Refrigerators are unsung heroes of everyday life, keeping our food fresh and our drinks cold and ready to enjoy.
These amazing appliances work around the clock to ensure the safety of products, such as food, by slowing down the growth of harmful bacteria like E. coli.
So, go grab yourself a snack from the fridge, and let’s get into it!
Zimri-Lim, the former King of Mari, built an ice house for food preservation in the ancient Middle Eastern city of Terqa. The details of this feat were found on a cuneiform inscription from 1780 BCE.
By 400 BC, the yakhchāl, an ancient type of ice house, was used for refrigeration in Persia. These more advanced ice-houses were also capable of making their own ice!
In 1748, William Cullen of the University of Glasgow delivered the first known public demonstration of basic refrigeration. While it was a marvel, it wasn’t useful for anything yet.
Later, in 1805, American inventor Oliver Evans took it a step further by designing a practical blueprint for the first refrigerator, but that didn’t go anywhere, either.
Often referred to as the “father of the refrigerator,” Jacob Perkins, another American inventor, collaborated with Oliver Evans in 1835 to develop the first practical fridge utilizing vapor compression technology.
In 1850, Alexander Twining developed the first commercial refrigerator, which was eventually used by establishments such as breweries.
German scientist and engineer Carl von Linde revolutionized refrigeration in the 1870s by creating an efficient ammonia-powered fridge. Alarmingly, ammonia is a colorless, volatile gas containing nitrogen and hydrogen!
In 1913, American engineer Fred W. Wolf created the first domestic electric refrigerator. This was still a basic design: a refrigeration unit on an icebox.
Just five years later, in 1918, William C. Durant unveiled the world’s first self-contained domestic refrigerator. Kitchens were never the same again; mass production had begun.
The term refrigerator dates back to the early 1600s and comes from the Latin words refrigerare (“to chill”) and frigus (“cold”).
Between the late 1800s and the 1920s, refrigerators began using methyl chloride and sulfur dioxide, both of which are also dangerous gases.
The first household refrigerators, introduced by William C. Durant in 1918, were priced between $500 and $1,000 (around $7,000 to $14,000 today!).
Fridge handles are considered one of the dirtiest parts of a household. Multiple hands frequently touch them, yet they’re rarely cleaned, making them a hotspot for bacteria and other nasty germs.
In 2018, NASA launched the “coldest fridge in the universe” to the International Space Station for a quantum physics study on atoms at near-absolute zero, or 100 times colder than space.
In East Africa, fewer than 9% of homes own fridges. Burundi, South Sudan, and Rwanda have the lowest rates in the region, with some under 2%.
The first smart refrigerator featuring Wi-Fi connectivity was launched by LG in 2000. Over time, smart fridges have evolved rapidly, and they now offer a range of features, such as responding to messages through the fridge door!
Some refrigerators have been capable of making ice since the 1950s, but in 1965, Frigidaire introduced models that could dispense ice cubes.
The ideal refrigerator temperature is between 37°F (3°C) and 40°F (5°C).
Modern refrigerators feature an auto-defrost device. This device works by briefly warming the cooling component, known as an evaporator coil, to remove the accumulated frost. Before this, you’d have to chip ice out of your fridge.
The average size of a refrigerator is 28 to 40 inches (71-101 centimeters) in width, 58 to 72 inches (147-182 cm) in height, and 28 to 35 inches (71-89 cm) in depth.
The typical lifespan of a standard modern refrigerator is 10 to 15 years. However, a built-in fridge can last up to 20 years.
In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider broke the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest refrigerator at 11,106 tons (10,080 metric tons).
One of the smallest fridges in the world is MedActiv’s LifeinaBox. Measuring just 7.9 x 3.9 x 3.9 inches (20x10x10 cm) and weighing a trim 3.1 lbs (1.4 kilograms), it’s designed to keep critical medications at consistently cold temperatures while you’re on the move.
In 1947, household appliance brand Amana launched the first fridge with the freezer compartment on the bottom rather than the top.
While Samsung is often associated with cell phones and TVs, it’s also a key player in the refrigerator industry. Whirlpool and LG are also notable firms that manufacture fridges.
Refrigerators are generally among the most energy-consuming household appliances. In the United States, fridges use between 300 and 800 kWh of electricity annually, or about 10% of the average total electricity bill.
If you grew up playing with magnetic letters and numbers on your fridge, you’re among many—they’ve been around since the 1960s!
Some foods should never be refrigerated to maintain their best quality. For example, potatoes and tomatoes lose their texture and flavor, and bananas turn brown and mushy.
Every year on May 29, people celebrate Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day. Placing a pillow on a refrigerator on this day is believed to bring wealth and good luck.
The ice-cool journey of refrigeration, from ancient yakhchāls to today’s cutting-edge fridges, has been unquestionably chill.
Whether it was the mass production of William C. Durant’s self-contained compressor refrigerators or LG’s introduction of the inaugural smart fridge, the way we store our essentials has been completely transformed over the years.
With that, we hope you enjoyed learning all about the wonders of the fridge. And remember, keep your tomatoes and bananas out of the refrigerator!
