Newer Than They Think / Technology

• CPR and mouth-to-mouth have only been around in any recognizable form since the late 1940s, and didn't become standard medical techniques for another decade. In Back to the Future Part II, Marty tells a crowd in 1955 that he knows CPR and gets the reply "What's CPR?". An episode of Eureka has Alison perform CPR in 1945 on a wounded soldier while everyone around her assumes she is kissing him.) Contrast the actually made-in-The '60s Star Trek: The Original Series' Mighty Whitey episode, which features whatever-they-did-before-CPR.
  • Similarly, the Heimlich maneuver was first described circa 1974. It was likewise used anachronistically by Sam in an episode of Quantum Leap, on Dr. Heimlich himself.
  • Likewise, paramedics and EMTs as we know them weren't around until the late 60s and early 70s. The TV show Emergency! helped popularize the concept in the public's mind.
  • The United States and Canada didn't introduce 911 emergency until 1968 and 1972 respectively. Previously you had to call the local emergency service directly or otherwise call the operator. Similarly, the use of 911 in North America was not the standard emergency number (though it was the most common) until the 1990s as was knowledge that such emergency systems even existed. The popularity of the television series Rescue 911 re-enacting emergency calls with the actual victims and first responders pushed the system into the public conscious and made most of the communities without it switch to accept emergency calls from that number in addition to their own (many after a few segments specifically pointed out that the panicked caller had to leaf through the phone book to find the correct number). The series' international popularity is part of the reason that some foreign countries use 911 as a secondary emergency service number after their own citizens thought that it would work for them too. In fact, it's not uncommon for shows as late as the mid-90s to have to leave babysitters a list of emergency numbers on the fridge, which most viewers would wonder why the parents would leave their children in the care of someone who doesn't know 911.
• The first practical chastity belt wasn't invented until the late 1500s. And they were never very common even then.
• Adhesive tape. Though technically invented in 1928, up until the 1960s it was common to see packages tied with string, as featured in "My Favourite Things" from The Sound of Music, and the logo used by UPS through the mid-2000s featured a twine-tied parcel.
• Iron Maidens (torture device resembling a coffin full of spikes) were not invented until the late 18th Century, and have most likely never been used on anyone ever.
  • Sadly, this is no longer true. After the 2003 occupation of Iraq, a working Iron Maiden was found in the dungeons of Uday Hussein.
  • It also might be Older Than They Think, since the Spartan tyrant Nabis was reported to use a nail-studded statue of his wife, capable of giving Deadly Hugs to anyone he wanted dead... or simply needed money from.
• Although the idea of a hot-air balloon had been kicking around for quite a while, proof of concept was not shown until 1709 by Brazilian priest Bartolomeu de Gusmao, and the first manned balloon flight didn't happen until the Montgolfier brothers in 1783. To put it another way, balloons weren't much more than a century old when airplanes were invented.
• The piano was invented in 1709 and didn't become popular till the mid 19th century; people preferred the softer sound of the Harpsichord. But because of that, the piano may actually be Older Than They Think since the harpsichord is pictured as the main instrument of the 17th century. The harpsichord was still used in new compositions into the early 20th century for bass recitatives but after the early 19th century, its use was mostly restricted to older works written for the harpsichord. The mid-19th century and onward harpsichord revival, despite popular myth, was not the revival of a forgotten instrument but an act of preserving an instrument that was in danger of falling into obscurity.
  • The reason it was invented lies in its full name: The pianoforte. Whereas the harpsichord was the same volume no matter the pressure one struck its keys, the new instrument could be varied in its sound volume, which contributed to its popularity rise. After many composers began to use the piano in the late 18th and early 19th century, the harpsichord was quickly pushed aside for limited use only.
    • On the other hand, despite its low volume, a harpsichord has considerable power to 'cut through' the orchestra, which is why it was used for 'continuendo' bass lines until the mid 19th century. By this time orchestras were much larger and the style had moved on, not usually using a strictly-marked pulse in the bass (and having more options when it did, with new instruments like the trombone, new percussion or the modern form of the double bass.)
    • The new keyboard instrument had considerable competition in the harp, and for a while it looked like keyboard instruments were going to be eclipsed entirely. It doesn't hurt that a shapely young woman looks better playing a harp than a piano.
• Matches lit by striking were invented in 1827, although primitive forms of the match have been around before that. However, depictions of strike matches in the middle ages are just plain wrong. However, another lighting technology assumed to be ancient, actually is, and is even Older Than They Think, that being the oil lamp, which dates back 7,000 years.
