Take a look at the world's weirdest inventions--from the Goofybike to fart filters. These stories are too strange to be made up! Written with a high interest level to appeal to a more mature audience and a lower level of complexity with clear visuals to help struggling readers along. Considerate text includes tons of fascinating information and wild facts that will hold the readers' interest, allowing for successful mastery and comprehension. A table of contents, glossary with simplified pronunciations, and index all enhance comprehension.

Take a look at the world's weirdest inventions--from the Goofybike to fart filters. These stories are too strange to be made up! Written with a high interest level to appeal to a more mature audience and a lower level of complexity with clear visuals to help struggling readers along. Considerate text includes tons of fascinating information and wild facts that will hold the readers' interest, allowing for successful mastery and comprehension. A table of contents, glossary with simplified pronunciations, and index all enhance comprehension.-- Provided by publisher.

"This stuff is more than just fancy pranks. It's Americana. Never has nonsense been taken so seriously...This book is a fascinating, appetite- whetting glimpse for the, if you'll pardon the expression, uninitiated." -David Copperfield, from the foreword At the beginning of the twentieth century, 40 percent of American men belonged to a lodge, and they were hazing their newbies with cigar- smoking camels, spankers, and even fake guillotines. Nearly all their prank devices came from the same place: catalogs published by the DeMoulin Brothers Company from 1896 to 1930. Julia Suits discovered one of these all-but-forgotten catalogs at a flea market. Its pages were full of bizarre hazing props: old-fashioned telephones that squirted water, bucking goats attached to tricycles, Victorian- looking furniture that sent electric shocks. These prank machines are the relics of mischief and daredevilry, produced for the country's original fraternity- hazing culture, and created by America's original high-tech geeks of the electric age. The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions offers a peek into twentieth-century American culture that most people have never seen. At its core are hundreds of the most inventive DeMoulin prank machines, complete with their original, quirky descriptions and eccentric line art. Alongside the catalog pages are newspaper clippings, lodge trivia, quotes, and stories that show the true side of America's original hazing culture.

A captivating, humorous, and downright perplexing selection of nineteenth-century inventions as revealed through remarkable–and hitherto unseen–illustrations from the British National Archive Inventions that Didn’t Change the World is a fascinating visual tour through some of the most bizarre inventions registered with the British authorities in the nineteenth century. In an era when Britain was the workshop of the world, design protection (nowadays patenting) was all the rage, and the apparently lenient approval process meant that all manner of bizarre curiosities were painstakingly recorded, in beautiful color illustrations and well-penned explanatory text, alongside the genuinely great inventions of the period. Irreverent commentary contextualizes each submission as well as taking a humorous view on how each has stood the test of time. This book introduces such gems as a ventilating top hat; an artificial leech; a design for an aerial machine adapted for the arctic regions; an anti-explosive alarm whistle; a tennis racket with ball-picker; and a currant-cleaning machine. Here is everything the end user could possibly require for a problem he never knew he had. Organized by area of application—industry, clothing, transportation, medical, health and safety, the home, and leisure—Inventions that Didn’t Change the World reveals the concerns of a bygone era giddy with the possibilities of a newly industrialized world.

Humans are ingenious when it comes to meeting challenges. We invent all sorts of useful contraptions from the wheel to the can opener. But some of the things people have come up with are truly odd. Who came up with grass sandals, and why? Have you ever heard of a portable radio hat? Not many people have, but someone invented it. Get the inside scoop on these odd contraptions and many more weird inventions.

Discover strange gadgets you never knew existed in this volume from the nation’s top collector of curious and interesting information! The writers behind Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader present this totally true treasury of amazing gizmos—devilish devices you never knew existed, created by people who thought the world absolutely needed what they had to offer and sell. Read all about: * The onesie that turns your crawling baby into a mop * The fart-stifling blanket * The square watermelon * The video game you control with your mind * The weight loss device that sucks food out of your stomach, and much much more!

Most people probably don't expect to see too many odd inventions at a hospital or doctor's office. However, over the years there have been quite a few offbeat medical products. Readers of this book will learn how and why these creations were invented and why many of them didn't take off. Vibrant photographs aid in the understanding of these wacky inventions, while sidebars and fact boxes add even more factual and high-interest content that will appeal to readers of many abilities, especially those with creative and imaginative minds.