The electric toaster turns 100 this year.  As the UK’s Daily Express newspaper notes, General Electric technician Frank Schailor built a prototype, on a hunch, back in 1909 — 20 years before someone else invented pre-sliced bread!

Schailor’s idea was to provide a way for people to make stale bread palatable again. It worked.

It was 1919 before a pop-up toaster appearsd on the market, solving the then decade-old question of how do you get the toast out of the toaster without getting your hands burned?

The first automatic toaster appeared in 1926.

Then… In 1928, Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the automatic bread slicer and, suddenly, everyone wanted a toaster!

For those with an insatiable appetite for ‘toastiana’, there’s a whole museum in Kettwig, Germany, which holds examples of almost every model of toaster ever made.