One day in 1849, Walter Hunt began tinkering with a piece of wire. He was trying to improve a part of his army rifle. He needed a small wire clasp that could open and close many times without breaking. He wanted it to have a spring so that it would do this easily. After many hours of twisting and bending the wire, Hunt created something he didn’t expect. He had invented the safety pin, one of the world’s greatest little gadgets.

Most people know what safety pins and paper clips look like. Few people think of such common, everyday items as having been invented, much less who invented them. When you look around, just about everything you see or use has been invented: cars, faucets, nails, appliances, foods, and other every day common devices. Other items that have been invented, but are not so common, such as a suitcase that opens and turns into a bathtub, protective glasses for chickens, or a mustache guard, were put through much the same process of invention as the more popular ones. Sometimes it is hard to guess which ones will become popular and which ones won’t. Some inventions, though, might be considered "weird and wacky."

There have been many odd inventions like the spanking paddle for parents to swat a naughty child, but not too hard (the handle collapsed if it was swung too hard) and a bird diaper, so that people could let their pet birds fly around without worrying about them making a mess. Descriptions of these inventions and more can be found, usually with drawings, in the US Patent Office. The Patent Office registered each inventor’s idea with the government so that no one else could get credit for it.

Click on the type of weird and wacky invention listed at the top of the page that you would like to learn more about.  Then click on the puzzle to solve our Weird and Wacky Inventions Double Puzzle.