THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW

In May 2011 a 104-year-old woman died. In her span of life she witnessed the birth of aircraft flight, and the moon landing, World War I, World War II, and the September 11th attacks. She witnessed the beginning of radio, film, television, and the internet. 19 men - Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama, had been president, and five states joined the union. Women earned the right to vote. She narrowly missed perishing on the Titanic. She survived on the millions of dirty dollars her father earned by lying and cheating before the 20th century even began. She had two luxurious homes she never lived in. Instead she preferred to live in a hospital, safe from the outside world.  Huguette  Clark was one of the world's most famous recluses. Huguette's  father, William Clark was born in a log cabin in Montana. He made his money in mining copper. He built a settlement in the Nevada desert that would come to be known as Las vegas. He ran for senate, bribing anyone who could help him a...

Filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names And blew through the money on the boys and the ballet And losin' on card game bets with Dalí Sounds like a pretty fun gal. Taylor Swift wrote The Last Great American Dynasty about Rebekah Harkness, socialite and Bitch Pack member who shocked society by marrying the heir to Standard Oil. Once one of the wealthiest women in America, Harkness partied and patronized, much to the chagrin of her contemporaries. Rebekah Harkness would have been forgotten had the legend that is T- Swift not brought her back to life in song form. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1915, Rebekah West grew up the daughter of a wealthy midwest family. Her parents left the care of their children to nannies. Rebekah attended two schools for girls as a young woman. She and her friends called themselves the Bitch Pack. Rebekah did not abide by society's rules for proper young debutants. She spiked the punch at her sister's coming out ball with mineral...

These wealthy women had troubles for every dollar they had... Rebekah inspired a T-Swift song Huguette became a recluse with only her dolls to keep her company Helen was a sweets empire heiress whose love of horses got her into a sour situation

Movies are a part of human life, from a train going through a tunnel to ET making Elliott's bike fly. But not one indelible screen image could have occurred without Louis le Prince. But, would cinema be different if Louis le prince had not disappeared? The man who invented the first camera capable of motion capture boarded a train and never got off. No trace of Louis le Prince was ever found. Louis le Prince was born in Metz in 1841. His father was friends with  Louis Daguerre , inventor of photography.  Le Prince created a 16 lens camera that could capture motion - the first of its kind. In 1887 he built a single lens camera and took footage of a garden scene which became one of the earliest motion pictures. The Lumiere Brothers had begun working with moving pictures, and Thomas Edison was doing the same in America. In September of 1890 le Prince traveled to the U.S. to obtain a patent for his technology. He decided to visit his brother in France first. He boarded a train t...

  How does a plastic bowl with a sealable lid relate to feminism? Oddly, by being an icon of housewife  domesticity,  Tupperware  gave women unprecedented freedom. Brownie Wise, a single mother with money issues perfected the Tupperware Party and took women from the kitchen to the sales force - via the kitchen. Although ousted from the company she helped elevate, Brownie Wisesmade proper food storage common in American homes. Brownie Wise is remembered today as an icon of sales innovation. Postwar America became a suburban paradise. Women needed to keep food fresher longer to feed  broods of Baby Boom babies. Plastic containers as we know them today were practically non-existent.  Earl Tupper , while working for  Du Pont, use flexible polyethylene to fashion lightweight food storage containers. He founded his own company and began to sell his products and department stores. But housewives didn't exactly know what to do with the products so they mostly ...

  The name Walter Hunt has been lost to history but he invented three important and useful things in use even today. Yet he never achieved credit or reaped the millions of dollars these items could have earned him. Walter Hunt was born in upstate New York and became a Mason by trade. He had a knack for creating and invented several useful items - including a prototype fountain pen. He attained patents for his inventions, but often sold them when he needed money. He innovated the repeating rifle but lacked the means to mass produce them so he sold the patent to Winchester and Hunt's repeating format revolutionized rifles, but Winchester earned the fame and money. Hunt then transformed sewing pins. He added a spring to the end of a pin, then connected a second metal piece with a cap. The coil help the pin move into the cap. Hunt patented the device, but sold the patent to WR Grace and Company for $400 - to pay off a $15 debt. Safety pins netted the WR Grace Company millions of dollar...