Where “thousands of people all but trampled each other to spend $12.50 each for a new fountain pen.”

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In the summer of 1944, news of an exciting new invention made its way to American newspapers . A Hungarian-Argentinian journalist named László Bíró had patented a new kind of pen, one that used a ball bearing tip instead of a traditional nib, only had to be refilled once every six months, and could be used at high altitudes. Bíró had recruited his brother, a dentist and chemist, to create a quick-drying, viscous ink that wouldn’t get stuck.

Bíró wasn’t the first to imagine the ballpoint pen—an American patented a version in 1888—but he was the first to bring it to market. He originally received his patent in 1938, but his plans to market the pens were stymied by WWII; Bíró and his brother were Jewish, and fled Europe in 1941, landing in Argentina.…