medium. Carter partnered with his cousin, Cincinnati local Abe Bookman, to mass- produce the toy. In the end, they had a seven-inch tall tube featuring clear windows on each end and filled with a dark liquid and housing a pair of floating dice with a response on each side. A few years later, the design was modified to save expenses. Benadryl: University of Cincinnati alumnus and engineering professor emeritus George Rieveschl is known for inventing Benadryl, the world’s first effective antihistamine, in the early 1940s. Kenner Products: What would life be without the Easy-Bake Oven, Star Wars action figures, or Bubbl-Matic Guns? Kenner Products was an American toy brand owned by Hasbro and founded in 1947 in Cincinnati. The Easy-Baske Oven was launched in 1963 and the first licensed action figures (Star Wars, Jurassic Park, etc.) were launched in the 1970s. Weather forecasts: Around 1869, the head of the Cincinnati Observatory, Cleveland Abbe, made the first weather predictions in the US when he collected weather observations from other locations via telegraph and made predictions. Professional fire department: Cincinnati established the first fully paid pro- fessional fire department in the US, officially organizing in April of 1853. Prior to this, most cities relied on volunteer groups. Bicycle Cards: The famous Bicycle brand playing cards were born in Cincinnati, when A. O. Russell proposed to his printing partners that they embark on manufacturing playing cards, an industry that was monopolized by several East Coast companies. The partners agreed, and the first deck of playing cards was com- pleted on June 28, 1881. About 20 employees manufactured 1,600 packs per day. Gorilla Glue: In 1941, woodworker Mark SInger discov- ered a Danish-made polyurethane glue in Indonesia, which he realized had incredible expanding, holding, and waterproof capabil- ities. Singer then bought the North American rights and formed The Gorilla Glue Company in 1994, establishing a manufacturing factory and base in Cincinnati. Ivory Soap: The iconic cake of soap is the brainchild of two men, Procter & Gamble. It was in the late 19th century, a period when river bathing was prevalent among large swaths of the population. Gamble at the time was trying to
create a new type of gently formulated soap, and the process inadvertently created a batch of soap that was found to float. First Heart-lung machine: A team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in 1951 developed one of the world’s first func- tional heart-lung machines using an early bubble oxygenator. Steam-powered fire engine: The first practical and successful steam-pow- ered fire engine was invented in Cincinnati and presented to the fire department in 1853, making the city the first in the world to use steam fire engines. One of the reasons for its creation was the first professional fire depart- ment, and the fire chief’s desire to seek new and better ways to fight fires. Air mail: Cincinnati hosted one of the first unofficial balloon mail flights in the US in 1853, when pilot Richard Clayton and his balloon ascended from an amphitheater with a satchel of mail intended for eastern cities. Sadly, he crashed 100 miles away and had the post office in Waverly, Ohio, send the letters the rest of the way. Cornhole: The game of cornhole, often called bean bags, has roots tracing back to a similar game in 14th-century Germany. Yet Cincinnati is widely regarded as the birthplace of the modern version of cornhole when the game took off in the 1960s when locals began toss- ing bags filled with feed corn. Fun Facts 1. The world’s last passenger pigeon died in Cincinnati. Now extinct, the passenger pigeon was once the most common bird in North America. Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. 2. The city was nicknamed “ Porkopolis ” be- cause pigs roamed the streets. In the 1800s, Cincinnati was the world’s largest pork-pro- cessing center, and pigs literally wandered through downtown streets. The city pro- cessed so much pork that it earned the name “Porkopolis.”This legacy lives on in the Flying Pig Marathon and pig statues scattered around downtown. 3. In 1951, a kid named George Rau Jr. smuggled 10 Italian wall lizards in his socks and released them in his Cincinnati backyard. Now, their descendants number in the tens of thousands, making Cincinnati home to one of the most successful reptile invasions in North America.
ille, coined in 1788 by surveyor and co-found- er John Filson. Losantiville translates to “the town opposite the mouth of the Licking Riv- er.” In 1790, General Arthur St. Clair, the first governor of the Northwest Territory and a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, did not like the name Losantiville and changed it to Cincinnati after the Roman general Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. 5. The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, built in 1867, was the longest in the world when it opened and it served as the working prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge. 6. Cincinnati holds the title for the largest abandoned, never-used subway system in the United States. Spanning about 2.2 miles beneath Central Parkway in downtown, the underground network features empty plat- forms and derelict stations that have never carried a single passenger due to construc- tion being stalled permanently because of skyrocketing costs after WWI. 7. St. Francis de Sales Church houses Big Joe, the largest swinging bell ever cast in the United States at 35,000 pounds. When it first rang in 1896, it could be heard 15 miles away and even shattered windows throughout the neighborhood. After that, it was decided Big Joe must never swing again, so the bell was immobilized and now is struck with a hammer. 8. Cincinnati’s Music Hall sits on top of a former Potter’s Field where unclaimed bodies, asylum patients, and cholera victims were buried. The building is considered one of America’s most haunted venues and the Cincinnati Pops conductor and countless employees have reported supernatural encounters. 9. The Cincinnati Museum Center has “whis- pering fountains” where, due to the building’s acoustics, you can stand on opposite ends of the building and whisper into the fountain and have a conversation. 10. Cincinnati hosts America’s largest Oktoberfest celebration, with Oktoberfest Zinzinnati attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. It is the second-largest Oktoberfest in the world after Munich, and the festival once set a world record for the largest Chicken Dance with over 48,000 participants. 11. Famous people that were from Cincinnati include: Carmen Electra, Steven Spielberg, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jerry Springer, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, the band 98 Degrees, President William Howard Taft, and Doris Day.
4. Cincinnati was originally named Losantiv-
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