One Hundred Great Things

PAPER CLIP The design is perfect. There's been little improvement since Norwegian Johan Vaaler got his American patent in 1901. Only about 20% are actually used to clip papers.

POST-IT One of the top five best-selling office supplies. To make Post-its, introduced in 1980, 3M had to develop the adhesive, primer, backside coating and new manufacturing equipment

TELEVISION A Russian-born American scientist, Vladimir K. Zworykin, demonstrated the first practical TV in 1929. But it took RCA, which owned NBC, 10 years before making the first national broadcast and producing its first line of TVs. In 1951 (the year I Love Lucy debuted) the networks extended broadcasting from the Northeast to the whole country.

TV REMOTE First came the remote, then came the couch potato. The wireless Space Commander, which used ultrasonics to activate television controls, was invented by Robert Adler in 1956 and remained an industry standard for 25 years. Remotes now work by using an infrared light beam.

LA-Z-BOY CHAIRS The recline of civilization began in 1928 when two cousins, Ed Shoemaker and Ed Knabusch, invented a comfortable wood-slat porch chair, choosing the name La-Z-Boy. They then decided to upholster the chair so it would sell year-round. La-Z-Boy Inc. had sales of more than $1 billion in fiscal 1998.

TV DINNER In 1954 Swanson & Sons succeeded in freezing a meal of compartmentalized portions, so that the housewife could just remove the complete meal from its box, which looked like a television, and heat it in the oven.

BROWNIE BOX CAMERA In 1900 Eastman Kodak introduced the camera that popularized amateur photography. The price: $1; a six-exposure packet of film cost 15[cents]. Some of the century's great photographers, such as Ansel Adams, began with a Brownie.

SAFETY RAZOR King Gillette created the first safety in 1903. He saved millions of necks, and grateful shavers made him fantastically rich. He supplied 3 million razors and 36 million blades to the American troops in World War I.

COMPUTER The revolution started in 1951 with UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), the first commercial computer in the U.S. Built in 1951 for Remington-Rand Corp., it contained 5,000 vacuum tubes. Today's chip-powered machines, sold by the millions, pack more power than UNIVAC into a laptop.

METAL TENNIS RACQUET Rene ("Le Crocodile") Lacoste, the 1920s French tennis champ turned clothing entrepreneur, invented a steel tennis racquet in 1963. It was distributed in the U.S. by Wilson as the T-2000 and quickly revolutionized the game.

CELL PHONE The first cellular phone was developed in 1973 by Martin Cooper at Motorola, and a test of 1,000 such phones followed in Chicago. The Federal Communications Commission authorized cellular service in 1982, and we haven't shut up since. More than a third of all households in the U.S. subscribe.

AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINE Among those credited with making electric washing machines around 1910 was Alva J. Fisher. The machines used wringers to remove water from clothes. Truly automatic machines appeared in the 1930s. An early ad for a GE washer read, "If every father did the family washing next Monday, there would be an electric washing machine in every home by Saturday night."

DETERGENTS By adding surfactants-two-molecule, synthetic surface-active agents-to soap granules, Procter & Gamble created a washday miracle. Dreft was first, in 1933. The big gun, Tide, arrived in 1949.

DISPOSABLE DIAPER Oh, baby, what a convenience! Procter & Gamble's Pampers, born in 1961, were first used only for special occasions. Now the 95% of American parents who buy disposables will spend up to $2,100 a child to avoid washing diapers.

NYLON STOCKINGS Nylon was created in 1938 DuPont found the killer app in 1940 when the first nylon stockings went on sale. Women gladly paid $1.15 a pair, twice the price of silk stockings.

POLARTEC The fabric of the '90s, even though it was introduced in 1981. Made by Malden Mills, the synthetic fabric (some material is even made partly out of recycled plastic bottles) is light, cozy, rugged and water and wind resistant. First worn by serious outdoor athletes, it is now used in all kinds of clothing.

ZIPPER Invented in 1913 by Swedish immigrant Gideon Sundback at Universal Fastener Co. in Pennsylvania. B.F. Goodrich first used the word to refer to a fastener on a pair of its galoshes; it was not used in clothes until the 1930s. By 1941 zippers beat the pants off buttons in the Battle of the Fly.

SKATEBOARD California-no surprise-is the home of the skateboard. The sport, an orthopedist's best friend, took off in the 1970s after polyurethane wheels smoothed out the ride.

BAND-AID Johnson & Johnson sold $3 000 worth of handmade Band-Aids in 1921, the year it introduced them. A company cotton buyer, Earle Dickson, had created them at home for his accident-prone wife. He then convinced his boss that the strips had merit.

SOFT CONTACT LENSES Otto Wichterle, a Czech scientist, created the first soft contact lens in 1961, using an Erector set and a phonograph motor. Bausch & Lomb bought the rights to his process for a reported $3 million in 1966.

PROZAC Eli Lilly launched Prozac in 1988. It works by blocking serotonin rather than allowing it to be released from the brain. Though it was initially controversial, more than 35 million people have got a lift from it.

TYLENOL Brand name for acetaminophen, available in 1960. Like aspirin it reduces pain and fever. Unlike aspirin it will not irritate the gastric system.

ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE Gregory Pincus and two colleagues revolutionized sex by creating the first effective birth-control pill, Enovid-10, introduced in the U.S. in 1960 by Searle.

SNEAKERS While many people, including the 13th century Indians of the Amazon, can lay claim to inventing sneakers, what really launched the boom was the arrival in 1916 of Keds, shoes with canvas uppers and rubber soles made by the U.S. Rubber Co.

SARAN WRAP In 2000 Year Old Man, Mel Brooks tells Carl Reiner that "the greatest thing mankind ever devised, I think, in my humble opinion, is Saran Wrap." Why? Because "you can put a sandwich in it! You can look through it!...It's so good and cute." Dow Chemical introduced its revolutionary packaging material, which is durable, airtight, transparent and flexible, in 1953.

SLICED BREAD What did people say before "the best thing since sliced bread"? Wonder Bread, so associated with the 1950's and better food through science, introduced the first packaged, sliced bread in 1930. The Wonder Bread brand (owned by Interstate Bakeries is still first in the U.S.

POP-UP-TOASTER In 1926 the Waters Genter Co. (later called Toastmaster) introduced the first pop-up toaster. Master mechanic Charles Strite had patented the spring-loaded automatic-toaster design in 1919. Although it cost $12.40, the Toastmaster quickly displaced the manual electric toaster that cost only $1.

ICE CREAM CONE Americans did not start eating ice cream out of cones until 1904-at the world's fair in St. Louis, Mo. The Smithsonian recognizes Abe Doumar, a Lebanese immigrant, as the inventor. He rolled a waffle from one stall and put ice cream in it from another and sold the combination. He then created a machine for producing the cone.

POP TOP CAN On a family picnic in 1959, Ermal Cleon Fraze found himself with a can of beer and no can, opener-one of life's major annoyances at the time. The solution came to him "just like that" one sleepless night. In 1963, Fraze, the founder of Dayton Reliable Tool Co., obtained the patent for a removable pull-tab opener for the tops of cans. Continental Can Co. created a nonremovable tab 16 years later.

REFRIGERATOR With the introduction of small electric motors and nontoxic Freon in the 1930s, refrigerators migrated from industry to home, replacing iceboxes and gaspowered refrigerators. In 1927 GE established an electric-refrigeration department, and in 1931 Sears sold its first affordable refrigerator for $137.50.

PEANUT BUTTER Peanut butter appeared in the late 19th century. Spoilage was a problem, however, so the first popular brand, Peter Pan, was introduced by Swift Packing Co. in 1928. It was licensed from Joseph L. Rosefield, who figured out how to create smooth, long-lasting peanut butter. Rosefield formed his own company in 1933 and created Skippy.

SPAM A leading source of nutritional humor since 1937, Spam is a mixture of pork shoulder, ham and spices. Spam has been a soldier's staple in too many wars. On a more peaceful front SPAM Ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf, includes 162 odes to the luncheon meat by more than 40 writers.

NEON In 1910 a French scientist named Georges Claude applied an electrical charge to a tube filled with neon gas (as opposed to a filament in a vacuum) and created a new kind of illumination. Car dealers did the rest.

BARBIE A babe since 1959 and now worth almost $2 billion in sales annually, Barbie was fashioned by Ruth Handler Mattel's co-founder. The first doll wore a swimsuit and cost $3. Over the year Barbie's had 30 relatives and companions, but only one boyfriend, Ken.

BAKELITE Leo Baekeland was hoping to create a synthetic shellac when he mixed together carbolic acid and formaldehyde in his Yonkers, N.Y., lab in 1907. Instead he created the first totally synthetic plastic-phenolic resin and changed the world. Some mistake.

