $25,000 purse was offered, and Joe and Violet Redington donated 1 acre of their land adjacent to the Iditarod Trail to help raise funds. The Aurora Dog Mushers Club, along with men from the Adult Camp in Sutton, Alaska, the Redingtons, and others, helped clear years of overgrowth from the trail in time to put on this first Iditarod. For his relentless dedication, Mr. Joe Redington is remembered as “the father of the Iditarod.”