History of The Microwave Oven [1947-2022]

 If you thought the microwave was invented to make your work in the kitchen easier, find out that it was made by mistake. In 1940, John Randall and Harry Boot invented the cavity magnetron tube, used by Europe and America during World War II to emit microwave radar signals to detect enemy aircraft and ships. In 1945, an engineer named Percy Spencer, employed at Raytheon, was working on a motorized radar, at which point he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted. This made him curious, and after a few investigations, he realized that the culprits for melting the chocolate bar were the microwaves emitted by the radar tube of the radar. Investigations continued, and Percy Spencer did a few more experiments. He exposed corn grains to the microwave, and these turned into popcorn, then continued with an egg, which later exploded. Next, the engineer created a closed metal box that he attached to an electromagnetic field generator, which allowed him to heat his lunches. A few months later, Raytheon filed a patent application for Spencer's microwave cooking process. In 1947, Raytheon built the Radarange, the first commercial microwave oven. The oven was huge, 1.8 meters high, 340 kilograms, consumed 3 kilowatts, and was sold at a price of $5,000, or $66,000 today. In 1955, Tappan, a home appliance manufacturer, introduced the first household microwave ovens. However, they were not very successful because they were still very large and very expensive. So, in 1965, Raytheon bought Amana Refrigeration, which two years later launched Amana Radarange, a small, fairly affordable microwave oven for only $495. Since the 1970s, Litton has introduced the shape of the microwave we know today. Thus, by the end of the 1970s, microwave ovens were becoming more affordable and practical, and by 1997, 9 out of 10 households in America would own a microwave oven. In 1974, Amana introduced automatic defrosting on their RR-4D model, and in 1975 it introduced the first microwave oven with a microprocessor-controlled digital control panel, their RR-6 model. Today, most microwave ovens have about the same shape factor as the one established in the '70s, but there is a much wider range of different models of microwave ovens. There are many colors, sizes, capacities, powers, and functions of microwave ovens. If in the beginning, microwave ovens could only heat and cook food, today most microwave ovens can grill, use convection heat, or steam cooking.                                                                               THANKS FOR READING SEE YOU IN THE NEXT POST