It took engineers 22 years to design the zipper. The first modern dishwashing machine was invented by wealthy American socialite Josephine Cochrane in 1886. She invented it so her servants would stop chipping her china. The world’s first mono-motorcycle, called the Uno, was invented by a Canadian teenager named Ben Gulak. The parachute was invented before the airplane. During one seven-year period, Thomas Edison obtained approximately 300 patents. In his whole life, he obtained more than 1,000 patents. Inventor Thomas Adams started the world’s first chewing-gum factory in 1845. Chapman and Skinner in San Francisco invented the first portable electric vacuum in 1905.