xvi things you thought were invented in the US — but weren't

Woman in denim shirt

Denim was invented in France.
Easton Oliver/Unsplash

The Wright brothers didn't invent the plane.

Wilbur Wright.
AP Images

Obviously, A New Zealand farmer named Richard Pearse took flight for roughly 350 yards in March of 1902 — months before the Wright brothers nailed down a more sustained flight.

Hot dogs were invented in Frg and Austria.

Hot dogs topped with ketchup and mustard.
Shutterstock

Staples of baseball parks and summer cookouts alike, the apprehensive hot dog was possibly discovered in ancient Rome, when the cook of Nero, a Roman emperor, removed and stuffed the intestines of a roast pig.

But what we know for certain is that the tubular meat we're familiar with today originated in 1 of ii European towns (both vie for the honor): Frankfurt, Deutschland (hence, "frankfurter"), and Vienna, Austria (the discussion "wiener" comes from the city's German language proper noun, Wien).

Generally, it is agreed upon that European immigrants in New York popularized the dish stateside. Most famously Nathan Handwerker, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who worked at a Coney Island frank stand when he opened his ain stand — the at present-iconic Nathan's Famous, in 1916.

Alexander Graham Bell came up with the thought for the telephone in Canada.

A rotary phone.
Flickr / Billy Brownish

While many people tin name the Scottish-built-in American scientist Alexander Graham Bong as the person who invented the telephone, they'll be surprised to acquire that Bell — whose family immigrated to Canada in 1870 — came upwardly with the idea for the communication device in Brantford, Ontario. Observing the currents of a river, he realized that you could transmit sound past decision-making the intensity of electric currents.

Bong filed a patent for the phone in the US but returned to Canada to receive the first one-mode long-distance telephone call. It was transmitted past telegraph wire from Brantford to Paris, Ontario.

Denim was invented in 18th-century France.

Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake rocking all denim.
Marking J. Terrill/Getty Images

Denim was invented by blow in 18th-century French republic in the city of Nîmes. Attempting to copy an Italian fabric, serge, the French created a material they chosen "serge de Nîmes," which was shortened to "denim."

In turn, Levi Strauss (born Loeb Strauss) introduced denim to America when he emigrated from Bavaria in 1853. Living in San Francisco and working at his family'south dry out goods store, Strauss teamed up with Jacob Davis, a tailor from Nevada. Together, they registered a patent for pants strengthened with rivets that catered to the mining industry.

Some of the earliest experiments that led to the creation of television took place in Russia and the United kingdom.

A wall of flatscreen TVs.
Allison Joyce/Getty Images

Philo Taylor Farnsworth, an American, is known every bit the "Father of Electronic Television." In 1927, when he was just 21, Farnsworth unveiled a video photographic camera tube that could transmit images by scanning them with a beam of electrons.

Yet, he didn't single handedly invent the TV. Earlier experiments past people such as Boris Rosing in Russia and John Logie Baird in England preceded Farnsworth's invention. In 1907, Rosing — who taught future TV innovator Vladimir Zworykin in St. Petersburg —  researched how a cathode ray tube could be used as a receiver and filed a German language patent for the device. Baird, on the other hand, discovered in 1924 that rotating discs with holes in them could transmit images mechanically.

Margaret Sanger founded the birth control motion in New York City, but the pill itself was invented in a lab in Mexico.

Nascency control pills.
Image Point Fr/Shutterstock

In 1914, social reformer and sex activity educator Margaret Sanger introduced the term "nativity command" into the American dictionary.

Merely the "begetter of the pill" is actually Carl Djerassi, an Austrian-built-in chemist who immigrated to the US to escape the Nazis. An good on steroid synthesis, Djerassi joined a Mexico City-based company chosen Syntex, where he helped pioneer the first oral contraceptive in 1951.

While he didn't accept the green light to test, produce, or distribute the pill, his enquiry paved the way for the squad that did — endocrinologist Gregory Pincus and gynecologist John Rock. Nine years after Djerassi'southward discovery, following clinical trials in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, the pill was canonical past the FDA.

The electric battery was invented in 19th-century Italy.

The Analeptic Bunny balloon at the Cracking Forest Park Balloon Race. St. Louis, Missouri.
Shutterstock

When you think of batteries, you might picture the Energizer Bunny. Simply it was Italian physicist Alessandro Volta — the volt is named in his award — who created the first electrical battery in 1800. His and so-called voltaic pile comprised a stack of zinc and silver (or copper and pewter) plates separated by pieces of cloth soaked in a brine solution.

Although Thomas Edison used 10-ray engineering in some of his inventions, X-ray photography was invented in Germany.

A md examines Ten-rays.
REUTERS/ Jean-Paul Pelissier

In 1895, German mechanical engineer Wilhelm Röntgen, who afterward won a Nobel Prize in Physics, discovered Ten-ray radiation.

Thomas Edison built on Röntgen'southward findings, using his research as the footing for inventions such equally a fluorescent lamp. Even so, Edison ceased experimenting with X-rays when his assistant died from complications from radiation exposure.

It may be an icon of American journalism, but the notepad is an Aussie innovation.

Some people all the same adopt to accept notes in a notepad.
GaudiLab/Shutterstock

Despite its condition as an icon of American journalism, the notepad was actually invented in Commonwealth of australia in 1902 by J.A. Birchall, who owned a stationary store in Tasmania. Bored of selling writing newspaper in folded stacks known as quires (four sheets of paper folded to create viii leaves), he glued a stack of halved sheets together and added a piece of paper-thin to back up the contraption. Thus, the world's commencement notepad (nicknamed the "Silvery City Writing Tablet") was born.

When you order a decaf cup of coffee at a diner or café, you have a German java merchant to give thanks.

A adult female drinks a coffee.
Angie Built-in/Flickr

While the question "Regular or decaf?" might bring to mind the colour-coded coffee pots common in diners across America, we accept German coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius to thank for the decaffeination process. In 1905, Roselius realized that caffeine could be removed from java beans with assistance from the hydrocarbon benzene, which is at present a known carcinogen.

Thankfully for mod decaf drinkers, scientists discovered safer methods to decaffeinate coffee beans. Since caffeine is soluble in h2o, it tin can be removed via water processing or past using a directly solvent (such as ethyl acetate) to extricate the stimulant.

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