Gail Borden, Jr., received U.S. Patent No. 15,553, on August 19, 1856, on a process for preparing evaporated milk. Condensed milk is the common term for milk that has water rmoved, and sugar added, but Borden’s claim specifically excluded adding sugar.

Borden’s invention made milk available in urban areas where a refrigerated distribution system was not yet available for the distribution of fresh milk.

Borden’s story affirms three key ingredients of invention: Necessity, Persistence, and Luck. Necessity: in 1851, Borden was devastated by the deaths of several children while returning from a trip to England, apparently from poor milk obtained from shipboard cows. Persistence: Borden’s first two factories failed. It was not until his third factory that he could produce a useable milk product. Luck: Borden’s business was buoyed by large orders for rations during the Civil War. His shelf-stable product calorie high protein rations for the Union Army, and after the war provide him with a loyal customer base.

The first plant patent issued August 18, 1931, to Henry F. Bosenberg, on a Climbing or Trailing Rose:

A plant patent is granted by the United States government a distinct and new variety of plant (other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state). The grant, which lasts for 20 years from the date of filing the application, protects the patent owner’s right to exclude others from asexually reproducing the plant, and from using, offering for sale, or selling the plant so reproduced, or any of its parts, throughout the United States, or from importing the plant so reproduced, or any part thereof, into the United States.

Plant patents are unique to the United States and supplement the protection provided utility patents and by the Plant Variety Protection Act.

Solymon Merrick received the first U.S. patent on a wrench (U.S. Patent No. X9030) on August 17, 1835:

Of course wrenches existed before Merrick’s invention, and they have continued to be improved ever since. One such improvement is U.S. Patent No. 1,133,236, which issued March 23, 1915, on the “Crescent” wrench:

On August 16, 1898, Edwin Prescott received U.S. Patent No. 609,164 on a roller coaster with a loop-the-loop:

There are earlier patents on roller coasters without the loop-the-loop, including John G. Taylor’s 1872 U.S. Patent No. 128,674 on Improvement in Inclined Railways:

and LaMarcus A. Thompson’s 1885 U.S. Patent No. 310,966 on a Roller Coasting Structure:

Subsequently, in 1919, John A . Miller’s U.S. Patent No. 1,319,888 on a Pleasure Railway Structure introduced the idea of wheels below the track as well, to maintain the cars on the track:

By 1929, H. G. Traver’s U.S. Patent No. 1,713,793 on an Amusement Ride looks more like the modern roller coasters we are used to:

On August 15, 1835, C. H. Farnham received a patent on a Washing Machine, this patent issued just before the USPTO started numbering patents, so this patent was part of the infamous X-series of patents, and was retroactively numbered X8993.

There was an earlier patent, X-series patent granted March 3, 1797, to Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire for “an improvement in washing clothes.”

On this day back in 1973, U.S. Patent No. 3,751,727 issued on a Space Suit. This suit was “designed for astronauts in the Apollo Space Program.”

This patent represents the successful solution of just a few of the thousands of technical problems that had to be solved to meet President Kennedy’s May 25, 1961, challenge that this nation “commit itself to achieving the goal, before his decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” Thousands of American s solved thousands of technical problems, only a few of which have been documented in the patent collection.

Alexander Graham Bell received U.S. Patent No. 174,465 on the telephone on March 7, 1876.

Surprisingly, it took the industry more than 13 years to come up with the pay telephone. On August 13, 1889, William Gray received U.S. Patent No. 408709 on a “Coined Controlled Apparatus for Telephones.” (These days telecommunication companies are much more adept at monetizing their technology).

The first pay phone was installed on the corner of Main Street and Central Row, in Hartford, Connecticut, Gray’s hometown, later that year.

On August 12, 1977, the space shuttle Enterprise (aka Orbiter Vehicle OV-101) made its first free flight, launched from a Boeing 747 carrier. The Enterprise glided on its own, and landed on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. This was a prototype built only for testing, and never equipped for space flight. The Enterprise was named for the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from the TV series Star Trek.

The design of the space shuttle was based upon U.S. Patent No. 3,866,863 on a Space Vehicle

and U.S. Patent No.3,702,688 on a Space Shuttle Vehicle and System:

Our reality rarely matches our imagination, but the space shuttle Enterprise and carried forward the spirit of its namesake, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and its mission to boldly go where no one had gone before.

On this date in 1942, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (Hedy Kiesler Markey) and composer George Antheil received U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 on a Secret Communication System that employed a “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” that would make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect and jam.

The pair donated their patent to the US Navy and never made and money from their invention, whose fundamental concept is the basis for wireless phones, Global Positioning Systems, and WiFi.

Although Hedy had little formal training, a keen mind and serendipitous encounter with George Antweil who had worked on synchronizing two player pianos, let to an ingenious solution to secure communication.

She was awarded the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997, and was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame along with her co-inventor George Antheil in 2014.

On August 10, 1982, George W. Lucas, Jr. Ralph McQuarrie, Joseph E. Johnston, and Stuart Freeborn, received U.S. Patent No. D265754 on a toy Figure (Yoda!):