1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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On July 31, 1790, Philadelphia inventor Samuel Hopkins was granted the first U.S. patent, under the new patent statute just signed into law by President George Washington on April 10 of that yeah. Hopkins had petitioned for a patent on an improvement “in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.” The statute did not create a patent office but rather a committee of the secretary of State, secretary of War (later replaced by the secretaries of the Army and Air Force) and the attorney general were authorized to make a decision on the merit of a properly documented petition. Potash, especially potassium carbonate, has been used in bleaching textiles, making glass, and making soap, since about AD 500. It was one of the most important industrial chemicals and was refined from the ashes of broadleaved trees and produced primarily in the forested areas of Europe, Russia, and North America.
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