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KF5JRV > TODAY 24.01.19 01:32l 45 Lines 2250 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 29913_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Jan 23
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N3HYM<NS2B<KF5JRV
Sent: 190123/1229Z 29913@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
On this day in 1957, machines at the Wham-O toy company roll out the
first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs–now known to millions of
fans all over the world as Frisbees.
The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William
Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby
universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling
“Frisbie!ö as they let go. In 1948, Walter Frederick Morrison and his
partner Warren Franscioni invented a plastic version of the disc called
the “Flying Saucerö that could fly further and more accurately than the
tin pie plates. After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an
improved model in 1955 and sold it to the new toy company Wham-O as the
“Pluto Platterö–an attempt to cash in on the public craze over space and
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
In 1958, a year after the toy’s first release, Wham -O– the company behind
such top-sellers as the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water
Wiggle–changed its name to the Frisbee disc, misspelling the name of the
historic pie company. A company designer, Ed Headrick, patented the
design for the modern Frisbee in December 1967, adding a band of raised
ridges on the disc’s surface–called the Rings–to stabilize flight. By
aggressively marketing Frisbee-playing as a new sport, Wham-O sold over
100 million units of its famous toy by 1977.
High school students in Maplewood, New Jersey, invented Ultimate
Frisbee, a cross between football, soccer and basketball, in 1967. In
the 1970s, Headrick himself invented Frisbee Golf, in which discs are
tossed into metal baskets; there are now hundreds of courses in the
U.S., with millions of devotees. There is also Freestyle Frisbee, with
choreographed routines set to music and multiple discs in play, and
various Frisbee competitions for both humans and dogs–the best natural
Frisbee players.
Today, at least 60 manufacturers produce the flying discs–generally made
out of plastic and measuring roughly 20-25 centimeters (8-10 inches) in
diameter with a curved lip. The official Frisbee is owned by Mattel Toy
Manufacturers, who bought the toy from Wham-O in 1994.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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