Throughout the years in Spain there have been a few famous invents that will go down in history as successful and some others that haven’t even seen the light.
One famous Spanish invent is the foosball table, by Alejandro Campos Ramírez in 1937. This inventor made the table just the way it looks now, based on some German drafts. It is one of the biggest entertainment games around the globe nowadays, almost in every bar in Spain waiting for a few friends to use it.
Some of the most world known Spanish invent is the mop. Interestingly, the mop was created by Manuel Jalón Corominas in 1956 to help women clean the floor without having to bend or sit on it and it was one of the first inventions trying to help women in their domestic work before feminism burst out around 1789. Even though it was a sign of freedom and relief it has not been taken as such for long.
After the mop, it seems like Spaniards got used to attaching sticks to existing items and that leads us to the famous Chupa Chups in 1958 by Enric Bernat who took a wooden stick and joined it to a candy ball to be able to hold it.
On the other hand, one the biggest Spanish invents not known is the cigarette, some homeless people in Seville started to gather together the remaining tobacco they found to roll it with a paper and smoke it, but it wasn’t until 1825 that cigarettes were packed and commercialized.
Three other Spanish invents are liquid containers known as “bota”, “porrón” and “botijo”. The first one was created to contain wine within a bag made of goat leather, the second one is made of glass or ceramics and was also used to keep wine to serve it on the table and the last is the healthiest one, a pottery item created to keep cold water inside.
There are many other Spanish important inventions such as the submarine (Isaac Peral around 1887), the stapler (Juan Solozábal and Juan Olive around 1930) or the gyroplane (Juan de la Cierva around 1920). This shows us that there is creative tradition and motivation in our country waiting for the support and help of our citizens and governments.
Irean Navas
