Technological and industrial history of 20th-century Canada engineer, George de Mestral, velcro, a two sided fastening technology based on hooks and loops, was introduced to a number of countries, including Canada, in the late 1950s. In Montreal, Velek Ltd. acquired the exclusive marketing rights for velcro in North and South America and Japan. The format for sound recordings changed in the years just following the war. In the US, Columbia Records introduced the long playing (LP) 33 format in 1948. Columbia made an agreement with Sparton Records, of London, Ontario, established in 1930, for the manufacture and distribution of its LP records in Canada. Not to be
George de Mestral inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1999 for inventing hook and loop fasteners. De Mestral first conceptualized hook and loop after returning from a hunting trip with his dog in the Alps in 1941. After removing several of the burdock burrs (seeds) that kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur, he became curious as to how it worked. He examined them under a microscope, and noted hundreds of "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair. He saw the possibility of binding two materials reversibly in a simple