Corn of Ill Repute: How Butterkist Helped Make Movie Popcorn Respectable
How a salt-of-the-Earth Midwest manufacturer learned to butter up customers and see its sales explode.
Who Owns the Books You Read?
The Supreme Court may soon rule on how the first sale doctrine applies to textbooks. But what about the ebook on your iPad? Who owns that?
Pretty Much the Scariest Way to Give Kids Their Medicine
Bunny needles, puppy spoons, squirrel otoscopes. Here are some great, well-meaning ways to make children fear doctors AND cute fuzzy animals.
What Uber, Lyft and Sidecar Can Learn From the Jitney Cars of the 1910s
Ride-sharing took off in Los Angeles at the beginning of the 20th century, but it couldn't beat City Hall.
When Santa Traded His Sleigh for an Automobile
The American Santa of the end of the 19th century was a lot fatter and in a car—much like the average American a century later.
Life Hacks from 1946
Popular Mechanics' 1950s DIY "home kinks" for picnic tables, paint cans, medicine bottles and more.
Dazzle Shoppe: Animated Window Advertising In The Pre-TV Age
Before viewing the retail experience became the province of TVs and tablets, if you wanted to see possible presents dancing around you had to head to the windows of downtown department stores.
The Sound Effects of Silence: SFX Before There Were Talkies
Before silent movies evolved into talkies, various efforts to create the aural ambiance depicted onscreen included this roomful of noise-making contraptions.
The Dawn of Home Audio Recording
Illustration from the cover of the December 1930 issue of Radio Craft magazine When Thomas Edison invented the…