How Laszlo Biro Changed the History of Ballpoint Pens

How Laszlo Biro Changed the History of Ballpoint Pens No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had. Samuel Johnson. A Hungarian journalist named Laszlo Biro invented the first ballpoint pen in 1938. Biro had noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper smudge-free, so he decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. But the thicker ink wouldnt flow from a regular pen nib. Biro had to devise a new type of point. He did so by fitting his pen with a tiny ball bearing in its tip. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper.   Biros Patents This principle of the ballpoint pen actually dates back to an 1888 patent owned by John Loud for a product designed to mark leather, but this patent was commercially unexploited. Biro first patented his pen in 1938 and he applied for another  patent in June 1943 in Argentina after he and his brother emigrated there in 1940.   The British government bought the licensing rights to Biro’s patent during World War II. The British Royal Air Force needed a new pen that would not leak at higher altitudes in fighter planes the way fountain pens did. The ballpoint’s successful performance for the Air Force brought Biro’s pens into the limelight. Unfortunately, Biro had never gotten a U.S. patent for his pen, so another battle was just beginning even as World War II ended.   The Battle of the Ballpoint Pens   A lot of improvements were made to pens in general over the years, leading to a battle over the rights to Biros invention.  The newly-formed Eterpen Company in Argentina commercialized the Biro pen after the Biro brothers received their patents there. The press hailed the success of  their writing tool because it could write for a year without refilling. Then, in May 1945,  Eversharp Company teamed up with Eberhard-Faber to acquire exclusive rights to Biro Pens of Argentina. The pen was rebranded as the â€Å"Eversharp CA,† which stood for â€Å"capillary action.† It was released to the press months in advance of public sales. Less than a month after Eversharp/Eberhard closed the deal with Eterpen, a Chicago businessman, Milton Reynolds, visited Buenos Aires in June 1945.  He noticed the Biro pen while he was in a store and recognized the pen’s sales potential. He bought a few as samples and returned to America to launch the Reynolds International Pen Company, ignoring Eversharp’s patent rights. Reynolds copied the Biro pen within four months and began to sell his product by the end of October 1945. He called it Reynolds Rocket and made it available at Gimbel’s department store in New York City. Reynolds’ imitation beat Eversharp to market and it was immediately successful. Priced at $12.50 each, $100,000 worth of pens sold their first day on the market. Britain was not far behind. The Miles-Martin Pen Company sold the first ballpoint pens to the public there at Christmas 1945.   The Ballpoint Pen Becomes a Fad Ballpoint pens were guaranteed to write for two years without refilling and sellers claimed they were smear-proof. Reynolds advertised his pen as one that could write under water. Then Eversharp sued Reynolds for copying the design that Eversharp had acquired legally. The 1888 patent by John Loud would have invalidated everyones claims, but no one knew that at the time. Sales skyrocketed for both competitors, but Reynolds’ pen tended to leak and skip. It  often failed to write. Eversharp’s pen did not live up to its own advertisements either. A very high volume of pen returns occurred for both Eversharp and Reynolds. The ballpoint pen fad ended due to consumer unhappiness.  Frequent price wars, poor quality products, and heavy advertising costs hurt both companies by 1948. Sales nosedived.  The original $12.50 asking price dropped to less than 50 cents per pen. The Jotter   Meanwhile, fountain pens experienced a resurgence of their old popularity as Reynolds’ company folded. Then  Parker Pens introduced its first ballpoint pen, the Jotter, in January 1954. The Jotter wrote five times longer than the Eversharp or Reynolds pens. It had a variety of point sizes, a rotating cartridge, and large-capacity ink refills. Best of all, it worked. Parker sold 3.5 million Jotters at prices from $2.95 to $8.75 in less than a year. The Ballpoint Pen Battle Is Won   By 1957,  Parker had  introduced the tungsten carbide  textured ball bearing in their ballpoint pens. Eversharp was in deep financial trouble and tried to switch back to selling fountain pens. The company sold its pen division to Parker Pens and Eversharp finally liquidated its assets in the 1960s. Then Came Bic   The French Baron Bich dropped the ‘H’ from his name and began selling pens called BICs in 1950. By the late fifties,  BIC  held 70 percent of the European market.   BIC bought 60 percent of the New York-based Waterman Pens in 1958, and it owned  100 percent of Waterman Pens by 1960. The company sold ballpoint pens in the U.S. for 29 cents up to 69 cents. Ballpoint Pens Today   BIC  dominates the market in the 21st century. Parker, Sheaffer, and Waterman capture smaller upscale markets of fountain pens and expensive ballpoints.  The highly popular modern version of Laszlo Biros pen, the BIC Crystal, has a daily worldwide sales figure of 14 million pieces. Biro is still the generic name used for the ballpoint pen used  in most of the world.

