30 Things That Are Younger Than Betty White

Betty White is a legend in her own right. This sweetest little lady has not only won the hearts of virtually everyone for her uplifting personality, she has also earned a Guinness World Record for the longest TV career for a female entertainer.

The comic dynamo has been performing for more than 74 years in the entertainment industry, and it makes us wonder how come she is not a superhero!

Well, Betty was born on January 17, 1922, which makes her only two years away from celebrating her hundredth birthday. It means she is older than sliced bread, and color television, and… well, the list is in down below. And it really puts Betty’s legend into a historical perspective!

Image credits: Angela George

#1 Sliced Bread Was Intented In 1928

Sliced bread was invented in 1928. Otto Frederick Rohwedder created the Chillicothe Baking Company, which sold the first loaf that utilized Rohwedder's bread-slicing machine.

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#2 Penicillin

Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by professor Alexander Fleming.

Image credits: Solis Invicti

#3 Scotch Tape

1929 was the year when this life-saving tape was invented.

Image credits: Mike Mozart

Betty White, who has spanned more than 80 years in the entertainment industry, is regarded as one of the television pioneers. She is also known as the first woman to produce a sitcom, “Life With Elizabeth,” that led her to receive the honorary title Mayor Of Hollywood in 1955.

In 1939, just after graduating high school, Betty began her radio career, soon switching to television. Her career skyrocketed. But with WWII, she shelved her ambitions and joined the American Women's Voluntary Services. Of that era, she told Cleveland Magazine, "It was a strange time and out of balance with everything." 

#4 Canned Beer

Although we've had canned beverages since 1813, mass production of them only started in 1935.

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#5 Nuclear Fission

The discovery of nuclear fission occurred in December 1938 by Lisa Meitner, Otto Frisch, and Otto Hahn. Meitner and Frisch were physicists and Hahn was a nuclear chemist. 

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#6 Color Television

June 25, 1951 was the day when CBS broadcast its first color TV show. Unfortunately, no one could tell because they all had black-and-white TV sets. The first program in color was called "Premiere."

Image credits: Nesster

Betty was a regular on the game show circuit when she met her match in 1961, hosted by Allen Ludden. He became Betty’s third and last husband, and their stars on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame sit side by side to this day.

In Betty’s more than eight decades in the business, her trademark smile, gracious demeanor, and clever wit have made her a living legend.

#7 The Traffic Signal Was Created In 1923

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#8 The Ballpoint Pen Was Invented In 1938

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#9 Bubble Gum

In 1928, Walter E. Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. These experiments turned out to be successful.

Image credits: Beatrice Murch

#10 LSD

LSD was first synthesized on November 16, 1938, by Dr. Albert Hoffman.

Image credits: Manel Torralba

#11 Bean Bag Chair

1969 was the year of Woodstock and when beanbag chairs became a thing.

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#12 Jukeboxes

In 1927, Betty White was already five years old when the first jukebox that automatically shifted records was introduced to the public.

Image credits: Vítor Baptista

#13 The Internet

In the 1950s, first computers were created. By 1965, MIT released the first wide area network (WAN). Four years later, the first successful internet message was sent from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute. But it took a while for memes to become a thing.

Image credits: Pixabay

#14 Trampoline

The first modern trampoline was built by George Nissen and Larry Griswold in 1936. Nissen was a gymnastics and diving competitor and Griswold was a tumbler on the gymnastics team.

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#15 Frozen Food

Before 1929, frozen food was not a thing.

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#16 The Rubik's Cube – Invented 1974

Image credits: Simon Law

#17 The Slinky

In 1943, the mechanical engineer Richard James accidentally came up with the toy when he was trying to find a way of keeping products on ships undamaged.

Image credits: Matthew M

#18 Barbie

In 1959, the world was introduced to Barbie.

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#19 1957: Birth Control Pill

Enovid, a drug the FDA approved for menstrual disorders, came with a warning: The mixture of synthetic progesterone and estrogen also prevents ovulation. Two years later, more than half a million American women were taking Enovid—and not all of them had cramps. In 1960, the FDA approved Enovid for use as the first oral contraceptive.

Image credits: Sarah C

#20 1982: Computer Virus

Fifteen-year-old Rich Skrenta created an application called Elk Cloner as a prank—and ended up creating the first virus to spread outside its home network. Elk Cloner spreads via floppy disk and attaches to the Apple OS II operating system. When users boot from the disk, Elk Cloner transfers the computer's memory; any additional disks inserted without rebooting are also infected. On every fiftieth boot, the computer displays text written by Skrenta:

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality / It will get on all your disks / It will infiltrate your chips / Yes it's Cloner! / It will stick to you like glue / It will modify ram too / Send in the Cloner!

Image credits: Joey Coleman

#21 Electric Razor

Up until 1931, non-electric razors were not only a choice, but also the only possibility.

Image credits: Tom Ray

#22 Automatic Watches

Automatic watches became a thing back in 1923.

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#23 Notebooks With Spiral Bindings Were Invented In 1924

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#24 Microwave Oven

In 1945, the heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer. In 1947, Raytheon built the "Radarange," the first commercially available microwave oven.

Image credits: Oleg Kuznetsov

#25 1956: Hard Drive

IBM released the first computer hard disk drive, the 2,000-pound-plus, refrigerator-sized IBM 305 RAMAC, which introduced magnetic disk storage. Up until then, files were either kept on spools of magnetic tape or on good old-fashioned paper, with no way to jump right to the record you wanted to pull up. With the RAMAC, a mechanical arm would retrieve data by storing data at a particular magnetic orientation. This technology went on to be used (at a smaller size) in laptops and computer servers everywhere.

Image credits: Tim Patterson

#26 Instant Coffee

Coffee may have existed for centuries, but instant coffee has been here with us since 1938.

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#27 Garages

C.G. Johnson invented the electric garage door opener in 1926.

Image credits: Ben Baligad

#28 Garbage Disposal

The garbage disposal unit was invented in 1927 by John W. Hammes, an architect working in Racine, Wisconsin. He applied for a patent in 1933 that was issued in 1935.

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#29 Big Mac

The Big Mac wasn't introduced until 1967. McDonald's was originally a hot dog stand that only turned to burger-making in 1948.

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#30 M&m’s Candy Invented 1941

Image credits: Mike Mozart