Google Doodle pays homage to Gideon Sundback, zipper pioneer

Google has come out with another one of its doodles today, paying homage to one Gideon Sundback — the engineer who developed the zipper. Sundback was born on this day 132 years ago, an occasion that Google has appropriately commemorated with a giant zipper running length-wise down its homepage. Users can “unzip” the page by dragging their cursors from top to bottom, which will bring up a bevy of search items related to today’s honoree.

Sundback’s breakthrough came in 1914, when he developed a zipper design based on interlocking teeth. The concept itself had been floating around for several years prior to Sundback’s innovation, but the Swedish-American engineer was the first to perfect it, thanks to a fastening system that allowed each “tooth” of a zipper to sit securely in position. Sundback originally designed the zipper for women’s boots, but it eventually became a fixture on many dresses and pants, not to mention at least one racy album cover.