The world’s first billionaire was John D. (Davison) Rockefeller; his net worth officially passed $1 billion on September 29th, 1916.

In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company, becoming an American industrialist, philanthropist, and petroleum industry icon. As gasoline’s importance grew, so did Rockefeller’s empire; he bought out smaller oil companies, eventually controlling more than 90 percent of the American oil market.

The first computer mouse debuted on December 9th, 1968, by inventor Douglas C. Engelbart and a research group from the Stanford Research Institute (Palo Alto, CA) at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco.

On November 17th, 1970, Engelbart was given a patent for his computer “mouse” (named because the “tail” came out the end).

The first product was a 3-button hand-operated pointing device, originally called an X-Y position indicator.

1968 also marked the debut of the world’s first laptop computer concept; it was called the Dynabook and was created by Alan Kay of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, CA. His concept was indeed a notebook-size wireless portable computer, but for children. The Dynabook never got past some sketches and a cardboard model, although by 1972, Kay’s ideas did lead to a Xerox prototype called the Interim Dynabook; this project didn’t go much further either.

The first commercial laptop was most likely the GR-D Compass 1100, launched in 1972.

The world’s first mail-order business was created by Benjamin Franklin; yes, that Benjamin Franklin. In 1744, he produced and printed the first mail-order catalog of academic and scientific books.

The first Social Security check, no. 00-000-001 was issued to 65-year-old Ida May Fuller on Jan. 31st, 1940 for $22.54.

The world’s first website, nxocOl.cern.ch, debuted on August 6th, 1991. It was created by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, developers of the World Wide Web (www). The site explained exactly what the www. was and provided instructions on owning browsers and setting up a web server. And nxocOl.cern.ch also became the world’s first web directory.

The bar code, also known as the universal product code (UPC), was invented by Bernard Silver and Joseph Woodland in 1948, receiving a patent in 1952.

The first barcode item ever scanned was in Troy, Ohio (Marsh Supermarket) on June 26th, 1974, and was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Why Wrigley’s gum? It just happened to be the first item the cashier picked up!

Source: “firsts-Origins of Everyday Things That Changed the World” by Wilson Casey, 2009