Have you ever sat in a car on a very rainy day, switched on the wipers to clear the windshield, and wondered how it came to be there?

The first windshields to be operated were by hand, and the first ones to be created were by J.H. Apjohn in 1903. It was two brushes, which ran up and down the windscreen.

Mary Anderson invented the swinging mechanism of the windshield wipers with a rubber blade which was controlled by a lever inside the.

Anderson’s “winder cleaning device” was fixed on many of the early cars and she was issued an official licence for her invention in November 1903.

She tried to sell her product to many car companies and manufacturers, but just for her luck she was not taken seriously, and no one used her device.

However, Fred and Willian Folberth invented the world’s first automatic windshield wipers in 1921, and this product was called the “Folberths” after its inventors.

It was powered by an air engine which was connected by a tube to the car’s motor.

Windshields wipers for luxury vehicles were introduced by Bosch in 1926, and were not allowed on any other type of vehicle.

Robert Kearns designed the intermittent powered wipers in 1967 which caught the attention of many top car companies like Ford Motor Company.

This mechanism operated on the same principle our eyelids (which are the wipers of our eyes) did and was a full modern electronic circuit.

It automatically wipes the windshield at regular intervals the same way we blink almost unconsciously.

Citroën, another great motorcar company like Ford, invented the rain-sensitive intermittent windscreen wipers for a few of their cars.

These wipers were able to run over the screen once and if the screen were quite dry, its next run would be delayed. If it were rather wet, it would come the second time, earlier.

Windshield wipers found today are most commonly the pivot (or radial) type. This means that they are attached to a single arm, which is then attached to the motor.

There are many windshield wiper designs and ways of movement, but all of them achieve the same purpose – to clear the windscreen of dust and water.

Most windshield wipers work together with a windshield washer. It is a tank fixed to the windscreen, which has water, alcohol, and detergent (windshield washer fluid) that helps cleans the windscreen with the wipers.