The Incredibly True Story of My Electric Blanket

It's really not all that incredible, but since the weather finally seems to be warming up and Spring may be around the corner, I thought a shout out to that fantastic invention was in order. Even Wikipedia, that ever-present source of all knowledge, doesn't really have a useful history, but if you look up the Wikipedia entry, you will learn that electric blankets are the cause of 5,000 fires every year in the UK. This weird statistic suggests that Brits are extremely careless or that they are using some pretty shoddy electric blankets. While the blankets have been around for nearly 100 years, it wasn't until the 1920 that they really took off... & then only in TB wards. Apparently, the warmth helped the tuberculosis patents sleep. of all of the inventions in the 20th century, it may be the most obvious, but considering the number of people who used to die from the cold in the winter, it's got to be one of the most important. Of course, I was never really in danger of freezing to death, but it certainly helped keep my heating bill down all winter. I love to be able to go to bed with the blanket already warm. This is partially due to the sweet sweet introduction of the thermostat in 1936. You can thank the usually useless About.com for that little nugget. This has been your regularly scheduled Visions of Ypsi post. Though a bit forced, it isn't completely useless. Now make w/ the bed-wetting jokes.