Thanks for playing Know Your City! Let’s review the questions:

  1. George Rieveschl was a chemistry professor and researcher at the University of Cincinnati in the ’40s. What is he known for inventing?
  2. This Cincy native was the first African-American to win the National Medal of Technology (which he won posthumously in 1991). Who was he and what was his most notable invention?
  3. Living in Cincinnati, Granville T. Woods set up his own company to develop, manufacture and sell electrical apparatus. What was his first patented invention?

And here are the answers!

  1. Rieveschi was a chemical engineering professor who was researching muscle spasms when he discovered that a muscle-relaxing compound he’d created could also block histamines. That compound was diphenhydramine hydrochloride, now known as Benadryl. Be sure to thank him when allergy season rolls around.
  2. Frederick Jones received over 60 patents in his lifetime but among the most important were refrigeration units that helped the United States military carry food and blood during World War II.
  3. While Woods was granted over 50 patents in his lifetime, in 1889, he received his first patent for an improved steam boiler furnace for trains. He also invented a system of induction telegraphy for railroads. (But he was not all work and no play. He also invented an “Amusement Apparatus” that eventually became slot car racetrack sets.)