Who, how, and when was Velcro invented?

sequoianoir

Anonymous says: One day in 1948 a Swiss engineer by the name of George de Mestral was climbing over mountains in the Swiss Alps. The views were great, but he kept getting seedpods called burrs stuck on his clothing. And they wouldn't come off! Being an engineer, he decided to figure out what was going on so he closely examined the burrs. Each burr contained tiny hooks that were clinging to threaded loops in his clothing. The solution to this thorny problem suddenly came to his mind. Mestral invented a fastener that would work just like nature's burrs. It took him eight years (and a lot of hooking and looping) to develop Velcro, which is a kind of tape. One side contains the {hooks;} the other side has the loops. The cool thing about Velcro is that you can separate the tape with a rip and reuse it. Velcro's been used in jackets, spacesuits, artificial hearts, and shoes. Parents who hate tying their kids' shoelaces have been thanking Mestral ever since. Thu Apr 10 19:09:46 CDT 2003 (Reposted to credit sequoianoir - McG) Apr 13 03, 10:39 PM