The Man who Invented the Ball-point Pen

Ladislo Biro lived IN Hungary and worked as proofreader, reading

manuscripts when they were first printed and correcting any
mistakes before the final printing. He had an old fashioned pen
that had to be dipped in a jar of ink before making a correction.
Ladislo didnt like that process. It was a bother, and there was
always a danger of getting ink splotches on the page. So he
decided he would invent a pen that would not have to be dipped
in ink. He called his idea an inspiration while his friends called it
plain foolishness.
Ladislo didnt worry about them. With his brother he tried many
ways to make the new pen. Finally they hit upon putting a tiny
metal ball at the tip, then filling the pen with paste-like ink. That
is the basic idea of todays ball-points but it took many years to
perfect it.
When first manufactured, the new pens were very expensive,
and a few saw a god reason for buying them. Interestingly it was
the fighter pilots of World War II who popularized ball-point
pens. Ordinary fountain pens leaked at high altitudes, and so the
Air-Force bought for the airmen the high-altitude writing sticks
that Biro made. After that ball-point pens became increasingly
popular and today many more are sold than fountain-pens.