Air conditioning
In 1902, the first modern electrical air conditioning unit was invented by Willis Carrier in Buffalo, New York. After graduating from Cornell University, Carrier found a job at the Buffalo Forge Company. There, he began experimenting with air conditioning as a way to solve an application problem for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company in Brooklyn, New York. The first air conditioner, designed and built in Buffalo by Carrier, began working on 17 July 1902.
Samuel Cleland Davidson
The success of his innovative use of stoves to move hot air led him to develop a convection heating system for use in human environments, and by the end of the 1880s his Sirocco stoves were in popular use in schools, church halls and workrooms. He developed his invention further with the introduction in 1898 of a forward-bladed centrifugal fan, which was significantly more powerful than conventional fan designs. This innovation, originally designed for drying tea, evolved into the first air conditioning system. The powerful force of moving hot air across a room with one of his centrifugal fans led one of Davidson's planter colleagues to remark that it reminded him of the Sirocco, the hot wind that blows across the North African desert, and Davidson adopted "Sirocco" as his brand name, applying it to his products and to the firm's Belfast factory, the Sirocco Engineering Works.