NOTEWORTHY INVENTORS:
NOTEWORTHY INVENTORS:
• Francois Spoturno was born on the island of Corsica in 1874, but when he moved to Paris as a young man he took on his mother’s maiden name because it sounded more French.
• In 1952, 13-year-old David Mullany loved playing baseball, but his backyard in Connecticut was too small and the danger of broken windows too great. He and his friends played with a perforated plastic golf ball and a broomstick, but David couldn’t throw a curveball with it.
FRANCOIS SPOTURNO
• One day he wanted to play cards with a friend, but the friend said he was busy because he had to mix up a batch of his own cologne. Francois asked if he could watch, and as a result he became interested in perfumes. He studied the art for two years, learning how to grow and harvest flowers, and then extract their scent. • Around that time, the Industrial Revolution was yielding all sorts of synthetic essences as well. Francois combined natural scents with synthetic fragrances and began to peddle his own perfume to barbers. • At that time perfumes and colognes were packaged in unattractive pharmaceutical bottles. Francois was inspired to package his product in elegant bottles instead. He asked designers to craft bottles for him from crystal, feeling he should sell perfume as "something in a lovely bottle," rather than "something lovely in a bottle." He wanted to appeal to the eye as well as the nose. He also thought the label should be beautiful as well, such as raised gold lettering on a black background. • Sales were slow when he tried to make the jump to department stores, but then fate intervened: in a store in Paris, he dropped a bottle of his perfume and it shattered, its scent permeating the store, creating immediate demand, resulting in a large order, and launching his career.
• He cut one in half, added weight, and taped it back together, but it didn’t curve. Next he cut some holes in it to create drag but it still didn’t curve. Over the next few weeks he and his son experimented, discovering that the trick was to perforate one half of the ball, and leave the other half intact. • Finally they had a ball that was guaranteed to curve at least two feet. David Mullany, Jr. named it after a slang baseball term meaning ‘to strike out swinging.’ They set up a factory, selling the ball for 49 cents, and a year later added a plastic bat. • David Mullany, Sr. sold the buyer for Woolworth’s on the new toy when he threw the ball against the man’s office window, which didn’t shatter. TV ads featured Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford hurling the ball against plate glass, which also didn’t break. In alleys and backyards children across the country started playing with the new ball. • When the New York state legislature declared that the sport was risky enough to require government oversight, they received such ridicule that the law was rescinded. Today there are national tournaments. What’s the name of the ball? (Answer at bottom of page).
Answer
Weekly SUDOKU
Answer: Coty
Answer
• His dad, David Mullany, Sr., thought all it needed was extra weight on one side of the ball. A friend of his worked at a cosmetic factory and said that the round plastic moldings that covered Coty perfume bottles for shipping were the size of a baseball. David started experimenting with them.
Answer: Wiffle Ball
King CROSSWORD
• Now his line of perfumes, named after his French mother's maiden name which he adopted as his own name, is well-known worldwide. What’s it called? (Answer at bottom of page).
DAVID MULLANY