Hot Shot

engaging in a relaxing hobby. Lonnie Johnson, on the other hand, he liked to tinker. Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama, in nine His father, a veteran of World War Two, made sure Lonnie and his five siblings were well educated and most importantly, stayed curious. And Johnson was definitely curious. As a boy, he learned how to build his own toys. When that stopped being interesting, he moved on to making barry launchers out of bamboo shoots. Johnson grew more and

more interested in the sciences, especially engineering. At thirteen years old, he built a go cart out of scraps from a junkyard and hooked it all up to a lawnmower engine. Rather than tested out on a track, though he decided to let a rip on the open highway. The police were less than thrilled with his initiative and pulled him over before returning him to his parents. As a budding scientist, in nineteen sixty eight, Johnson attended a state science fair

held at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. He was the only black student present and hoped to follow in the footsteps of his idol, agricultural scientist George Washington Carver. Johnson entered a project that while the judges a robot running on compressed air, His efforts won him first prize. He went on to earn a scholarship to Tuskegee University, where he graduated with the bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering,

followed by a master's degree in nuclear engineering. Johnson the sky was the limit, literally, so fresh out of college, he joined the United States Air Force, where his intelligence and engineering skills were put to use in developing the Stealth Bomber. From there, even the sky seemed too low of a boundary for him. He needed to go higher above the clouds to the stars and beyond. NASA would

become his home for the next few years. From nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty two, Johnson worked on the Cassini spacecraft, which traveled to Saturn, as well as the Galileo, which eventually reached Jupiter in nine. He returned to the Air Force after his brief stint at NASA, but was called back five years later to assist with the Mars Observer project. Yet, even as he bounced from one career to another, he never gave up on his first love,

working on his own inventions. You see, in nineteen eighty two, Johnson had begun designing a better heat pump. Heat pumps absorbed heat from one location and transferred it to another. For example, a heat pump might absorb the heat inside a house and transferred outside in order to cool the home down in warmer weather, much like an air conditioner.

Johnson's version, however, was small and self contained. It featured a reservoir on top that looked like a two liter soda bottle, which was filled with pressurized water instead of free on The bottle was fastened to a few feet of PVC pipe and some pieces were handmade using his own tools. One night, Johnson was working on his prototype when it sprung a leak. The stream of water shout out several feet in front of him, and I gave

him an idea. He walked into his bathroom and aimed it at his bathtub, where the pressurized water fired again. He calculated that given enough space, it was possible that his heat pump could launch a jet of water about forty ft long. Suddenly he didn't have a heat pump anymore. He filed the patent for the device, which he finally be received in six His goal for success had shifted

from rocket science to consumer purchase. He believed everyday people would love to own such a unique product, but he couldn't find anyone to help him manufacture or market it. And then Laramie Corporation signed on. They saw a perfect opportunity to revolutionize pool parties and summer vacations with Johnson's

heat pump. They marketed it as the Power Drencher and put it up for sale in nineteen The product didn't become a hit until a year later, when it was rebranded as a weapon made for mischief and sold for ten bucks apiece. It made two hundred million dollars that year, no doubt due to its highly descriptive name, the super Soaker.

Bad habits can be hard to break. Biting your nails endlessly, scrolling social media, and staying up lates tend to have negative effects on one's health, But perhaps one of the worst habits a person can pick up is smoking. In the United States alone, smoking is responsible for upwards of four eight thousand deaths every year, so it's no wonder that people try and kick such a nasty habit all

the time. There are patches, gums, books, and all kinds of methods designed to curb one of the deadliest and smelliest practices ever known. One man, however, came up with a way to quit smoking back in the twenties. His only problem was that kids liked it too. Eduard Hass was born in Austria in eighteen nine seven and developed an early interest in food. It wasn't surprising his father had built a successful baking powder company at the turn

of the century. Thanks to his entrepreneurial family, the younger Hass found the taste for two things by the time he was eighteen, cake and business. When he was old enough, his father allowed and manage the baking powder company and handle marketing. Some of Hassa's biggest achievements were his print ads for their pre measured cake mix, but he didn't stop there. As he got older, he realized he needed to diversify. He didn't just want to make baking powder.

He wanted to change the world, and one way was by helping people quit unhealthy habits, namely smoking and overeating. Combining his business acumen with his culinary knowledge, he came up with a lozenge made of compressed sugar. Hassa believed popping one of these in one's mouth instead of a cigarette could help people stop smoking entirely, and by flavoring it with peppermint, it could also freshen their breath. He sold the lozenges with the help of young women who

he hired to give out free samples. Over time, the tablets round shapes changed into something more akin to a brick, and they sold even better. Pretty soon, Hassa's business strategy had to change. His factories that had been churning up baking powder were now forced to manufacture mints instead, and they never stopped for twin two years, He sold his peppermint tablets in metal tins meant to be carried around in his customers pockets, but they wanted something better and

more sanitary. Hoss came up with a new kind of container after World War Two. It allowed a person to extract a single mint at a time, or give one to a friend without them contaminating the other tablets. These dispensers were called regulars, and they bore an uncanny resemblance to cigarette lighters. Hassa's regulars proved popular, so popular, in fact, that he had to build another factory in Austria just to make them. The company's growth in Europe was trending

ever upward, and it was time to take the product overseas. However, when he brought it to America, it just kind of fizzled out. Adult smokers didn't want to give up their cigarettes, and they certainly didn't want to carry around a fake lighter full of mints in their pockets either. Hass couldn't afford to lose the US market, though, so he changed tactics. He got rid of the peppermint flavoring and started making them with fruit flavors instead, like orange, lime, cherry, and

lemon as for the dispensers. He changed those two Hassas Candies now shot out of toy ray guns and popped out of robots and even Santa Claus. His idea was a hit, but an expensive hit. The ray gun used so much plastic and labored to put together it was too costly to keep producing. Eventually, he found a happy medium between toy and candy dispenser, and he debuted his new design during Halloween of nineteen seven. On top was a witch's head, on the bottom a plane plastic sleeve

holding the candy tablets inside. One year later, he added popular comic strip character Popeye to the lineup. Since then, Eduard Hassas Sugar tablets have made millions of dollars worldwide. The company currently boasts a roster of over fourteen hundred different character dispensers, from Spider Man to Star Wars to Mickey Mouse and everyone in between. There's still a hit with kids of all ages to this day. So what did hass call his wondrous anti smoking mint turned candy.

All he did was all three letters from the German word for peppermint, a P and E and a Z, and he simply called it pez. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.

I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye