Memorize these and you could recognize 26.0% of all Inventions clues.
| # | Answer | Appearances | Sample Clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guglielmo Marconi | 20 | This Italian established wireless communication across the English Channel in 1899 |
| 2 | Thomas Edison | 20 | Thanks to his invention, we saw Mickey Rooney & Spencer Tracy play him in the movies |
| 3 | Alexander Graham Bell | 19 | When donning your Walkman's earphones, remember he invented the 1st earphone in 1876 |
| 4 | Charles Goodyear | 11 | In the 1850s he wrote a 2-volume work, "Gum-Elastic and Its Varieties" |
| 5 | Elisha Otis | 10 | In 1852 he invented an automatic safety device to prevent the fall of hoisting machinery |
| 6 | Robert Fulton | 10 | Though known for the 1st successful steamboat, he was also a successful portrait painter |
| 7 | Edwin Land | 8 | In the early '30s he produced the 1st piece of plastic embedded with polarizing crystal |
| 8 | Gutenberg | 8 | A museum in Mainz, Germany honors this inventor who developed printing from movable type |
| 9 | Samuel Colt | 8 | There was little demand for his revolver until the Mexican-American War when the U.S. government ordered 1,000 |
| 10 | Eli Whitney | 7 | There already was a machine to remove the seeds of coastal cotton; he invented one for inland cotton |
| 11 | (Robert) Goddard | 7 | His control mechanism for rocket apparatus earned him a place in the Inventors Hall Of Fame |
| 12 | James Watt | 7 | This developer of the steam engine also invented steam heating as a way to heat his office |
| 13 | Linus Yale | 7 | It was about the time of the Civil War that he introduced his cylinder lock |
| 14 | Velcro | 6 | Georges de Mestral got idea for this from burrs that stuck to his pants during a hunting trip |
| 15 | John Deere | 6 | He invented the self-cleaning steel plow, the company he founded is No. 1 in the U.S. in farm equipment |
| 16 | George Eastman | 6 | He marketed the 1st mass-produced camera |
| 17 | Samuel Morse | 5 | His first working model of the telegraph was constructed in part from an old picture frame |
| 18 | Cyrus McCormick | 5 | He "reaped" the Grand Medal of Honor in 1855 at the Paris International Exposition |
| 19 | Elias Howe | 5 | Until his death in 1867, this inventor got royalties on every sewing machine sold in the U.S. |
| 20 | Alfred Nobel | 5 | Reportedly first isolated in 1957 in Stockholm, Sweden, chemical element 102 is named for this inventor |
| 21 | Birdseye | 5 | Known for his frozen food process, he also developed a type of harpoon gun & an infrared heat lamp |
| 22 | the typewriter | 5 | It's what the 1874 "literary piano" developed into |
| 23 | Thomas Alva Edison | 4 | No one wanted the vote recorder he invented in 1868 in Boston |
| 24 | Gail Borden | 4 | Among his patents is one in 1862 for condensing fruit juice |
| 25 | Benjamin Franklin | 4 | In 1958 bifocal contact lenses were invented, some 175 years after he invented bifocal glasses |
| 26 | Archimedes | 4 | Eureka! This man who discovered the law of hydrostatics invented the compound pulley & the catapult |
| 27 | Liquid Paper | 4 | Typists owe a debt of thanks to Bette Nesmith, who invented this correction fluid |
| 28 | George Westinghouse | 4 | With his invention he disproved the notion that it was nonsense "to stop a railroad train with wind" |
| 29 | a zipper | 4 | The World Almanac's list of inventions goes from Pascal's adding machine to a 1913 improvement of this fastener |
| 30 | the telephone | 4 | Inventor & draftsman Lewis Latimer drew up the papers on this Bell inventions |
| 31 | King Gillette | 4 | No one knows who invented the razor but we know this man invented the safety razor |
| 32 | an escalator | 4 | Introduced at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris, its name comes from Latin for "one that takes you up the ladder" |
| 33 | water | 3 | The "screw of Archimedes" was designed to raise this substance |
| 34 | the sewing machine | 3 | It's said a dream Elias Howe had about men threatening him with spears led to the needle for this invention |
| 35 | IBM | 3 | The Tabulating Machine Company of inventor Herman Hollerith grew into this major corporation |
| 36 | Henry Ford | 3 | This Dearborn auto pioneer was elected in 1982 for his transmission mechanism |
| 37 | Galileo | 3 | In June 1633 this Italian astronomer was forced to recant his anti-Ptolemaic views |
| 38 | China | 3 | It is generally believed gunpowder was invented in this country |
| 39 | air conditioning | 3 | Willis H. Carrier, founder of Carrier Corp., is considered the inventor of this |
| 40 | Polaroid | 3 | Type of camera invented by Edwin Land |
| 41 | Buckminster Fuller | 3 | Though expelled from Harvard, this geodesic dome inventor later held more than 2,000 patents |
| 42 | a submarine | 3 | French inventor Charles Brun used compressed air to expel water from the ballast tanks of one of these ships |
| 43 | a pacemaker | 3 | John Hopps discovered that electric stimuli could regulate heartbeat, leading to this invention |
| 44 | a clock | 3 | A new Sony VCR sets this device for you by using a signal broadcast to it by local PBS stations |
| 45 | a camera | 3 | George Eastman received a patent for this on September 4, 1888; say cheese! |
| 46 | a (TV) remote control | 3 | This device was first developed by Zenith in 1950 under the name "Lazy Bones" |
| 47 | (George) Pullman | 3 | With kitchen in the middle, he made sure ½ the dining car would be free of windborne odors |
| 48 | windshield wipers | 2 | In 1903 Mary Anderson created these after noticing streetcar drivers struggling to see in rainy conditions |
| 49 | Vacuum cleaner | 2 | In 1907, J.M. Spangler, not Wm. H. Hoover, invented the forerunner of this machine |
| 50 | Transistor | 2 | About 1950, 3 Bell Telephone Labs scientists invented this, the 1st solid-state electronic device |