Biro

 

László Biro was a Hungarian journalist who in 1938 invented the first practical ball-point pen, the biro.  Biro was obliged to leave Hungary with the rise of Narzism, preceding the Second World War and eventually settled in Argentina, where in 1943 he took out a patent for his invention. 

Biro's pen was first put to a really practical use by British Royal Air Force navigators who found they were able to use the biro at high altitudes, where conventional pens were unreliable or simply failed to function. A few years after the war, the ball-point became the most popular kind of pen on the market; but its original inventor had not the foresight to take out patents in other countries and the other men in those countries grew rich from the enormous sales.