The Times of India

In 1886, Josephine Cochrane's frustration with broken china led to the modern dishwasher

Nineteenth-century socialite Josephine Cochrane, frustrated by chipped dishes, invented the first practical automatic dishwasher. Rejecting scrubbing, she pioneered using water jets to clean, a revolutionary concept. Though patented in 1886, widespread adoption took decades due to infrastructure limitations, with hotels and restaurants first benefiting from her ingenious design, fundamentally changing home maintenance.