Singer, American or not?

Last week while at Helene's house, I noticed a beautiful piece of needlework in the living room. The piece, handmade by Helene's grand-daughter many years ago, was of a needlecraft workshop. Colorful spools of thread, skeins of yarn, a scarf in the making, buttons, a cute little sign saying "Home is where the heart is", sewing baskets. And in the middle a Singer table sewing machine.

 "Oh, my Mom used to have a green Singer sewing machine...I think it's American", I said which then prompted questions on the origin of Singer, the company. I confirmed via Wikipedia that it is indeed American made--but I have also mistakenly thought that other brands were American, when they are not! Nowadays, I find it difficult to distinguish the origins of products. It could be that the world is getting smaller and more and more products can be purchased globally; another reason could be that big multinationals are getting much better at localizing products.

TomTom, Dutch
Diesel, Italian
Nutella, Italian
Unilever, a Dutch/British multinational
Maggi, Swiss (Nestle made, but I thought it was Asian)
Big Brother, the TV show is Dutch with a franchise in the U.S.

Anyway, Isaac Singer (born in NY of German parents) invented the Singer sewing machine in 1851, while working at Orson Phelps' machine shop in...Boston, which was then a center of print trade! Singer, an inventor, had been working on a wood-block cutting machine and had hoped to market it at Phelp's shop. By chance one day, there was a sewing machine in the shop, in again for maintenance. The sewing machine was difficult to produce and use - and it had a curved needle! Singer realized that a straight needle would work better, so he patented the idea, built a prototype and the rest is history!

Have you ever thought about the everyday things you take for granted which had to be invented? Here's a short list - do you have any to add?
Saran wrap
Velcro
Zippers (instead of buttons, and I'm sure someone long ago invented the button)
Aluminum foil (or aluminium as the rest of the world calls it)
Post-It notes
Ziploc bags
Kleenex tissues
Xerox
Telephone
Electricity

Can you imagine living without your mobile phone, car, the Internet, Netflx, or digital camera? On my almost 2 month long trip to Asia, I toted along my Panasonic film camera and took hundreds of photos of breathtaking landscapes and people. Upon returning home, I dropped off 9 rolls of film at CVS to be developed and then I waited a week, maybe more. To my utter disappointment, there weren't many good photos and certainly none of my parasailing in Thailand. A few years later I got my first digital Camera - an Olympus, and although it was heavy, expensive, and slow, but instant gratification could be had. Now I can't live without my pocket digital camera (it goes with me almost everywhere), but I'm hoping to buy a nice digital SLR later this year. If you have one that you like, please send me some recommendations.