1.
Play-Doh was originally created as a wallpaper cleaner. In the ’50s, Kutol Products, the company that created it, saw huge declines in sales of its wallpaper cleaner because the US was transitioning from heating their homes with coal (which caused soot buildup) to other sources.
3.
The term “fast fashion” was first coined in 1989 by the New York Times when the writer of an article about the opening of the first Zara store in New York was describing what Zara’s business model was like.
4.
The first Apple logo featured an illustration of Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. The logo was designed by one of the company’s co-founders, Ronald Wayne. It only lasted for a year because Steve Jobs hated the logo and hired a professional graphic designer to create a new one.
5.
Panda Express invented orange chicken in 1987. It was created by the company’s executive chef, Andy Kao, while he was on a business trip to open the chain’s first Hawaiian location. He was inspired by the citrus found there.
6.
The term “shipping,” as in shipping/ship a relationship, comes from The X-Files. If you watched the show back in the ’90s, you probably remember how much people wanted Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) to hook-up in the early seasons. In 1996, fans of the show who wanted the characters to become a couple went on The X-Files Usenet fan forum and began calling themselves “relationshippers,” then “r’shippers,” and eventually just going by “shippers.”
7.
Liza Minnelli was once part of, arguably, the biggest nepo baby couple of all time. Liza, of course, is the daughter of Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, and she dated Desi Arnazi Jr., the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
8.
Pebbles on The Flintstones was originally supposed to be a boy named Fred Jr. However, when executives at the Ideal Toy Company found out about it, they proposed changing the baby to a girl so they could create a doll, and Hanna-Barbera agreed.
9.
The original Monopoly game was created to warn about the dangers of capitalism and wealth concentration. It was patented in 1904 by its creator, a woman named Lizzie Magie, and was known as The Landlord’s Game, where players moved around a square board buying properties, paying rent, and aiming to accumulate wealth. The game had two rule sets — one promoting monopolies (where you would work to bankrupt the other players) and another demonstrating the benefits of wealth distribution.
10.
Victoria’s Secret was created by Roy Raymond in 1977 after he had a bad experience trying to buy lingerie for his wife. Raymond went into the lingerie section at a department store, where he felt unwelcome and didn’t like the offerings. He then had the idea to create a store where men wouldn’t be embarrassed to buy lingerie and that also offered sexier underwear.
11.
In late 2007, Netflix got VERY close to releasing their own streaming device called The Netflix Player. However, Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, realized that if he put out his own streaming device, he would likely lose out on Netflix being available on other devices — like AppleTV — because he would be a direct competitor. With just a few weeks before the product was set to launch, Hastings canceled it. However, he decided to spin off the product to Roku, which was the company that had helped develop the device.
12.
Birkenstock traces its origins to 1774 and the village of Langen-Bergheim, Germany, with the first documented mention of shoemaker Johannes Birkenstock. While the entire Birkenstock family was in the shoemaking business, things didn’t really take off until Johannes’ great-grandnephew, Konrad Birkenstock, moved away to Frankfurt and developed the modern Birkenstock footbed.
13.
Flappers wearing fringe dresses in the 1920s is a bit of a myth. Fringe wasn’t very common, and most dresses would have been embellished with beadwork or embroidery. The reason we associate fringe with flapper dresses is that in the 1950s, Hollywood started making period movies set in the ’20s, and studio costume designers didn’t go for period accuracy because, for audiences at that time, real 1920s clothing would have appeared drab and too old-fashioned. So, costume designers for films like Singin’ in the Rain added fringe to dresses; they also played with silhouettes (making dresses shorter and tighter) and used colors that would not have been used in the ’20s.
14.
If you have ever wondered why nachos are called nachos, it’s because they are named after their inventor, Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya. According to the story, in 1940, a few American women crossed the border into Piedras Negras in Coahuila, Mexico, to do some shopping. They stopped at the Victory Club restaurant looking for something to eat, but it was outside of business hours, so there was no chef or cook there. However, Nacho, the maître d’ at the restaurant, offered to make them something, and he ran into the kitchen, grabbed some fried corn tortilla chips, topped it with Colby cheese and slices of pickled jalapeños, and placed it in the oven.
15.
When the Gap first opened in 1969 in San Francisco, it sold Levi jeans and records. It wouldn’t sell its own private-label clothing until 5 years later, in 1974.
16.
McDonald’s didn’t have its first drive-thru until 1975. Drive-thrus existed at other fast food chains prior to this, but McDonald’s model was built on walking up and ordering or car-hop service (and had slowly morphed into eat-in as well). However, a franchise owner in Sierra Vista, Arizona, installed one in order to service uniformed soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Huachuca, who were not allowed to walk around in uniform outside the base.
17.
The classic Chanel double C-turn lock on its purses was not a design feature created by Coco Chanel — it was actually created by Karl Lagerfeld in 1983 when he became Chanel’s creative director. Prior to that, Chanel purses had simple square locks.
18.
The Devil Wears Prada is not only one of the most iconic fashion films of the 2000s, but of all time. However, the movie only had a wardrobe budget of $100,000, which meant the movie’s costume designer, Patricia Field, had to call in a lot of favors in order to create all the high-fashion looks. According to Field, she imagined Andy Sachs as a “Chanel girl,” so she personally called Chanel (with whom she had a long relationship) and showed them the script. Chanel was ecstatic to work with her because “they wanted to see Chanel on young women.” Of course, this collaboration all led to the iconic Chanel boots quote and look.
19.
And lastly, a Twitter user invented the hashtag. It was created by Chris Messina, a tech product designer who ran an internet consulting company. Messina was an early adopter of Twitter and found it frustrating that you could not filter tweets by subject. He had the idea that if people put the hashtag with a word or phrase that it would “create an instant channel that anybody can join and participate in.” Messina even pitched the idea to Twitter in person at their offices, but it wasn’t a priority for them to develop. However, he kept promoting their use (even if they didn’t work), and other users also began to use them organically, especially during major events. Seeing its popularity, Twitter integrated hashtag hyperlinking in 2009 — it would then become standard on all social media platforms.
