Blue World

Quirky Science

E07 Who came up with the idea of canned food? It began with a battle between French and British armies, two centuries ago. Napoleon Bonaparte faced many problems with his goal to dominate Europe, one of which was feeding a large and sprawling army. In 1809 Napoleon held a contest, with a prize of 12,000 francs for the person who could come up with the most innovative method of preserving food. The winner was Nicolas François Appert who submitted a method of boiling and sealing food in glass bottles. Well if the French were going to travel farther and farther, the British needed to invent something as well: canning. However, opening the cans was quite a challenge - soldiers worked with stones and bayonets and it was only 30 years later that someone designed the first can opener! Although cans travel much easier across a battlefield, for decades they would not only mysteriously explode, but would also cause the harshest diseases. But how could the scientists of those days know? It...