More than one doctor has found their theories dismissed by the existing establishment, only to be proven right years later. Perhaps none of those stories are more dramatic than the story of Werner Forssmann, who, when faced with defeat, simply chose to go around everyone and do his experiment anyway - on himself.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.