Many useful things that we use every day have appeared due to the tragedies of individuals, wars and torture. Introducing you top 7 inventions that came from horrible things.
7. Power Chord
All rock and roll tunes are built around power chords. They can be heard on AC / DC, Nirvana, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks, etc. Power chords are so important that young guitarists are among the first to learn them. And he came up with this type of Link Ray chords and used Rumble in his 1958 song. Nowadays, Rumble is considered one of the greatest compositions of all time.
Before starting a career in show business, Link had to go to the Korean War. The jungle of Korea was a hotbed of disease. Like many of his colleagues, Ray suffered from terrible attacks of tuberculosis. Due to illness, the soldier had to remove one of the lungs. Unable to sing anymore, he was forced to act as an instrumentalist. His hopes for a singing career may have been shattered, but Link inspired several generations of musicians, making a huge contribution to the development of guitar rock sound.
6. Tanning lamps
After the crisis of the German economy as a result of the First World War, the inhabitants of Germany faced hunger. Children suffered the most from him. An unprecedented number of young Germans suffered from rickets due to a lack of vitamin D and calcium. At that time, no one knew what caused rickets. However, Dr. Kurt Haldshinsky noted that all patients literally had a pale appearance, so he created an ultraviolet lamp so that the children received a substitute for sunlight. It worked. Ultraviolet light cured the disease, and Haldshinski launched a marketing company selling his invention. It served as a prototype for lamps that are used in tanning salons.
5. The first bikes
In 1815, the Tambora stratovolcano erupted in Indonesia. As a result of this disaster, including from hunger and disease, 71,000 people died (there is another figure - 92,000 people). For the Indonesians, it was a terrifying event. For horses, it was an unprecedented disaster. Ashes rising to the sky blocked the sunlight for several months. And the climatic anomalies caused by the eruption led to very low temperatures in Europe and North America in 1816. Due to crop failure and the resulting lack of feed, horses began to die in thousands. And since these animals were the main mode of transport, people had to look for a replacement that did not need food. One such inventor, Baron Karl Dreis von Sauerbron, created a bicycle.
4. Treadmill
After the devastating Napoleonic Wars, England was in dire need of manpower. And many free labor was supplied by prisons. In 1817, Sir William Cabitt created the first treadmill, which was not intended to support a healthy lifestyle. The prisoners walked along the path, thereby forcing the giant wheel or pump to rotate. The wheel, in turn, crushed the grain, and the pump pumped the water. People had to walk for six hours in a row and climb a total of 4,300 meters. And so 5 days in a row. Many fell from the track and were injured. These treadmills were banned in 1898 as a cruel and unusual punishment.
3. Trap tank
Nowadays, a dunk tank or trap tank is fun. Its essence is as follows: one of the players sits on a seat located above the water tank. And the second participant in the game throws balls at the center of the target located on a special stand. In the event of a successful hit, a spring mechanism acts to lower the seat into the water. Since the players change places, revenge is not long in coming, but someone manages to get out of the water dry, literally.
However, the trap tank was not always a harmless game. In the 1800s, this game was called African Dodger. The player using the ball tried to hit the target, in the role of which was the head of a black man. If the thrower hit the target, he received a prize. After some time, human heads were mercifully replaced by wooden understudies, which were called "Negro heads." And then both games were merged together, and the result was an “African trap”. If the thrower hit the target, then the second player - a Negro - fell into the water. Only in places the players did not change.
2. Banjo
In the 1600s, captains of ships carrying slaves encountered a problem. Live goods were sick and dying. Because of this, slave owners lost their profits. To keep their slaves healthy, carriers forced them to move and dance. It is logical that the slaves were not in the mood to arrange dances. And in order to “sweeten them a little pill” a little, it was decided to use traditional African instruments. So, along with the slaves, the banjo got to the United States. And this kind of guitar would remain a little-known instrument, if not for the minstrel show, one of the forms of 19th century American folk theater. When a minstrel show participant made fun of slaves, he portrayed a lazy slave playing the banjo.
1. Retin-A against blackheads and wrinkles
In the first place in the ranking of innovations that appeared due to human torment, is a popular cosmetic product. After World War II, human experiments were banned. But they did not always comply with this ban. From 1951 to 1974, dermatologist Albert Kligman experimented with prisoners in the Holmesburg prison in Philadelphia. He said that he saw in prisoners not people, but “acres of skin”. Clygman, funded by the CIA, Dow Chemical, and Johnson & Johnson, used people as biological guinea pigs. He tore off the skin of prisoners with scotch tape, injected a chemical called Agent Orange, forced patients to take LSD, and put them in a room with radioactive isotopes. Kligman also gave prisoners experimental versions of the drugs and monitored their effects. One of the many drugs designed this way was the first version of Retin-A. The number of people who died from these savage experiments is unknown.
