László Bíró

László József Bíró, also known by his Spanish name Ladislao José Biro, was a Hungarian-Argentine inventor who received a patent for the first widely used modern ballpoint pen. He is also considered as one of the most important historical figures in Hungary. He was born László József Schweiger and died on October 24, 1985. John J. Loud had created the first ballpoint pen almost 50 years prior, but it was not a commercial success.

The ballpoint pen, created by Budapest-native László Bró, is likely the most well-known of the several inventions that Hungarians came up with before they became well-known abroad; millions of them are made and sold each day as the world's most-used writing tool. Bró, who was raised by a Jewish family in the Magyar capital, started his career as a journalist not long after graduating from high school. Bró struggled with the smudges and leaks that came with the pens of the day while pursuing his writing profession. Although he saw that newspaper printing ink dried rapidly, it was too thick to flow through a fountain pen's nib.

Together with his brother György, Bró developed a brand-new sort of pen tip that included a tiny metal ball that rotated in a socket and was used to roll quickly drying ink onto paper after being picked up from an airtight cartridge. When World War II broke out, László and György were compelled to leave Hungary for Argentina. This practical everyday item was a hit at the 1931 Budapest International Fair, and Bró copyrighted the innovation in Paris in 1938. Ballpoint pens were crucial instruments for Allied airmen since they performed far better at high altitude than fountain pens, which the brothers further refined there.