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3 Popular And Ordinary Things Most People Don’t Realize Have Really Weird Origins

Some innovations started much differently than how they’re used now

Andrew Martin
5 min readDec 11, 2023

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There are so many things we take for granted in everyday life. There are endless conveniences and other widely-used items that have been around forever, or seemingly appeared out of nowhere they have become so common. However, they all have origins, and in the case of these three, most people have no idea the interesting ways in which they started.

The Earliest Vacuum Cleaners Were Drawn By Horses And Cost A Ton: The vacuum cleaner has removed a great deal of tedium from the regular chore of cleaning floors. Instead of vigorous sweeping, passing a vacuum over a floor goes a long way in removing unwanted dirt and other debris. However, they have come a long way from the initial models, which looked quite a bit different than what we’re used to today.

The earliest vacuums appeared in the 1860s but were more aptly called carpet sweepers. Not only were they rudimentary, they blew dirt instead of suctioning it. British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth sought to come up with a better way. He envisioned a vacuum that could pick up dirt through a filter instead of blowing it around with some ending up in a collecting bag.

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Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin

Written by Andrew Martin

Dabbler in soccer, history, investing & writing. Master’s degree in baseball history. Passionate about history, diversity, culture, sports, film and investing .

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