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By IBTimes Staff Reporter: Subscribe to IBTimes's RSS feed | April 24, 2012 3:28 PM GMT
If you've visited Google today you can't miss the funky interactive metal zipper that requires "un-zipping" to get to Google's actual homepage.
The Google Doodle is a celebration of Gideon Sunback, the Swedish-American engineer behind the zipper ( as we recognize it today.) He was born in 1880 and today (April 24) marks his 132nd birthday.
Sundback wasn't the first to develop a "zip-like" device. Before him came Elias Howe and Whitcomb Judson who invented the "Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure" and "Clasp Locker."
Sundback, however, refined these inventions into a more practical device, which we recognize as a "zipper" . Sundback added teeth to the device making it faster and more efficient, according to the Washington Post.
In Sunback's developed version of the Zipper, east tooth was punched to have a dimple on its bottom and a nib on its top. When slid up and down the teeth engage with the matching dimple through the two channela of the slider. The teeth are crimped tightly to a strong fabric cord that attaches the zipper to the garment.
The name " zipper" was placed by the Goodrich Company who commissioned Sunback's device and put it on rubber boots and tobacco pounces, according to PC World. The zipper started appearing on clothes two decades after it was developed by Sundback in 1914.
Sundback was honored for his work at the National Inventors Hall of Fame, in 2006. The engineer was born in Sweden--the son of a farmer. After finishing his studies in Sweden, he went to Germany, where he took his engineer exam, before moving to the United Sates in 1905. He was immediately hired to work for the Universal Fastener Company in New Jersey, and was later promoted to the position of head designer at the company.
Check out the Video of the Google Doodle below:
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