When Charles and Logan McGrath from England invented the Disco Ball in 1859, they didn’t call it a disco ball. Because disco didn’t exist yet. In fact, they didn’t officially call it anything, as they didn’t file a patent for their big shiny mirror balls.

So, in 1917, a man named Louis Bernard Woeste applied for a patent for his not-so-catchily-named “Myriad Reflector”. It measured 27 inches in diameter and was covered in over 1,200 tiny mirrors, creating a scattered light effect that Woeste likened to “dancing fireflies of a thousand hues.”

82 years later, a 62-pound myriad reflector (which had come to be known as a disco ball) fell from the ceiling and almost killed Boy George, clipping his face and shoulder on the way down during rehearsals.