THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN WON AN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL IN 1908
John Baxter Taylor, the son of former slaves, was on the gold medal winning 4×400 meters relay at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London and was the first African American man to win an Olympic medal.

He may have won another medal, but he protested the disqualification of a fellow University of Pennsylvania athlete and refused to run a secondary final in the 400 meters category. He also graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in veterinary medicine. He died months after winning the Olympic medals from typhoid fever at the age of 26.

George “Crum” Speck, a chef and restaurant owner is said to have created the potato chip by accident during the summer of 1853. However, his sister, Kate, claimed she actually created the chip after a potato slice fell into a hot frying pan creating the famous Saratoga chips. Crum’s chips remained a local delicacy in New York until the 1920s when a salesman named Herman Lay (yes, of Lays chips) began traveling throughout the south and introducing potato chips to different communities.

Alexander Miles’s elevator design made riding on elevators safer. Previously, elevators were operated manually; people had to consciously open and close the doors of both the elevator and the shaft every time. In 1887, Miles obtained the patent for his invention including a flexible belt attached to the elevator cage, allowing the doors to function automatically. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007.

AN AFRICAN AMERICAN HELPED MAKE A GAMING SYSTEM LINE X-BOX POSSIBLE

was a Black man and an engineer during the 1970’s, a time when there were very few people who looked like him in that field. Despite not graduating from college, his creativity and technology skills helped him invent the interchangeable video game cartridge.

Prior to this, games were hard-wired into the gaming console and could not be changed. This invention single-handedly changed the video game industry and made the video game systems we have today possible

THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN WON AN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL IN 1908
John Baxter Taylor, the son of former slaves, was on the gold medal winning 4×400 meters relay at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London and was the first African American man to win an Olympic medal.

He may have won another medal, but he protested the disqualification of a fellow University of Pennsylvania athlete and refused to run a secondary final in the 400 meters category. He also graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in veterinary medicine. He died months after winning the Olympic medals from typhoid fever at the age of 26.