  • Which may also make it Older Than They Think, depending on what They Think, though if they are dating matches as "older than lighters," matches are indeed newer than they think, by at least a few years, and if they're dating matches as a very old technology, they are very very wrong.
• The first Ferrari road car was built in 1947, when Enzo Ferrari was nearly fifty and the motor car was over eighty.
  • Similarly the first Lamborghini arrived in 1962. Mazda cars also date from the early '60s. And let's not forget that Asian luxury brands date only to the '80s—Acura launched in 1986, followed by Infiniti and Lexus in 1989. As for Genesis, it was originally a Hyundai model that was first sold in 2008, and didn't become a separate brand until 2015. The first standalone Genesis model was the second generation of the former Hyundai Genesis, which went on sale in 2017.
• Television is both this and Older Than They Think — the so-called "Baird" (Nipkow) system, although the first system used, was recognised even at the time as having no long-term viability. Television as we know it today was the combined effort of several people over at least four decades, but the final piece of the jigsaw is said (by Britain's Royal Television Society amongst others) to have been invented by RCA's Vladimir Zworykin in the mid-1930s.
  • Baird cottoned on pretty quickly afterwards though, and managed to get colour television working in 1944, which had 600 line definition and triple-interlacing, more than 3 decades ahead of its actual implementation.
• The naval battleship that we're all familiar with (armoured steel hull and deck, gun turrets with heavy guns) first appeared in 1906 with the launch of the HMS Dreadnought (although vessels like the 1899 Royal Sovereign class had all three features, just less well done). The term "battleship" came into use about ten years before that.
• Many popular depictions of the Stone Age show a caveman Inventing the Wheel and using it for transportation only. In the location where the wheel was invented (the Middle East), people had moved out of caves by 13,000 BC and were living in fixed settlements by 12,000 BC. Yet, the wheel was invented no earlier than 6,000 BC and would only be used for grinding grain or shaping pottery for another two or three millennia. In reality, there weren't enough raw materials nor was there a need for a wheeled vehicle, and even then, the main application was for warfare. The passenger vehicle of the ancient world was called a litter, and was carried by human slaves.
  • Rickshaws, transportation carts powered by people, sound like a concept that's been around for centuries. They were invented in 1873.
• Stirrups are ubiquitous in shows set in Ancient Grome for security purposes, but they actually didn't arrive to Europe until a couple of centuries after Rome's fall. Roman riders used horned saddles to secure themselves instead.
• The katana is always thought to be the weapon of the samurai. Not always so—the katana as we know it wasn't really perfected until sometime in the Muromachi period (1333-1467). Before that, the common sword was either the tachi or uchigatana.
  • More so, the idea that any sword is the symbol of the samurai class originates in Edo period (17th century). For the greater part of feudal era the samurais essentially were the mounted archers, thus their respective symbols were a steed and a bow. During the Warring States Period (16th-17th centuries) most samurais weren't able to afford a steed, but the bow was still the main weapon on the battlefield. And for the melee combat their first choice was either a spear or a naginata. Swords were limited to the "last chance weapon" role, just like modern soldiers may have a knife in addition to an assault rifle. Only when all of the feudal military conflicts ended samurais started to carry around swords for the purpose of showing their status.
    • The same is largely true in the West as well. Spears, pikes, and similar were always much more common as weapons — not only do they have better reach and can be used in tight formations where there is no room to swing a sword, they are also much cheaper and easier to produce (sticks were common, metal was expensive). The idea of Medieval warriors hacking at each other with swords and axes is a modern invention, with such weapons mostly being used only as fallback should the main weapon be lost.
  • Katana-type swords used by World War II Japanese military is even newer. They were issued only from 1935-45, as part of neonationalistic propaganda, thus the name shin-gunto ("new military sword"). The previous Western and fusion designs now collectively called kyu-gunto ("old military sword") were issued for almost six times as long.
• The "soup bowl" cutlass hilt often seen in the hands of fictional pirates was invented in 1801^note The first model of this type is designated An IX, "Year 9," per the French system of military equipment designation referring to the years since the establishment of the First Republic, roughly 70-80 years after the last phase of the Golden Age of Piracy that people usually think of (when Blackbeard and his famous contemporaries were active), and it became familiar to Americans (and thus American portrayals of fighting at sea) because the US Navy adopted a copy of it in 1861. Seafarers in the 18th century used a wide variety of cutlass hilts, just not this one.
