United States Edition
World Everyday Inventor Day leads today's complete edition for United States.
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A day for improvised fixes, clever storage, new uses for old things, and the small engineering people do without a title.
John Chapman was born on September 26, 1774. He walked across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, planting apple trees. He wore a pot on his head. He was a vegetarian. He was a Swedenborgian missionary. He planted nurseries, not orchards, and left them in the care of locals who sold the trees to settlers moving west. The apples he planted were not for eating. They were for making hard cider, which was the default American beverage before coffee and tea became cheap. Johnny Appleseed did not plant apple trees for pie. He planted them for booze.