All this from a single 108, 000-barrel-a-day teakettle in Coffeyville, Kans. (pop. 11, 000) and a fertilizer plant nearby.

FORBES: Slick

Not the interior secretary under Reagan, but the 18th-century Scot who got the idea for the first steam engine from his auntie's teakettle.

FORBES: Magazine Article

As the water neared its boil the ascending pitches of our teakettle's tremble are so familiar to me I reached for the telephone and dialed Rema's cell.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Atmospheric Disturbances'

Is the heat on high under that teakettle?

NEWYORKER: Starlight

Now a collection of the inventor's personal belongings, including his library of scientific books, a cluster of scientific instruments and a letter documenting the teakettle incident are all coming up for sale at Sotheby's London on March 20.

FORBES: Watt's Up

"I don't know why everyone says that about my work, " replied the 77-year-old Mr. Graves, who famously decorated the Walt Disney headquarters with a frieze of seven dwarfs and topped an Alessi teakettle with a red bird that tweets an alert when the water boils.

WSJ: Michael Graves, Drinking Wine With Lettie Teague