It has been more than 2000 years since we began to use an umbrella on rainy days. However, people often felt it not convenient to hold an umbrella while working. Then the rubber raincoat was invented by an Englishman named Macintosh in 1823.
In 1492, Columbus, a well-known Italian voyager, discovered the New World — the America. He brought a lot of things to Europe from South America. Rubber was one of them, but people didn't know the use of rubber at that time. In 1770, people found that the rubber could be used as erasers.
Macintosh was a worker in an eraser factory in Scotland. One day he spilled(泼出)the rubber liquid(液体)over his clothes carelessly when making erasers. He was too busy to clean it and went back home wearing the dirty clothes. On the way home, it rained heavily. Having no umbrella, Macintosh had to run home quickly. When he got home, he took off the wet clothes. To his surprise, the area of the clothes with rubber wasn't wet. "Why not make a rubber raincoat?" Macintosh thought. The next day he brushed the rubber liquid all over a coat. He wore the "rubber coat" on rainy days and took a walk in the field to test if it could really keep off the rain. Surprisingly, the clothes inside the "rubber coat" weren't wet at all. The rubber raincoat was created in this way by chance.
The rubber raincoats soon appeared on the market. However, they were sticky(粘的) in summer and hardened in winter. Year after year, people kept on improving the raincoats. Today raincoats are widely used in our daily life.
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