The ballpoint pen was invented by a Hungarian and launched in Argentina.
László Bíró patented it in Paris in 1938; fleeing the Nazis in 1943, he moved to Argentina at the invitation of Argentina's Agustín Justo, who had spotted his pen on holiday.
More amazing facts
- 1936 The thylacine was granted protection on 10 July 1936; the last known animal died at Hobart Zoo on 7 September — just 59 days later.
- 1937 Chkalov flew over the North Pole to Vancouver — not the Canadian city, but its namesake in Washington State, USA. The nonstop flight from Moscow in June 1937 took 63 hours.
- 1938 Three months after the Munich Agreement, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in Berlin discovered the fission of uranium.
- 1938 Saudi Arabia struck oil only on its seventh try. Six wells at Dammam yielded nothing commercial; on 3 March 1938 the seventh gushed from about 1,440 m down, and it kept pumping until 1982.
- 1938 Teflon was found by sawing open an 'empty' cylinder.
- 1938 The coelacanth is more closely related to you than to a tuna.