• Forks were almost unheard of outside Italy before the 16th century and not universally used before the 18th; before then, almost all of Europe, across all social strata, ate food with their hands, a knife and a spoon.
• The traditional, spring-loaded mousetrap was invented in 1894.
• The very first commercial camcorder was released in 1981.
  • Which may also be Older Than They Think seeing as how Super 8 cameras were still widely sold until the late 80s and some stores still carried them as late as 1992. However, the Super 8 itself in turn may be this, only having been invented in 1965.
• A lot of pharmaceuticals we take for granted today have only been invented in the last 40 years:
  • Paracetamol/acetaminophen (Panadol/Tylenol) was first sold in the US in 1953 and the UK in 1955.
  • Ibuprofen (Nurofen/Motrin/Advil) was introduced to the UK in 1969 and to the US in 1974.
  • Salbutamol/albuterol, commonly used in asthma relievers, was first sold in the UK in 1968. It wasn't sold in the US until May 1982.
  • The antidepressant Prozac (fluoxetine) was approved for sale in December 1987.
  • Viagra (sildenafil), the first-ever erectile dysfunction remedy, was approved for sale in March 1998.
  • It's incredible to contemplate now, but there are still people alive today who remember a time before antibiotics. Penicillin was not (re-)discovered until 1928, and it wasn't in widespread use until after the Second World War. In other words, what are now treatable illnesses had a very real risk of death even as late as our grandparents' generation.
• The term "GPU" was popularized in 1999 by Nvidia as a marketing gimmick for the Geforce 256; before then, it was usually "graphics card", "graphics accelerator", or some other term with "accelerator".
• Many Internet technologies we take for granted today haven't been around for as long as the Internet itself:
  • Mail Exchange addresses only became commonplace in the mid-90s; before that you had to address messages directly to the host the account lived on or sometimes even had to provide a manual UUCP routing path.
  • YouTube and other frictionless video-sharing websites didn't exist before 2005. Much of the problem was limited bandwidth of the time and proprietary standards (most "streamed" video was either QuickTime or Real Video formats). Many people did get by with Flash, but that still took minutes to load.
• The very first automobile with a seat belt was the 1948 Tucker Sedan, which never went into mass production. In the United States, seat belt installation was not mandatory until 1965 and it was not required for drivers to wear them until 1984.
• Transatlantic telephone calls first became possible when the TAT-1 cable was laid in 1956. For contrast, the first transatlantic telegrams date to 1858 — almost a century earlier — although regular transatlantic telegraphy didn't commence until 1866.
• Wireless telegraphy (aka radio) debuted in 1909. Moreover, the SOS distress signal had only been adopted two years beforehand, and the first ship in distress to use it instead of the previous distress signal CQD was the RMS Titanic in 1912.
• Travel writer Bill Bryson noted that Australia's trans-continental Indian Pacific train has an air of 'cultivated venerability' since it was actually begun in 1970. Some classic British and American routes had been discontinued by then.
  • Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, was only connected to the rest of the country by rail in 2003.
• The elastic band was patented in the UK in 1845.
• The very first doorknob was invented in 1878; prior to then, doors were held shut with latches.
• The first design for barbed wire was drawn up in 1860 in France; the first barbed wire fence actually built was around a cattle pen at an Illinois fair in 1873.
• Although food has been stored in sealed tin cans since at least 1772, the standard wheeled can opener wasn't invented until 1925. Before then, knives were used.
• Shopping carts were first introduced in the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma in 1937, and were patented in 1940.
• The first commercially-sold typewriter was introduced in 1870. One of its early adopters was Mark Twain.
  • Until the 1970s, typewriters did not have an exclamation-mark key. To type an exclamation mark, one typed a period, went back a space, and then typed an apostrophe. The reason the exclamation mark is on top of the "1" key is that they didn't have one of those either; a lower-case "l" was similar enough in a typewriter's font to suffice. And of course a dedicated zero key wasn't needed either until the advent of computer keyboards because it would have been identical to the letter O.^note This, however, mostly applies to America — in countries like the UK, 1 and 0 were among the typewriter keys
• The first automobile brake lights were introduced in 1952.
• The flyswatter was patented by American businessman Robert R. Montgomery in the year 1900.
• Barcodes were introduced in 1974.
• The first playground slide was built in Washington DC in 1903.
• For several decades, toasters were luxury items sold mostly to restaurants; they did not become standard kitchen appliances until the 1960s.
