Megan McLeod, age 10, of Huntington, Connecticut, for her question:

How long have we been using zippers?

Until the 20th century, people depended upon hooks and eyes, buttons and bows to fasten their clothes. The first zipper was a line of hooks and eyes with a sliding tab to open and close them. It was invented in 1892 by Whitcomb Judson of Chicago. A better model was perfected in 1912. The hooks and eyes were replaced by metal teeth and a slide was used to interlock the whole row together. The same slide smoothly unlocked the meshed teeth.

The neat gadget was not called a zipper until later, and it did not become popular overnight. In 1924, the Goodrich Rubber company created rubber overshoes, using this type of slide fastener to make it easy to put them on and take off. The handy galoshes were marketed under the trade name of Zippers. Their most popular feature turned out to be their smooth fasteners. People called them zipper fasteners and the zipper was soon on its way to replacing buttons and bows, hooks and eyes.