September 3rd: A device that most of us interact with every few days was first built this week in 1905 — the gas pump. Sylvanus Bowser of Fort Wayne, Indiana, made the pump for a customer, basing it on an earlier design for pumping kerosene. As the number of cars increased dramatically, the pumps became very popular. Eventually, his name became a generic term for a fuel dispenser, and gas pumps in New Zealand and Australia are still called “Bowsers.” Across the U.S., there are 118,000 gas stations. Each year, the pumps at these stations dispense more than 174 billion gallons of gasoline.

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