This Camper Has Been a Quarantine Staple Since 1960s Space Missions

On July 24, 1969, President Richard Nixon stepped off Marine One onto the deck of the USS Hornet, which had steamed to the central Pacific to pick up the Apollo 11 astronauts. Lunar travel being new, NASA physicians were concerned that Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin might have brought home “lunar pathogens,” so…

How the LGBTQ+ Community Got a Brand That Incites Pride and a Sense of Belonging

On a breezy night in the summer of 1978, 30 volunteers packed into the attic floor of the San Francisco Gay Community Center. Under the watchful eye of activist Gilbert Baker, people began dunking strips of cotton canvas into barrels filled with dye and salted water. Once they’d finished washing and drying the fabric, the…

How a Cat in a Shark Costume Provided the Best Marketing Roomba Could’ve Hoped For

Sometime around Halloween 2012, a Houston woman named Helen Arnold set out to buy a shark costume for her dog, a pit bull named Sharkey. When she could find only a small-sized outfit, Arnold decided to let her cat Max wear it instead. Max, as things turned out, not only tolerated being dressed as a…

Mr. Bubble Celebrates 60 Years of Cleaning Up Kids—and the Tubs They’re Playing In

Among the countless products that Americans buy, only a relative handful have found success by advancing two selling propositions at the same time. There’s Miller Lite (“Tastes great! Less filling!”) and Arm & Hammer baking soda. And, to date, the makers of WD-40 have confirmed some 2,000 uses for their product. Far less known, though,…

The Gucci Belt, With Immortalized Brass Initials, Is an Enduring Fashion Statement

Few who were in Milan for Fashion Week in 2015 will forget the buzz surrounding the Gucci ready-to-wear fall collection. The famous house’s creative director Frida Giannini had been axed a few weeks before, so all eyes were on 42-year-old Alessandro Michele to see what he’d created. He’d been given all of a week to…

Amtrak Celebrates 50 Years of Providing Viable Intracity Transportation to the US

Of all the Americans who’ve eschewed air travel in favor of the charms of the train, perhaps none has been more loyal than a man nicknamed Amtrak Joe. Having lost his wife and daughter in an auto accident in 1972, he began commuting to his job in Washington on Amtrak–a 250-mile round trip from his…

PayPal Survived the Dot-Com Bubble and Swept the Digital Financial Services Industry

In retrospect, it seems like the most obvious idea in the world. In 1998, as the dot-com bubble had inflated nearly to its bursting point, online merchants such as Boo.com, Kozmo.com and Pets.com were multiplying like rabbits. Everyone was talking about a future when Americans would do all their shopping online. Yet strangely, almost nobody…

Home Depot Has Long Dominated America’s Newest Pastime: Home Improvement Projects

It all started with a firing–a very foolish one. In 1978, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank were executives at Handy Dan, a home improvement chain based in Southern California. Despite the business being very profitable, the pair had begun to tinker with a new idea. By lowering prices, they found, the stores’ volume shot up,…

Once a Symbol of Luxury, Lincoln Is Getting a Second Wind With Millennials

In 1939, Edsel Ford, son of automotive pioneer Henry Ford, vacationed at his estate in Hobe Sound, Fla. Ford took the trip every year, but this time he brought along a one-of-a-kind convertible that Ford’s chief stylist E.T. “Bob” Gregorie had made for him. Having seen the stylish sedans running around Europe, Ford had told…

How Clorox Took Over the Cleaning World and Became a Household Staple

Last month, the Harris Poll surveyed 34,000 American consumers and asked which companies enjoyed the best reputation with them. Skulking at the bottom of the list were Facebook, e-cigarette maker Juul and the Trump Organization. And at the very top, even above Hershey’s chocolate and much-loved grocery chain Wegmans, was Clorox. Granted, were Americans not…

No Matter How You Pronounce It, Jif Is a Kitchen Staple—Especially for Choosy Moms

One of the more colorful moments in the world of tech took place in 2013 when Steve Wilhite rose from his seat in New York’s Cipriani Wall Street to accept his Webby Award for lifetime achievement. Wilhite is the inventor of the graphics interchange format, an animated loop better known as the GIF, which the…

Don’t Look Now, Doc, but America’s Original Influencer Bugs Bunny Just Turned 80

It was the second week of February 1961, and Mel Blanc was in deep trouble. Two weeks earlier, the “man of a thousand voices” who’d given breath to a slew of cartoon characters ranging from Porky Pig to Speedy Gonzalez, had been driving his Aston Martin down Hollywood Boulevard when a college kid in an…

Because of Its Willingness to Change, Nascar Is Still in the Race for Younger Viewers

On April 7, 2019, drivers at Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway started their engines and ran the Food City 500. The race was as fast and exciting as ever, but fans couldn’t help but notice a problem: a lack of other fans. Not many years ago, it was hard to get a ticket to Bristol. But…

As More People Shop Online, Bubble Wrap Is Surging in Popularity Again

A few years ago, a video game company reached out to Sealed Air Corp. with a strange request: It wanted to license the trademarked name of Bubble Wrap for a stress-relieving app it was working on. A 2012 study by Kelton Research revealed that one minute of Bubble Wrap popping furnished the same stress-relieving effect…

Crocs Found a Way Back Onto People’s Feet Amid the Pandemic

On March 25, as the country reeled with the news that the novel coronavirus had infected at least 65,000 people across the United States and Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the spread was “accelerating,” a tweet went out from Crocs headquarters in Niwot, Colo. “Now and always, we need to take care of each other,”…

Though Deceptively Simple, Scrabble Has a Consumer Appeal That’s Persevered for Decades

For a man who commanded the Allied Expeditionary Force in WWII and then became the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower still valued his leisure time. His affinity for the links made golf the official sport of postwar suburbia. But the first lady didn’t play golf, which is possibly why a July…

Born During the Great Depression, Fritos Is Once Again Homebound Americans’ Snack of Choice

Like every year, 2018 racked up its share of lugubrious news. The federal government shut down (twice), the Justice Department indicted 12 Russian officials for conspiring to hack the election and adult film star Stormy Daniels revealed her intimate relationship with President Trump. But one development from 2018 shocked and saddened millions of Americans like…

We All Need Baby Yoda Right Now, and Covid-19 Has Kept the Cute Little Creature Popular

A year and a half ago, Lucasfilm announced that writer/producer Jon Favreau’s new Star Wars series would be called The Mandalorian and would feature Bryce Dallas Howard as director for its fourth episode. For Howard, already a seasoned actress, Mandalorian would not only be her first major directing gig, but also the first time a…

How Hello Kitty Became a Global Olympic Ambassador

Were the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to proceed as planned this summer, Team USA would have boasted a truly world-famous member. A deal inked in February officially announced Team USA’s Global Ambassador for Inclusivity–“an iconic symbol for equal opportunity, fair play and global harmony.” And who was this vaunted dignitary? Hello Kitty. Alas, the mouthless white…

People Are Swooping Up Purell as Soon as the Hand Sanitizer Hits the Shelves

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is a busy man these days. In the last week or so, he’s thrown his weight behind numerous initiatives to help his home state, including SBA loans, food distribution and the procurement of a COVID-19 testing machine. But another of Portman’s maneuverings affects people across the entire nation. That’s because Ohio…