Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit was born in 1686 in Danzig, Poland, and was raised in Holland and England. After failing as a merchant, he developed an interest in meteorology. Among his contributions were a pumping device for draining the Dutch polders; a hygrometer, for measuring atmospheric humidity; and a thermometer that used mercury instead of alcohol.

Of course, a thermometer really does no good unless there are numbers on it, so he developed a temperature scale, too. On his scale, 32 degrees is the freezing point of water, and 212 degrees is the boiling point. This scale is called Fahrenheit. Later a Swede from Stockholm would suggest a more logical scale, with a temperature range of 0-100. His name was Anders Celsius.