The Soyuz rocket is a rocket that is used to get to and from the international space station (ISS). It is a Russian craft, and interesting too. You can read more below.

The Soyuz has 3 stages. The outer rocket boosters that fire with the central core, the central core, and the 3rd stage. The craft reaches orbit, and separates from the 3rd stage. It does a series of burns until it comes to the ISS altitude and speed. Then it docks. When the Soyuz is ready to launch from the ISS to go home, it launches, goes down slowly, and does a few more burns. Then the craft separates, and only the passenger compartment is left to make it back to earth. Then it lands, using the last of the fuel to get a “soft” landing.

Some of the problems the creators of the Soyuz had to solve include how to carry the fuel, how to get into orbit, how not to hit the ISS, etc. Thank you for reading!

81. Ironing Board
82. Internal Combustion Engine
83. Lever-Action Repeating Rifle
84. Twist Drill

Ironing Board

Before the ironing board, in some countries, a pan full of hot coals was used for ironing. The kitchen table was used to iron on, but this could leave burns on the table, and was not as practical. But then, along came the ironing board. It was invented by two people, and we don’t know much about them. The ironing boards shape is very important. It had a wide base for wide surfaces, and a point, for parts like armpits, and sleeves. Along with the iron, the ironing board was very useful, and would become very common. The board would have an ironing board cover, keeping the board from being stained. They are (usually) portable. It improved. Along with the washing machine, it saves lots of time for housewives.

Internal Combustion Engine

It takes a while for steam engines to heat up. This was a problem. Etenne Lenoir discovered that sparks ignite gasoline. He invented the internal combustion engine after discovering this. The gas ignites, creating an explosion, which drives a piston, and can then be used for motive power. The best part is that is starts quickly. This is the car engine. Imagine if it suddenly disappeared. Suddenly there is no motive power to any of your vehicles. Imagine if airlines stopped running, and all the airplanes stopped midair. The would have to glide to earth, if there was to be any chance of landing safely. Imagine if 16-wheelers stopped running, and there was no, quick, widespread way to transport goods. We would probably die of starvation at some point. The economy relies on the Internal Combustion Engine.

Repeating Rifle

The arquebus evolved into the revolver, and other modern guns. The musket was one of the earliest guns, next to the arquebus, which increased its predecessor’s accuracy, yet it was still very slow loading. When Benjamin Tyler Henry, a gunsmith, invented the repeating rifle, shooting was changed. He invented a gun just before the civil war, that was later called by the Confederate army, “the gun that you could load on Sunday, and shoot all week”. They said this because it was a 16 shooter. It was like a pistol magazine but was located in the butt of the gun. It was predecessor to the modern rifle. It shaped the way for all other rifles to come later.

Twist Drill

John Wilkinson invented the boring machine in 1774, but his drill bit was a rectangular piece of metal, not a twist bit like we have today. Steven Morse (not the inventor of Morse code) invented the twist drill bit in 1861. It had a screw pattern, which helps lift debris out of the hole. The sharp cutting point drills into wood or whatever materiel is being cut. Morse sold his bits all over the world. He had a factory in Massachusetts. When we think of a drill, we think of the twist drill bit. It has become the standard drill bit.

Salt and Pepper Shakers

John Mason (Inventor of the Mason Jar, as shown in the next section of this essay) invented the salt and pepper shakers in 1858. They were glass with a screw top lid, which had small holes punched in it. It keeps your hand from touching the seasoning, and also helps you regulate how much salt and pepper you take into your body. When Mason’s patent expired, manufacturers started producing them widespread, and they became quite common.

Pepper

India was on of the few places that could raise pepper in the ancient times. The Europeans wanted the pepper from India for seasoning, but it was hard to get to. At first, on could go along the silk road to India and buy/trade for pepper there, but that ended when the ottomans led to the fall of Constantinople. The Europeans couldn’t get by the silk road anymore. They began sending out ships to find a sea route to India. The first Portuguese ship launched in 1497, as shown in black on the map. One of the most famous routes is Christopher Columbus’ first voyage to Cuba, when he discovered America. He was trying to go around the globe to get to India. Now, we have such advanced ways of travel, we can import pepper from other countries via airplanes if we like. Pepper is very common now and is on most of our dinner tables just like that.

