What did France introduce in 1778?

Factual Questions
1

Those of you in the UK might know of this long-standing question on The Quiz with No Name. For the majority of you who don’t know about this, this question has stumped listeners for fifty-odd days. I’m not interested in the prize (tickets to see Blue) myself, but I do want to know. Plenty of people have given wrong answers based on what they found on the net, but we all know there’s a lot of rubbish out there. My ancient set of encyclopaedias indicates that the answer may be ‘encyclopaedias’ or ‘dictionaries’ (but this is far from certain). Can any of you confirm or refute this guess?

Thanks for any answers.

2

That is an extrordinarilty vague question. In fact, it is unanswerably vague.

3

Not really. It must be something of at least a little importance. France didn’t introduce that many important things in 1778. I’m sure the answer is somewhere…

4

I think they invented a dumb question to keep people talking about France?

5

The 1779 model of the Renault.
1770’s style rayes de morte.
The 1779 calendar.

6

The first steam-powered precursors to what are now commonly referred to as 1920s-style death rays.

7

I was thinking along the lines of the American revolution. France formally recognized the united states in 1778, and entered the war in 1778, so maybe something to do with that.

8

could it have been the public lottery perhaps?
or how about paper money?

9

Mesmerism?

10

The French people to deoderant?

11

Metric System.

12

Are you sure? I was under the impression that what we recognize as the metric system came to prominence as a result of the Revolution.

A Chronology of the SI Metric System

13

The Encyclopaedia Britannica was first published in Edinburgh between 1768 and 1771, so that’s not it.

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language was first published in 1755, and there was already an Italian dictionary (Vocabulario degli Accademici della crusca) in 1612 and a French one (Le dictionnaire de l’Academie francaise) in 1694 so that’s not it either.

The Metric System was introduced after the French Revolution, as was the guillotine.

14

Voltaire’s funeral procession?

The idea that air was made of 75% oxygen and 25% nitrogen? In 1779 the same man (Lavoiser) gave it the name oxygen. Nitrogen had been discovered in 1772. Cite about half way down.

15

http://www.shaunf.dircon.co.uk/shaun/metrology/chronology.html
Publius I am not at all sure [ I cannot see your link just yet Blessed Dial-Up keeps stalling on me.]
However, according to the link I give, it was only proposed in '78 but not codified until 1800s.
So, just an unlucky guess.

16

That was the year Ben Franklin was made envoy to France. It seems obvious, but they would have had to have introduced him to the court.

17

The chances of that being the answer to a question on a British radio show are slim to none.

18

Denis Diderot began as editor of the *Encyclopédie; ou, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts, et des métiers * in 1745 and completed it by 1772.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/E/Encyclop.asp
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/d/diderot.asp

19

Both are considerably older than 1778.
France’s first paper money system was introduced by John Law in 1716.

From http://contests.about.com/library/weekly/aa020900a.htm

That said, I don’t have an idea.

20

The standard length of wallpaper rolls?

http://www.wallpaperinstaller.com/wallpaper_history.html