35. Otto Frederick Rohwedder changed the way we eat
Otto Frederick Rohwedder was a jeweler in Iowa who loved to tinker, and after selling his jewelry stores he started a company to produce an automatic bread slicing machine to be used by bakers. In 1927, after years of setbacks, he produced a machine that both sliced and packaged bread. Sliced bread began to appear in bakeries and groceries. In 1930 Wonder Bread was introduced by the Consolidated Baking Company, and during the 1930s the pop-up toaster became a standard item on kitchen counters throughout the United States. The practice of baking bread at home became nearly defunct, though in the late twentieth century it began to re-emerge as eating habits changed yet again.