TEDDY BEAR Brooklyn candy-store owner and his wife introduced a plush brown bear in 1902. President "Teddy" Rooseveit lent his nickname. Early bears are now so valuable that a 1904 Steiff Teddy went for $166,000 at a 1994 Christie's auction.

A CONSUMER CORNUCOPIA

--Barnum's Animal Crackers 1902, introduced by the National Biscuit Co.

--Model T 1908, by Henry Ford

--Electric Range 1910, by Hotpoint

--Vitamins 1912, by scientists Frederick Hopkins and Casimir Funk

--Brassiere 1914, popularized by Mary Phelps Jacob, a New York City debutante who later sold the patent

--Insulin 1921, by researchers Frederick Grant Banting, Charles Best and colleagues

--Kleenex 1924, first disposable tissue developed by Kimberly-Clark

---Penicillin 1928, developed and first tested by Alexander Fleming

--Strained Baby Food 1928, by Daniel and Dorothy Gerber for Fremont Canning Co (later Gerber)

--Domestic Air Conditioner 1928, by Willis Carrier. Model name: the Weathermaker

--Scotch Tape 1930 developed by Richard Drew at 3M

--Flashbulb 1930, as Photoflash lamps by General Electric

--Alka-Seltzer 1931, by Miles Laboratory (later Bayer Corp.)

--Do-It-Yourself Hair Dye 1931, based on a French product area introduced to US by Lawrence and Joan Gelb, Clairol founders

--Electric Razor 1931, by Col. Jacob Schick, who sold 3,000 the first year

--Stereo System 1931, by Alan Blumlein, working for Britain's EMI

--Tampons 1931, developed by Earl Haas and made by Tampax

--Tape Recorder 1935, at Germany's AEG

--Kodachrome Film 1935, brilliant color film based on invention by two young classical musicians

--Garbage Disposer 1935, called the Disposal, by GE

--Blender 1937, from an idea by big-band leader Fred Waring

--Releasable Ski Binding 1937, by ski racer Hjalmar Hvam after breaking his leg

--Fluorescent Lighting 1938, made commercially by GE

--Ballpoint Pen 1938, designed by Hungarians Ladislao and Georg Biro

--Teflon 1938, invented as coating by DuPont

--Jet Engine 1939 and 1941, independently by German inventor Hans von Ohain and Frank Whittle

--Nylon 1939, by DuPont, at lab led by Wallace Hume Carothers

--Electric Kettle 1940, by Fred Moffatt for Canadian GE; 1855, popularized by Russell Hobbes

--Permanent-Press Fabric 1941, Terylene by John Rex Whinfield

--Velcro 1941, by Swiss engineer George de Mestral, who noted how cockleburs stuck to his socks

--Cake Mix 1940s, by General Mills and Pillsbury Co

--Tupperware 1946, by Earl Tupper

--Automatic Electric Clothes Washer 1947, by GE

--Long-Playing Record 1948, by Peter Carl Goldmark of CBS

--Instant Camera 1948, Polaroid Land Camera by Edwin Land

--Electric Guitar 1948, by C. Leo Fender

--Photocopier 1949, by Haloid (later Xerox), having acquired Chester Carlson's basic xerographic patents

--Color TV 1953, by RCA, whose design beat out CBS

--Reddi-wip 1954, in aerosol can, by Bunnie Lapin

--Portable Home Dishwasher 1954, by GE

--Polio vaccine 1955, by Jonas Salk, approved for use

--Transistor Radio 1955, by Sony

--Frisbee 1957, produced by Wham-O, invented by Walter Frederick Morrison

--LEGO system 1958, children's building blocks introduced by Denmark's Lego Co.

--Hula Hoop 1958, by Wham-O

--Snowmobile 1959, by Bombardier of Canada

--Pantyhose 1960, by Glen Raven Mills

--Compact Audio Cassette Player 1963, by Dutch electronic giant Philips

--Touch-Tone Telephone 1963, by AT&T

--Microwave Oven 1967, by Raytheon

--Quartz Wristwatch 1969, sold by Seiko

--Electronic Hand-Held Calculator 1972, first sold by Texas Instruments

--Food Processor 1973, for home use, by Robot-Coupe

--Snowboard 1978, popularized by Jake Burton in Vermont

--Walkman 1979, by Sony, from an idea by CEO Akio Morita

--Liquid Paper 1979, based on invention by secretary Bette Nesmith Graham