(obsolete) A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet. 1802, William Hutton, The History of the Roman Wall, preface You will also pardon the errors of the Work, for you know I was not bred to letters; but, that the battledore, at an age not exceeding six, was the last book I used at school. (obsolete) A bat or beetle used in washing clothes.
The parachute, like the helicopter and the hang glider, dates back to the drawings of mankind's greatest public genius, Leonardo da Vinci.
The first truly synthetic plastic was invented by Leo Baekeland â a Belgium chemist living in New York. Baekeland was already very rich as he had invented the first commercially successful photographic paper and sold it to George Eastman in 1898 for $1 million.lastic as a whole was very important in World War Two. âPlane cockpits were made of Perspex, polythene was used in insulate radar and plastic was used to make synthetic rubber for tyres.