On this day in 1894

William Painter patented the humble bottle opener. During the past couple of weeks, we have been enduring some hot weather and a lot of us probably opened a few bottles of refreshment.

Whether it was just bubbly water or something a little stronger, we needed a cap to keep the bubbles in.

Painter invented a bottle cap and the opener used to open it.

William Painter (November 20, 1838 – July 15, 1906) was an American mechanical engineer, inventor and the founder of Crown Holdings, Inc., a Fortune 500 company. He most notably invented the crown cork bottle cap and bottle opener. See pictures beneath this paragraph.

Painter patented 85 inventions, including the common bottle cap, the bottle opener, a machine for crowning bottles, a paper-folding machine, a safety ejection seat for passenger trains, and also a machine for detecting counterfeit currency.

He was inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.