This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Friday Kick off the Winter Olympics in style with the opening ceremony from Italy featuring a special performance by Mariah Carey. Celebrate the greatest athletes from around the globe as they come together to go for gold. Let's see our sensational!
The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. William Maloney, redefining the sport. Friday at 8 Eastern 7 Central on NBC and Peacock. Hello, Malcolm Glaudwell here. We're here in New York City with T-Mobile for Business recording another episode of Revisionist History about how 5G network slicing strengthens trust and connections across worldwide industries.
Slicing can be used for so many different things. We're here with our friends from CNN, from Siemens Energy. The ways that it can be used, frankly, are limitless and are really, really built to think through how can T-Mobile understand the pain points that our customers have, smash those pain points, and help you deliver very specific options. Are you looking for entertainment that lifts you up? Then check out Upt Faith and Family, the leading streaming service for inspiring, hope-filled shows and movies.
This season streams soul-stirring favorites like Southern Gospel, plus four full seasons of Jesus Calling, and the uplifting new faith series These Stones. Or settle in with 19 seasons of the beloved family series Heartland, a family favorite ranch drama fans can't get enough of. It's commercial free. Stream anywhere. To get a free trial today, go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is our American Stories, and our next story comes. from a man who's simply known As the history guy, his videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The history guys also heard right here on Our American Stories. Here's the history guy with the story.
of the screwdriver horse. Screws as fasteners were not apparently produced until around the 15th century, and the earliest known mention is in a late 15th century manuscript. Their initial use was as a fastener for parts of medieval jousting armor and, in nearly the same period, for early firearms. The earliest screwdrivers were built to service these weapons, and they were called either a screw turner or a turn screw, and they had a pear-shaped wooden handle, and otherwise looked a lot like a modern flat-headed screwdriver. But these screws and screwdrivers would have been custom-made and used on very expensive devices like wheel locks and jousting armor, and so screws.
We're not for the common folk. In seventeen sixty, brothers Job and William Wyatt of Staffordshire patented a screw making machine that used a file to cut in the threads following the pitch of a lead screw. This allowed mass production of screws and was a precursor to industrial mass production machines. the idea of using a a lathe of some sort to cut threads was variously improved upon until the process for cold rolling threads was perfected in the 1880s. But virtually all of these screws use just a few turning methods.
Either a hexagon or square that was turned externally or a flat slot cut to turn internally. And as anyone who has ever used one knows, flat-headed screws and screwdrivers have their problems. But solutions. We're on the horizon. Peter L.
Robertson was born in Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada in 1879. Tinkerer, Robertson produced a number of inventions, including a new design for cufflinks and even a better mousetrap. In 1905 received a patent in Canada for a new design of a corkscrew that centered itself on the bottle. Around the turn of the century, Robertson was working through Eastern Canada as what was called a high-pitch man, meaning a traveling salesman for a Philadelphia tool company. High-pitch men would sell their wares, say, on a street corner at a county fair, calling out their wares.
And among the things that he was selling was a device of his own design, Robert's 20th century wrench brace. It was a multi-tool that could be used as a monkey wrench, as a brace, as a bench vise, as a screwdriver. While demonstrating the screwdriver, which was flat-bladed, the blade slipped and seriously cut his hand. That gave him the idea of a new type of screwdriver head that was less likely to slip or cam out. In eighteen seventy five Allan Cummings of New York City had been granted a patent for a screw that used a cavity, either a square or triangle, rather than a slot, to address the same problem.
Cummings' description noted, It is well known that the ordinary screw head provided with a slot is very susceptible to injury, caused mainly by the slipping of the screwdriver from the slot when the screw is being set home in wood or metal. By emitting the usual slot and using the proper shaped cavity and screwdriver, perfect safety is ensured to the metallic cap. But Cummings' design had a flaw. The way that you made the cavity that the screwdriver fit into was by stamping it with a die, and stamping it deeply enough that the screwdriver would set inside it would deform or weaken the screw head. Robertson had a better solution, for which he applied for a patent in 1907.
His screw tapered the sides of the square gradually down to a pyramid shape. This not only prevented the head from being deformed, but actually helped align the metal grain, as he explained, knitting the atoms together for greater strength. It had the added advantage of less waste, since the slot of a slot-headed screw was usually cut out, losing a bit of metal and weakening the head of the screw. Because it was less likely to cam out, you could use more torque with the Robertson screw and driver. As it was self-centering, it could be used with one hand, whereas a slotted screwdriver usually required two.
The head of the screw was less likely to deform, and the Robertson screwdriver was much better able to still remove the screw if it did. It also worked better than a slotted screw if the screw had been painted over. Robertson's screw and driver were particularly attractive to furniture makers and boat builders, where it was more of a problem if a flathead screw canned out because it would damage the material around it, damage the value of the product. But perhaps best of all is that Robertson's screw could be cold formed. That is, because the stamp tapered down inside the screw, that meant that you could build the screw without ever having to heat the metal.
Cummings' design, as ingenious as it was, probably was never made during its patent life because the screw simply couldn't be easily manufactured. But Robertson's design could be cheaply manufactured in the millions. Calling his invention the biggest little invention of the 20th century so far, Robertson gained enough investors to open the P. L. Robertson Manufacturing Company, Limited, in 1908.
He built a factory in Milton, Ontario, which gave him tax breaks and a $10,000 loan. The patent was approved february 1909, and by then the company was already filling orders. Robertson was just 30 years old. While the Robertson Company described the initial years as hard, with local competitors even challenging their patent, the Robertson screw slowly gained adherence among boat builders and furniture makers. In 1913, Fisher Autobody opened a factory in Walkerville, Ontario, making wooden parts for the Ford Model T.