• The first automobile ignition key was produced by Chrysler in 1949; before then, car keys only activated the battery, and a separate button ignited the engine.
• Velcro was invented in 1941, wasn't patented until 1955, and didn't become popularly known until its adoption by NASA for manned/crewed spaceflight appliations beginning in The '60s.^note This also zig-zags with Older Than They Think, as some credit NASA with its invention.
• Regardless of setting, almost every show set before guns will feature gunpowder as an exciting new discovery at some point, often during a trip to ancient China or by introducing a visitor from there. In reality, gunpowder was invented in China in the 9th century (AD) and was introduced to Japan, the Middle East and Europe by the Mongol invasions, in the 13th.
  • If early gunpowder is depicted as an offensive weapon rather than dust that explodes when lit, it will always be a cannon rather than a handheld firearm, and it will fire typical iron cannonballs. In reality, "hand cannons" preceded normal cannons, which arose as a larger version of them, rather than the opposite; and cannons were used to fire large arrows and boulders until iron balls phased them out in the 17th century only.
• The first aerosol cans were manufactured for the US military in 1941, and first sold commercially in 1948.
• The dumpster was invented in 1936 by Knoxville, Tennessee mayor George Dempster, and was initially a trademarked brand name.
• Heinz didn't start selling ketchup in plastic bottles (instead of glass) until 2002, and even then, they were initially only for the service industry. This design also features the lid at the bottom of the bottle, rather than the top, and was soon copied by other sauce manufacturers.
• The first school backpacks went on sale in 1967, and did not become popular until the 1980s. Before then, backpacks were more-or-less only used in scouting and warfare. The Japanese randoseru has been used by schoolchildren since the late 19th century, however, though they were initially modeled after those used in the military.
• The classic nautical ship's wheel was invented in the early 18th century; before then, ships were steered with a whipstaff, a big stick that was pushed or pulled to either side.
• "One-hour photo" services seem hopelessly ancient in the era of ubiquitous smartphone cameras, but they were actually a very late development in the age of film photography; the very first one-hour photo service opened in 1977, and they didn't become the dominant mode for developing photos until the 1990s.
• Death Ray beams have been around in Science Fiction since the 19th century. But the ubiquitous laser wasn't developed until 1960. Although there were already particle accelerators (particle beams going back as early as 1930), death rays were usually said to be made of some sort of unobtanium. During the making of Star Trek: The Original Series, it was even decided that the signature Ray Gun (which would be called a phaser) should not be called a laser since it was only a matter of time before lasers were developed enough to determine what they can and cannot do.
• Shampoo was a luxury item until the 1970s, before which most people washed their hair with a bar of soap.
• It may seem like wireless internet has been around forever and that dial-up/cable hookups were things of the 90s, but it actually did not become a standard feature on most laptops until around 2007. Before then, you had to use an external card to access wi-fi on a laptop.
• Glass mirrors were novelty luxuries for the wealthy until the late 19th century, when efficient and durable methods for silver-coating glass were finally developed. Before then, solid metal mirrors were by far the most common type, usually made of polished steel or bronze.
• US telephone system:
  • The current system of 3-digit area codes and 7-digit local numbers wasn't established until 1947.
  • Touchtone phones debuted in 1963; however, rotary-dial phones persisted (especially as payphones) until the 1980s.
  • Direct-distance dialing, which allowed the user to bypass a long-distance operator and make a direct long-distance call, was introduced in 1951, but at the time only 12 cities had the equipment to allow it. This feature didn't become universal until the early 1970s.
  • All-number calling was not introduced until 1958 and wasn't universal until the 1960s; before then, phone numbers were originally formatted as the abbreviation of the exchange being called to, followed by the actual number assigned to the telephone connection (Calling Pennsylvania 6-5000 meant that you were calling the exchange located at Penn Station, which had the terminal to which the Savoy Hotel's line ran).
  • The 9-1-1 emergency number was first used in 1968, but it wasn't until 1987 that the majority of the US population could use it, and 9-1-1 penetration didn't reach 90% until the late 1990s.
  • Companies could not use a single toll-free number to serve every US state until 1993. See the Analysis page for "Offer Void in Nebraska" for more details.
• Telephone numbers have only gotten longer as more telephones are added to the network, and the exponential growth (buoyed by the appearance of fax machines and dial-up modems in the 1970s & '80s) has meant that extra numbers are getting added increasingly faster; for example, Sydney saw the introduction of 6-digit numbers in 1965, 7-digit numbers 12 years later in 1977, and 8-digit numbers 17 years later in 1994. This change then takes a few years to trickle out to provincial areas; as late as 1997, the city of Townsville, Queensland (pop. at the time ~110,000) still had 6-digit numbers in common use.
