The first Belch ever broadcast on national radio was heard in 1935. Melvin H. Purvis, head of the Chicago office of the FBI, was making a guest appearance on a program sponsored by Fleischmann's yeast. In the middle of delivering a commercial for Fleischmann's, Mr. Purvis inadvertently emitted the dreaded sound, and for years afterward this brand of yeast was known as "Purvis's folly."

Martin Luther was the first person to put lights on a Christmas Tree. Luther reportedly placed candles on his tannenbaum, to represent the stars above Bethlehem on the night of Christ's birth. Many of his followers adopted the practice and soon the custom spread throughout Europe.

The first place the famous Dutch explorer Henry Hudson set foot on when he arrived in New York was Coney Island, In 1609, Hudson approached what is now New York Harbor and disembarked precisely on the spot where one of the world's largest and most famous amusement parks would someday stand.

In 1978 a Scottish police sergeant invented the world's first Electronic bagpipe. The instrument, created by Sgt. Angus MacLellan, looks like the traditional Scottish bagpipe but is run by a battery and requires no blowing.

Austria was the first country to use Post Cards.

The first Steam Engine ever built was a miniature toy train. It was constructed in 1798 by a former boat salesman named John Fitch, who, unable to make a living selling the orthodox boats of the time, began experimenting with Steam-driven vehicles. In 1798 he invented both the first free-moving railway engine and the first moving model train He also invented a Steamboat.

The first message ever sent over a telegraph wire was "What hath God wrought?" It was sent from the U.S. Supreme Court room in Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1844 by the inventor of the telegraph, Samuel Morse.