Aswan High Dam Controls the Nile River

Aswan High Dam Controls the Nile River Just north of the border between Egypt and Sudan lies the Aswan High Dam, a huge rockfill dam which captures the worlds longest river, the Nile River, in the worlds third-largest reservoir, Lake Nasser. The dam, known as Saad el Aali in Arabic, was completed in 1970 after ten years of work. Egypt has always depended on the water of the Nile River. The two main tributaries of the Nile River are the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The sources of the White Nile are the Sobat River and Bahr al-Jabal (the Mountain Nile), and the Blue Nile begins in the Ethiopian Highlands. The two tributaries converge in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, where they form the Nile River. The Nile River has a total length of 4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers) from source to sea. Nile Flooding Before the building of a dam at Aswan, Egypt experienced annual floods from the Nile River that deposited four million tons of nutrient-rich sediment which enabled agricultural production. This process began millions of years before Egyptian civilization began in the Nile River valley and continued until the first dam at Aswan was built in 1889. This dam was insufficient to hold back the water of the Nile and was subsequently raised in 1912 and 1933. In 1946, the true danger was revealed when the water in the reservoir peaked near the top of the dam. In 1952, the interim Revolutionary Council government of Egypt decided to build a High Dam at Aswan, about four miles upstream of the old dam. In 1954, Egypt requested loans from the World Bank to help pay for the cost of the dam (which eventually added up to one billion dollars). Initially, the United States agreed to loan Egypt money but then withdrew their offer for unknown reasons. Some speculate that it may have been due to Egyptian and Israeli conflict. The United Kingdom, France, and Israel had invaded Egypt in 1956, soon after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal to help pay for the dam. The Soviet Union offered to help and Egypt accepted. The Soviet Unions support was not unconditional, however. Along with the money, they also sent military advisers and other workers to help enhance Egyptian-Soviet ties and relations. Building of the Aswan Dam In order to build the Aswan Dam, both people and artifacts had to be moved. Over 90,000 Nubians had to be relocated. Those who had been living in Egypt were moved about 28 miles (45 km) away, but the Sudanese Nubians were relocated 370 miles (600 km) from their homes. The government was also forced to develop one of the largest Abu Simel temples and dig for artifacts before the future lake would drown the land of the Nubians. After years of construction (the material in the dam is the equivalent to 17 of the great pyramids at Giza), the resulting reservoir was named after the former president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who died in 1970. The lake holds 137 million acre-feet of water (169 billion cubic meters). About 17 percent of the lake is in Sudan and the two countries have an agreement for distribution of the water. Aswan Dam Benefits and Problems The Aswan Dam benefits Egypt by controlling the annual floods on the Nile River and prevents the damage which used to occur along the floodplain. The Aswan High Dam provides about half of Egypts power supply and has improved navigation along the river by keeping the water flow consistent. There are several problems associated with the dam as well. Seepage and evaporation account for a loss of about 12-14% of the annual input into the reservoir. The sediments of the Nile River, as with all river and dam systems, has been filling the reservoir and thus decreasing its storage capacity. This has also resulted in problems downstream. Farmers have been forced to use about a million tons of artificial fertilizer as a substitute for the nutrients which no longer fill the floodplain. Further downstream, the Nile delta is having problems due to the lack of sediment as well since there is no additional agglomeration of sediment to keep erosion of the delta at bay, so it slowly shrinks. Even the shrimp catch in the Mediterranean Sea has decreased due to the change in water flow. Poor drainage of the newly irrigated lands has led to saturation and increased salinity. Over one-half of Egypts farmland in now rated medium to poor soils. The parasitic disease schistosomiasis has been associated with the stagnant water of the fields and the reservoir. Some studies indicate that the number of individuals affected has increased since the opening of the Aswan Dam. The Nile River and now the Aswan High Dam are Egypts lifeline. About 95% of Egypts population live within twelve miles from the river. Were it not for the river and its sediment, the grand civilization of ancient Egypt probably would have never existed.