To support International Women's Day, we are looking in to some of the wonderful female inventors that made products that we still use today. 

• In 1843, Nancy Johnson invented the hand-cranked ice cream maker and this is still used today

• Hungarian Maria Telkes invented the first 100% Solar powered house in 1947. The house was called Dover House and was a wedge shaped structure that was created by architect Eleanor Raymond.

• Grace Hopper Designed the Harvard’s Mark I Computer, which weighed five tons and took up a small room. This was built in 1944 when she also created the terms “bug” and “debugging” when she had to remove moths from the device. These terms are used today when there is a problem (a bug) with a system.

• Have you ever played the board game Monopoly? Then you have Elizabeth Magie to thank as she is the one that created and drew the first Monopoly board in 1903 but was then called The Landlord Game. Charles Darrow stole the idea and sold it to Parker Brothers who named it Monopoly.

• A lot of lives have been taken by the sea, but in 1880 Maria Beasley decided to change this and came up with the drawings on The Life raft, the first one was built in 1882 and all big boats use a more advanced version of the raft today.

• In 1964 Stephanie Kwolek invented the Kevlar and it is now used in Bicycle tires, tennis rackets, Racing sails, body armour, frying pans, musical instruments, bulletproof vests and more! This fibre is five times stronger than steel.

• The first car was invented in 1871 by Dr J.W Carhart, but the drivers toes where cold until 1893 when Margaret A Wilcox created the first car heater, that collected the warm air around the engine and blew it out on the floor in the car.

• The fire escape is a very important invention to us and you can see them all over the town today. This was invented in 1887 by Anna Connelly

Have a look to see if you can find out anymore female inventors and what would you like to invent?