When we think of inventions, we think of the big things like the light bulb, or the radio – but what about all those little things we use every day? They had to be invented too ye know! Here are five of the simplest inventions that we simply could not live without!

Post-its
These handy sticky bits of paper were invented by a 3M employee Art Fry who got annoyed that his book mark kept slipping out of his hymn book when he was singing in the choir. He decided to create something that would stick to the page but could also be removed without ripping the paper – the post-it! Our lives would be at least 26% less organised if it weren’t for this man!

Door knobs
How did people get through doors without door knobs? We just don’t know, but the humble door knob wasn’t invented until 1878 by Osbourn Dorsey (check out the patent!), which is pretty late!

Before that, people opened doors with these things:

Rubber bands
Teachers everywhere must despise Stephen Perry, who invented the rubber band way back in 1845. He used vulcanized rubber to create the little bands. What would we have used to flick bits of rubber across the classroom if it weren’t for this genius man?

Straws
Imagine a world with no straws – there’d nearly be no point in wearing lipstick at all. It’d be ruined as soon as you take a sip of your drink! Marvin Stone created the straw in 1888 AD. He wrapped a piece of paper around a pencil and glued it, and then he replaced the paper with paraffin-coated Manila paper so that it wouldn’t get soggy. Then he discovered that the best size was 8 inches in length with the diameter just small enough to avoid any seeds getting sucked up. Thanks Marvin!

Shopping bags
A shopping bag seems so obvious to us, but they weren’t invented (or at least patented) until 1952 when Francis Wolle made the first machine for making paper bags. Can you imagine not having any bags to carry all your stuff? It’s bad enough when we forget our reusable bags for one shopping trip – imagine they were all like that!

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