• The UK telephone system didn't switch to what it calls all-figure dialling until 1966.
• While the first US television stations to transmit over UHF went on the air in 1952, TVs were not required to have UHF tuners. Set-top boxes containing UHF tuners were available, as were field upgrades to add UHF tuners to TVs, but by 1961 barely over 5% of new TVs had built-in UHF tuners. That year, a law was passed that allowed the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that all new TVs could receive UHF signals. It was signed into law in early 1962, and the UHF mandate took full effect in 1964.
• In the UK, electronic appliances generally did not come with their own plugs until a 1992 consumer protection law mandated it. Before then, an appliance's cord would end in bare wire, and you had to buy and fit your own plug. (A legacy of the changeover from 15A round pins to 13A square pins in the 50s, with some houses still having the older socket.) This can still be seen in an episode of Mr. Bean, where he has to find a plug for his new TV.
• The first paper-fastening staple was invented in 1895.
• Dry ice was first sold commercially in 1925.
• The ubiquitous stay-on tab for drink cans was invented in 1975, and even then, did not catch on everywhere immediately; they weren't introduced to the UK until 1989.
• Dental floss was first sold in 1882.
• Letter envelopes were not used until the early 19th century, and even then, they were considered luxuries for the wealthy who could afford to waste paper. Only with the invention of the first envelope-making machine in 1845 did they become popular. Before then, letters were sealed by folding them up and pouring a bit of candle wax on the seam.
• Cup holders in automobiles were invented in 1983 by Chrysler for their Caravan and Plymouth Voyager minivans, but didn't become universal until the late 1990s; before then, wide cups with rubber bases that could be laid on the dashboard were sold, as were separate plastic caddies with cup holders that could be put in the car, or you could just keep your drink on the floor or in your lap. The infamous 1994 spilled coffee lawsuit against McDonald's may well have pushed auto manufacturers to make them standard.
  • The first cup holder armrest was patented in 1981 for AMC movie theaters.
• Chevrolet's pickup trucks were only called the Silverado since 1998. The best-known models of Chevy trucks from 1960 to 1997 were officially called the C/K Series (the letters denoting either two- or four-wheel drive), while the Silverado name was just used for the top trim level starting in 1975 until the end of the C/K's run.
• The first bathroom scale went on the market in 1913 (at first in Germany, and 1917 in the US), before which very few people knew how much they weighed on a regular basis. Even doctors had only had scales in their offices since the 1870s. Scales were enough of a novelty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that they were often used for tourist attractions or coin-operated games.
  • The original scales were balance models (the type with weights that slide along a bar located at the top); spring-powered dial scales came into existence to make the aforementioned coin-operated scales workable, and of course, digital scales debuted in the 1990s.
• The rollaboard suitcase was invented in 1987; even its predecessor, the wheeled suitcase, was not invented until 1970. Human travel to the moon is older than wheeled suitcases.
• Post-it Notes debuted in 1977.
• Straight razors must have been in use for thousands of years before safety razors were invented, right? Nope. They were introduced in 1680, being first manufactured in Sheffield, England, and exported to the rest of Europe from there. Before then, shavers used sharpened objects such as clam shells and shark teeth.
• The first known automobile accident in which both vehicles were equipped with airbags occurred in 1990, when two Chrysler LeBarons collided.
• The first revolving door was invented in Germany in 1881.
• No currently-existing roller coaster with a vertical loop (or any other kind of inversion) predates the Great American Revolution coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, which debuted in 1976. Only a few attempts at a looping coaster had been made before then, the first being built in 1851 and the last shutting down in 1910.
  • The first inverted roller coaster (i.e., a coaster where the seats hang down from the track) opened in 1992, in Six Flags Great America.
• The first domestic chimneys appeared in the 12th century, emerging initially in Scandinavia. They did not become common features of houses until the 16th and 17th centuries.
• The stress ball was invented in Indiana in the 1980s.
• Baby wipes only came on the market in 1990 (they were developed from moist towelettes, introduced in the '50s but not used for the same purpose). Before that, parents had to rely on non-disposable washcloths.
• The sand hourglass first appears in the historical record in the 14th century, right around the same time that the first mechanical clocks were invented.
• Although horses have been fully domesticated since around 3000 BC, the oldest definite reference to horseshoes dates to AD 910.

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