Mason Jar

The Canning Process was invented in 1809 by Nicolas Appert, told more about in the link earlier this sentence. Appert used jars like these:

Canning soon moved from jars to tin cans, and that is what we are familiar with today; however canning at home was almost impossible because normal people could not afford the tin cans, and they were harder to package. So John Mason, around the time he invented the salt and pepper shakers, invented the mason jar we are familiar with for home canning today. (coming very,very soon) Here is my drawing of a common one:

Mason Jars were glass with a screw top lid and seal. Mason’s patent expired before anybody started producing them, so that slowed the spread of their use. Mason jars are VERY common now, and you can by them at many stores. I would like to quickly point out the difference between the two leading mason jars. Ball and Kerr. Ball mason jars have measurements while Kerr jars do not.

Pencil Eraser

Before the eraser, bread was used to erase pencil marks, but it would get old and moldy, so you had to have someone making you a loaf of bread every day just to write! Sometime in the 1700’s, the rubber was discovered to work better, and that gave birth to the eraser. Hyman Lipman combined the pencil and eraser to create the pencil eraser. He sold the patent to an investor, but the patent wouldn’t stick, and, after many lawsuits, the Supreme Court decided that the patent was a combination of two existing inventions, and he lost all patent rights. This quickened the spread of the pencil eraser’s use. Now, you can go to the dollar store, and buy a 12 pencils (with erasers) for just $1.

Twine Binder

Wheat growing steps:

• Sow Seed

• Reap

• Bind

• Thresh

• All Done!

The labors that bind the wheat after it is reaped just simply could not keep up with the reaper. They would fall behind, so the wheat crop would be smaller, and produce less food. Well, in 1858, John Appleby invented the twine binder to solve this problem. It quickly and efficiently bound twine on a bundle of grain. The binder would be on the reaper, and after being reaped, it would automatically bind the wheat.

71. Condensed Milk
72. Sleeping Car
73. Toilet Paper
74. Washing Machine

Condensed Milk

Gail Borden’s wife died of yellow fever in 1844, and on a trip to London after her death, Gail saw children die from drinking milk from a cow infected with the same disease his wife died of. Borden was determined to invent a way to preserve milk so that it could be stored on a ship, and prevent the cow from having to go aboard. Milk could not yet be stored for more than a few hours, as this was before refrigerators were common. Borden’s condensed milk would solve this. Condensed milk is about 50% milk 50% sugar. It would be canned and sent to the army’s post, and the soldiers would love it. When/if they got home, they told their wives/families about it. Word spread quickly because of that. It is now very common.

Sleeping Car

George Pullman was raised in New York State along the Eerie Canal, and had experience moving and lifting houses. He moved to the town of Chicago (for at that time it was not a city) and began helping to move houses up out of the swamp by raising them a few feet. He earned money there that he would later use to invent the sleeping car. The sleeping car was a compact train car, with fold-down beds that turned into seats. Pullman hired freed African American slaves to be his “Pullman Porters”. The porters were servants to middle class passengers if they paid the price. The African Americans liked their job, got good wages, and gave rise to the black middle class.

Toilet Paper

Joseph Gayetty invented toilet paper in 1857, for you-know-what. Other people had invented toilet paper with POISON AS A PART OF IT, and Gayetty told the public about it. He promised that his paper would not have these effects. And so toilet paper became the most common way to clean your rear.

Washing Machine

Hamilton Smith invented the first washing machine in 1858. It was hand powered. You put the clothes, soap, and water in the top, and turn the crank. The crank circulates the water and washes off the dirt. Then you swap the water out and rinse. They could be spun by electric motors when those came available. By 1930, they were being sold widespread. Women that had formerly spent a whole day washing could now have that day free, it taking only a few minutes to start a load, and a few more to hang them up.

