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Who is often called the 'first African-American' inventor?

Benjamin Banneker. Banneker was a member of the planning committee that designed Washington, DC along with Pierre L'Enfant. When L'Enfant was fired Banneker recreated the plans from memory.

Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor. He invented the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, studied electricity, discovered the Gulf Stream, started the first library, and on and on. Among his many other inventions, what musical instrument did he invent?

harmonium. Ben also holds a lot of firsts - first U.S. ambassador, first political cartoonist, first American philosopher, organized the first fire department, and on and on.

This statesman, politican, scholar, inventor, and one of the earliest US presidents invented the swivel chair, the spherical sundial, the moldboard plow, and the cipher wheel. Who was he?

Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson managed all this while being the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third US president.

Who was the first American female to patent her invention, a method of weaving straw with silk?

Mary Kies. Mary was not the first American woman inventor to be sure, there were many female inventors before her, but they never bothered to get a patent.

What invention is credited to the Russian born American inventor Vladimir Kosma Zworykin?

television. Zworykin invented both the tube (iconoscope) for transmission and the receiver (kinescope) in 1923 and 1924, respectively.

This English inventor is known as the 'Father of Computing.'

Charles Babbage. Mauchly and Eckert invented the ENIAC computer. Farnsworth was a pioneer of early television.

Thomas Alva Edison harnessed the power of electricity to create a whole series of inventions, from the electric light blub to the movie projector. Edison is know as 'The Wizard of ________?

Menlo Park. One of Edison's school teachers told his mother that young Tom was incapable of learning, so his mother home schooled him.

Who is the only U.S. President to invent and patent something?

Abraham Lincoln. In 1849 Honest Abe invented a method to aid ships that got stuck on sandbars. He called it A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals. It was never used.

What is the name of the CalTech seismologist who invented the scale used to measure the magnitude of earthquakes?

Charles Richter. Richter was born on an Ohio farm in 1900. He died in 1985.

William Frederick is credited with the invention of the modern frisbee in the mid 1950's. In 1957 the Wham-O Company bought his idea and the rest is history. They named the toy after William Frisbie who was a ________?

pie maker. Frisbie made a brand of pies that were popular with Yale students in the 1870's. After eating the pies they would throw the pie tins through the air.

This African-American woman physical therapist worked with soldiers disabled in World War II. She invented a device that helped the disabled to eat by delivering food through a tube to a mouthpiece.

Bessie Blount. Unfortunately Blount could never get anyone to buy her invention. Finally, in 1952 she sold the rights to the French government.

Who is the English physicist responsible for the 'Big Bang Theory'?

George Gamow. Gamow, who died in 1968, was a physicist, who published "Thirty Years that Shook Physics".

The Manhattan Project was started by President Roosevelt in 1942 to ensure that the U.S. beat the Germans in developing a nuclear bomb. Who was appointed as scientific head of the Manhattan Project?

Robert Oppenheimer. Leslie R. Groves, however, was the military head of the project and the overall supremo, while Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director. The world's first atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945.

This part-time race car driver invented the bucket seat in 1969.

Steve McQueen. McQueen died in 1980 from a rare form of lung cancer.

What African-American inventor received 5 patents in the field of shoemaking?

Jan Ernst Matzeliger. Matzeliger never benefited financially from his inventions. He died in 1889 at the age of 37 from tuberculosis.