Yes, Electricity Was Invented Before I Was Born Quiz

Answer: Pay phone

In 1960, there were one million pay phones operating in the USA. At their highest penetration rate in 1998, there were over 2.6 million pay phones in use. However, as the cost of cellular phones declined and the level of service improved, the number of pay phones decreased markedly. By 2010, there were fewer than than 500,000 operational pay phones left in the USA. The first outdoor public phones appeared in 1905. The classic UK red box phone booth first appeared in 1926. For the children of today, pay phones or phone booths are for the most part anachronisms seen only in old movies.

The growth of mobile telephone communication during the 1990s and 2000s is simply staggering. Motorola introduced the first "modern" analog mobile phone in 1984 at a whopping cost of $3,995 per unit. In 1985, there were 340,000 cellphone subscribers, climbing to 110 million by 2000 and 300 million by 2010. Today, neither I nor my children can imagine life without a mobile phone and the ability to instantly communicate. Mobile technology is certainly more convenient than searching for a pay phone, but also comes with a loss of privacy and anonymity.

Answer: Disneyland

In 1969, Disneyland in Anaheim, California was the only operating Disney theme park. Disneyland was opened in 1955 and Disney World, the sprawling complex in Celebration Florida, opened in 1971. A second Anaheim park adjacent to Disneyland, called Disney California Adventure was opened in 2001. Disney went international in 1983 with the creation of Tokyo Disneyland. Disney's first European park, Euro Disney, opened outside Paris in 1992. In 2005, Hong Kong Disneyland opened. From its first days Disneyland was a huge success. In 1956, Disneyland welcomed its one millionth guest. By 1969, when I visited, the park hosted over 9 million guests per year. Despite the increase in regional Disney parks, the venerable Disneyland still hosts over 15 million visitors each year.

When Disneyland first opened admission to the park was one dollar and each attraction cost between 35 and 60 cents. Initially, Disneyland priced its attractions using a rating system where its least popular attractions were "A" level rides to the more exciting "C" level rides like Peter Pan and the Mad Hatter Tea Cups. In 1956, Disney added a more expensive "D" level and eventually in 1959 an "E" level for its best and newest rides. The immense popularity of Disneyland caused the term "E-ticket" ride to become part of the vernacular, referring to any exciting event. The term is now an anachronism because in 1982 Disney abandoned the separate attraction ticket methodology and introduced the all-inclusive admission ticket.

Answer: TV Dinners

Swanson & Sons first introduced a frozen pre-packaged turkey dinner in 1953. The idea met a need, as Swanson had a massive amount of cooked turkey to sell quickly, with the genius of an employee named Gerry Thomas. It was Thomas who suggested the company model a frozen dinner on the pre-packaged meals served on Pan Am Airlines. Thomas also suggested the marketing name "TV Dinner". The first TV dinners had aluminum compartments and contained a portion of sliced turkey in gravy, cornbread stuffing, peas and sweet potatoes. By 1955, Swanson was selling tens of millions of TV dinners annually and was acquired by the Campbell Soup Company. Campbell's stopped marketing its product under the name TV Dinner in 1962, but to a generation of Americans prepackaged frozen meals will always be "TV dinners". Campbell's introduced a line of frozen dinners with larger portions called "Hungry Man" in 1973 and sales soared even more.

The microwave started out as a British weapon to spot German warplanes during World War II and not a way to cook food fast for impatient children. By accident, scientists at The Raytheon Co. discovered that microwaves cooked some foods faster than conventional ovens. The first bulky microwave ovens were produced by Raytheon in 1954. Household sales of microwave ovens did not accelerate until the 1970s. But by 1976, it was estimated that sixty percent of US homes had a microwave oven. The aluminum in most pre-packaged dinners reacted poorly to the microwave, producing burnt food, sparks and numerous fires. In response by the mid-1980s, the pre-packaged frozen food industry moved away from aluminum foil to microwave friendly packages. In the 21st century, microwave ovens and the modern "TV dinner" go hand in hand and account for segment sales of over 27 billion dollars annually. However, despite improvements in the microwave technology, frozen chicken nuggets still take three minutes to reheat.

Answer: IBM

IBM (International Business Machines) started out in 1911 as the maker of large scale tabulating machines for use by American businesses. Under the leadership of Thomas Watson Sr. and later his son Thomas Watson Jr., IBM became one of the world's largest enterprises. IBM was at the forefront of computer hardware and software development throughout the 20th century. In 1961, IBM introduced a line of electric typewriters called the "Selectric" that that used a small round ball for the type, instead of separate keys. The Selectric typewriters were a massive success accounting for as much as seventy five percent of the business typewriter market in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1964, IBM introduced the MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter) model combining a Selectric typewriter with an attached magnetic tape drive. This tape drive created a reusable storage device for the typed information. Beginning in 1965, IBM marketed its MT/ST machine as a "word processor". By the early 1970s, the phrase caught on and became the definition for using technology to improve the creation of written documents. In 1975, IBM introduced the updated Selectric Composer model that included an internal memory of up to 8,000 characters that could be edited in a small line space window on the machine. By the early 1980s, dedicated computers replaced the Selectric machines as word processors of choice and word processing programs such as Word Perfect and Microsoft Word took over the market.

