10th June: Ballpoint Pen Day

Today is Ballpoint Pen Day. The ballpoint pen was invented by Lasalo Biro of Budapest, Hungary in the 1930s. Here are some facts about ballpoint pens that you may not know:

1. The ball in a ballpoint pen is made from tungsten carbide. This stuff is three times tougher than steel and denser than titanium.
2. The ink inside is different from the ink in a fountain pen. It is thicker and designed to dry more quickly.
3. The average ballpoint pen can draw a line about 6,000 feet long, or write 45,000 words.
4. The ballpoint pen first became popular with the Royal Air Force, because fountain pens did not work well at high altitudes. The British Government bought the patent and Biro pens were made for the Air Force during World War II.
5. From 1968, the ballpoint pen went even further when Paul C. Fisher invented a ballpoint pen that did not rely on gravity to work and therefore could be used in space. The Apollo 7 mission was the first to use them.
6. 125 ballpoint pens are sold every second.
7. Given a new pen to try, for 95% of us, the first word we would write with it would be our name.
8. On average, each person uses up 4.3 ballpoint pens in the course of a year.
9. Ballpoint pens can be deadly. On average, 100 people per year choke to death on them.
10. The world's biggest ballpoint pen was created by Acharya Makunuri Srinivasa, in India in 2011. It measured 5.5 m (18 ft 0.53 in) and weighed 37.23 kg (82.08 lb 1.24 oz).