The Robertson screw offered a great advantage for manufacturing, and Fisher became one of Robertson's largest customers, using some 700 screws per body. Robertson later designed a screw for metal to use on the all-metal body of the Ford Model A. Having been awarded international patents, Robertson saw the opportunity to expand abroad, and so he went to Gillingham, England, and established a company called the Recess Screw Company. He marketed to British industry using the slogan, the screw that grips the driver. But his real plan was to manufacture screws in England, but sell them in Germany and Russia, and the First World War and the Russian Revolution foiled his plan.
Recess screws turned to war production during the Great War and produced things like firing needles and hand grenade pins, but after the war recess screws failed. There seems to have been several factors involved, including a glut of supply following the war and the actions of some unscrupulous investors, but Robertson resigned as the director of the company. But the company in Canada was still doing well, and Robertson looked to expand into the United States. Then Henry Ford came to the table. An analysis had shown that the use of Robertson screws in the Ford plants in Canada had saved two dollars and sixty cents a car, a significant savings for a car that retailed for only three hundred ninety dollars and which was being produced in the millions.
Ford wanted to use Robertson screws in all his U.S. plants. But Ford wanted to stay in production and an exclusive contract, and Robertson stubbornly refused to give up that control. When the deal fell through, Robertson not only did not get the contract for the American Ford plants, but lost the contracts in Canada, almost a third of his business. After three failed tries, Robertson decided to never try to license his screws outside of Canada again.
But his marketing skills made his screws and drivers the screwdrivers of choice in Canada, even though just across the border of the United States they're hardly known at all. But Ford was still using flat screws, which are even more troublesome on automated assembly lines, where if a screw cammed out it costs time and slowed manufacturing. The solution started with a patent application in 1932 by John P. Thompson, an auto mechanic living in Portland, Oregon. Thompson's solution was similar to Robertson's.
By tapering the screw head, a star die could be used without distorting the metal. And again, stamping the tapered design made the metal actually stronger. In 1933, when the patent was granted, Thompson assigned it to Henry Frank Phillips. Like Robertson, Henry Phillips had been a traveling salesman. By the time the patent was assigned to him, he was the mandating director of a mining concern, the Oregon Copper Company.
It's not really clear why Thompson assigned the patent to Phillips, but Phillips refined the design and was granted more patents. Unlike Robertson, Phillips did not intend to manufacture screws, but hoped to license the patents to manufacture and collect royalties. Not surprisingly, with the new invention, Phillips got a lot of rejections from companies who told the idea lacked promise for commercial success. But eventually Phillips convinced Eugene E. Clark of the American Screw Company of Providence, Rhode Island, to manufacture the design.
By 1934 the screw was available for consumers. In 1936, General Motors was invited to test the design. The Phillips head screw first went into use at GM, making the 1936 Cadillac. Customers raved about the amount of work time saved. Within just a few years, virtually all U.S.
automakers, including Ford, were using Phillips head screws. The airplane manufacturing and railroad industry likewise switched. By 1939, 20 companies had licenses to produce Phillips head screws. By 1940, 85% of U.S. screw manufacturers had a license for the design, and the company grossed more than $1.3 million adjusted dollars.
While the Second World War limited foreign licenses, it established the Phillips head screw as an industry standard among wartime manufacturers. The hundreds of thousands of planes and motor vehicles built by the U. S. during the war were largely screwed together using Phillips head screws. While Robertson had Canada, Phillips screws are, by industry estimates, by far the most popular type of screw.
everywhere else in the world. The Robertson and Phillips screws were the culmination of the development of screw technology over a couple of hundred years, and they were two types that rose to the top in an era where there was a lot of innovation in the field. It's really ironic that the events of the First World War were part of the reason that the Robertson screw was never developed internationally, whereas events of the Second World War were the reason that the Phillips had its screw was. And the relative fates between the two say that invention isn't about just the inspiration and pun intended drive of the inventor. but of a complex interaction with historical forces and powerful personalities.
Things that can impact every tool. in the toolbox. And you've been listening to The History Guy. If you want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to his YouTube channel, The History Guy, Colin. History Deserves to be remembered.
The story of the screwdriver war here. on our American stories. Are you looking for entertainment that lifts you up? Then check out Up Faith and Family, the leading streaming service for inspiring, hope-filled shows and movies. This season streams soul-stirring favorites like Southern Gospel, plus four full seasons of Jesus Calling, and the uplifting new faith series These Stones.
Or settle in with 19 seasons of the beloved family series Heartland, a family favorite ranch drama fans can't get enough of. It's commercial free. Stream anywhere. Get a free trial today. Go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart.
This Sunday, iHeartRadio brings you live to Levi Stadium in Santa Clara for the Super Bowl 60 Tailgate Concert. Presented by NetApp, it's the ultimate pregame party, featuring an exclusive performance from Teddy Swims. Seven free. Your front row experience will be on iHeartRadio stations across the country and the free iHeartRadio app is Sunday at 3:30 Eastern, 12:30 Pacific. Then, after the concert, tune in to the Super Bowl 60 pregame show on NBC.
Hey, Donald, you're really flying on that treadmill. I'm trying to run as fast as T-Mobile 5G home internet, Zach.
Well, you better pick it up because now T-Mobile has the fastest 5G home internet according to Ocla Speed Test. Really? How's this? No! T-Mobile's faster than that, and it's still just $35 a month.
Come on, faster. Whoa, that's too bad! You'll be alright, just walk it off. Get on the fast track. T-Mobile now has the fastest 5G home internet, and it still starts at just $35 a month with autopay and a voice line, plus a five-year price guarantee.
You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge?
Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all. The way forward is Electric.
Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Mm-hmm.