Elevator

Elisha Otis invented the safety elevator while working at a factory and needing to get wood scraps to the top of it. Look at the picture above. It is Elisha Otis’ original patent for the elevator, plus a few marks I added to it to help you understand it a little better. The safety elevator would fall a few inches in the event of a rope break, whereas an elevator without the safety mechanism would fall and kill the passenger(s). Otis had trouble marketing it, but he presented it at the Chicago world fair, and that gave it publicity. The skyscraper became possible because of the elevator.

Syringe

Alexander Wood was inspired by a bee’s stinger, which injects venom into the victim, to invent the syringe, which works in a similar way. It makes a small puncture, and the doctor pushes the fluid in with a lever. Here is a syringe:

This is safer than cutting a hole in the skin and a vein to pour medicine into it. A tiny puncture could do it.Syringes went from glass and metal, to disposable plastic syringes for use in the home or the veterinarian’s hospital.

Bessemer Process

In 1853 France was again at war, this time allied with the Ottoman Empire and England against Russia. This was the Crimean War. France wanted steel cannon instead of iron, because steel was stronger and more reliable. The trouble was that steel was in short supply, so Napoleon III asked Henry Bessemer to invent a new way of making steel. Pig iron was the by-product of the blast furnace and the bloomery before it. While conducting experiments with iron and other metals, Bessemer accidentally left some pig iron next to the furnace which, when he went to push it in, was steel! The hot air from the furnace was enough to make the unusable pig iron into strong steel. More supply means lower prices, which means higher demand. Train rails could be made with steel instead of iron, which made the rails last longer, which reduced maintenance costs.

Egg Beater

The egg beater is a very simple, yet effective, invention. It uses human power and a mechanical advantage to mix watery batters, or to beat eggs. It later evolved into the mechanical mixer, powered by electricity, and that caused a boom in baking, because it could be done on an industrial level. KitchenAid was born out of the egg beaters evolution, and it is one of the most popular mixer brands in America, even today.

61. Jackhammer
62. Pin-Tumbler Lock
63. Safety Pin
64. Gyroscopes

Jackhammer

The jackhammer was originally steam powered, but this could not be used in mining, as the steam engine needed to power it could not operate under ground. So the inventor’s, Jonathan Couch’s, assistant, Joseph Fowle, invented a variation of the jackhammer that ran by compressed air. It works by moving a drill bit up and down over 20 times a second. The jackhammer allows mining to be quicker and cheaper, and it makes construction faster.

Pin-Tumbler Lock

With the Irish potato famine and the socialist revolutions, immigration to America was soaring. That led to more American commerce and trading. That led to more banks. That led to more money. That led to more vaults to store the money. That led to more bank robberies. That led to the need for better locks. Linus Yale Sr. was a locksmith who invented the first pin tumbler lock for the banks. Pin tumbler locks are hard to pick, and can be re-key in one day by a locksmith. They cannot be blown up with gunpowder as older locks could. Linus Yale Jr. was a great advertiser. He told investors that his locks did not have weaknesses that others did. Your house is probably protected by a pin tumbler lock now.

Safety Pin

Walter Hunt had a $15 dollar debt to a friend that he couldn’t pay off. $15 dollars in 1849 was about $500 in 2020 money. He invented the safety pin and sold the patent for $400 1849 dollars, or about $13,500 2020 dollars. He ended up keeping $385 1849 dollars, or about $13,00 2020 dollars. The person who bought the patent sold the pin cheaply, and they were advertised for people in general. Their use has not changed much, from the original purposes, of holding cloth diapers together, sewing, holding clothes together in a pinch.

Gyroscope

French Leon Foucalt invented the gyroscope after having used a much larger one to demonstrate the earth’s rotation. This is a good video that demonstrate the gyroscope much easier than I can explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cquvA_IpEsA Gyroscopes are used in aircraft mostly, to stabilize them. Motors are used to keep the gyroscopes running. You can buy toy gyroscopes: https://tedcotoys.com/product/the-original-gyroscope/#reviews