George J. Laurer, an engineer at IBM, is considered the inventor of the
U.P.C. or Uniform Product Code in 1973. In June of 1974, the first U.P.C.
scanner was installed at a Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first
product to have a bar code included was a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit
chewing gum.

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976)

Harvey Samuel Firestone  (December 20, 1868  –  February 7, 1938)

Firestone was a  businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber 
Company in Akron, Ohio, one of the first global makers of automobile tires. In 1973,
Firestone was posthumously inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Prototype of the “Contour” Coke         A Cocoa Bean Pod  
bottle

The contoured Coca-Cola bottle was one of the first glass containers to ever be 
patented based on its unique shape. The design was said to have been  modeled 
after the Cocoa Bean Pod (above), an ingredient of Coca-Cola. The bottle made
its commercial debut in 1916.

The Coke bottle of 1916

William Henry "Bill" Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington and is the former CEO  
and current Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft, the world’s largest 
software company he founded, at the age of 19, with Paul Allen. He is among the  
world’s wealthiest people and is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the
personal computer revolution.