On this day in 1848, Adolphe Sax, French instrument maker, was granted a patent for the saxophone, a wind instrument in various sizes with a single-reed mouthpiece and a curved conical metal tube.
On this day in 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer."
American microbiologist Jonas Edward Salk died on this day in 1995 in California at the age of 80. The medical pioneer developed the first effective killed-virus vaccine against polio in 1954.