Answer: 1968

The Big Mac made its way to McDonalds' company-wide menu in 1968. The sandwich was first developed and tested in Pittsburg Pennsylvania by a local McDonalds' franchisee. The burger was an instant hit, but really became part of the American lexicon during the 1974 marketing campaign where the ingredients of the sandwich "two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun" were highlighted in song. The original Big Mac sold for just 45 cents and McDonalds' estimates their stores sell over 900 million Big Macs annually.

McDonalds introduced the Filet-o-Fish sandwich in 1963 and the popular Quarter Pounder in 1972. However, as any parent (or child) will tell you McDonalds' most revolutionary idea was the 1979 introduction of the "Happy Meal". The brilliant decision to add a small toy to a meal box of a hamburger (or cheeseburger and later Mcnuggets), small fries and a drink caused generations of children to beg for a trip to the Golden Arches. Since 1979, McDonalds has sold over 4 billion Happy Meals. By 1979, I was too old to be seen ordering a Happy Meal. Later, having my own children allowed me to grab a few extra Big Macs and "acquire" some toys without having to admit I wanted them.

Answer: Sony

Sony Corporation was the brainchild of Japanese engineers Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka who formed a machine repair company in 1946. In 1955, Ibuka convinced Bell Labs to license his company the patent to make transistors for radios. After successfully launching transistor radio sales in Japan, Morita and Ibuka changed the company named to Sony, combining the Latin word for sound (sonus) with the American slang term for a smart boy (sonny).

In 1957, Sony developed the TR-63 model, creating a radio small enough to just about fit in a shirt pocket.

The radio and its successor the TR-610 were exported to the US and were so successful Sony could not ship them fast enough. Sony became synonymous with high quality consumer electronics. In 1979, Sony again changed the way the world listened to music by selling the first compact stereo player called "The Walkman". During the 1980s Sony sold over 50 million Walkman branded units and over 100 million by 1992.

Answer: Heidi Bowl

Say the name "Heidi" to an American football fan and chances are you will get a look of disgust. On November 17, 1968 NBC allotted three hours to broadcast a key football match between heated rivals the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets. The game was close and exciting, but ran long. At 7:00 pm EST, with the game a tense 32-29 in favor of the Jets, NBC abruptly switched to its scheduled special showing of "Heidi", a made for television movie based on the 1880 novel by Johanna Spyri. "Heidi" is the family friendly tale of an orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Football fans were outraged by the decision to forego showing the ending of the game in favor of the "kiddie" movie. Tens of thousands of calls were made to NBC to complain jamming the network's telephone circuits to over capacity.

To make matters worse, Oakland scored two touchdowns in the last minute to win the game in an amazing dramatic fashion. In derision, fans deprived of seeing the ending named the incident the "Heidi Bowl". So vociferous was the reaction to the snafu that subsequent contracts between the NFL and the networks included a prohibition on switching program and a requirement to carry all games to their conclusions.

Answer: Handheld Calculator

The TI-CalTech was the first handheld calculator. The TI-CalTech used an integrated circuit board in a battery operated device that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. The device could accept six digit numbers and printed the calculation results onto an integrated printer.

While Texas Instruments patented the technology, it did not immediately market the calculator device. In late 1970, Canon a Japanese company, partnered with TI to sell the Canon Pocketronic, based on the TI-CalTech. The Pocketronic initially sold for $395.

In 1972, Texas Instruments started to sell its first basic handheld calculator, the TI-2500, with a reduced price of $119. However, it was not until 1973 and the introduction of the SR-10 model that TI started to sell large volumes of calculators.

The SR-10 sold for $149.95 but could in addition to the four basic math functions also calculated reciprocals, squares and square roots more quickly than a slide rule. In 1981, Texas Instruments introduced the first solar battery powered calculator.

The TI-1766 model performed the basic math functions at a cost of $19.95. Massive technological advances in microcomputers have all but eliminated the need for separate basic function calculators. However, back in 1973 anyone who could afford to buy the basic calculator was an instant celebrity.

Answer: Equal Pay Act

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 or EPA was a landmark change in American law. The statute made it illegal for an employer to pay one gender less than the other for the same job. The statute was the first recognition of the growing impact of women in the US workforce, and the gap in wages paid to women when compared to men doing the same job. The same Congress also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which amongst other provisions prohibited discrimination based on sex. The powerful women's rights group, the National Organization of Women, was founded in 1966 to continue the fight for gender equality.

Statutes like the Equal Pay Act were a product of the increase in women, including mothers, in the US workforce. One of the profound differences between children born before 1960 and children born in the succeeding decades is the number of working mothers. In 1955 18% of mothers with children under six years old were employed at least part-time outside the home. That figure jumped dramatically by 1965 to 25%. By 1975, the percentage of working mothers increased to 39% and exceeded 64% by 2010. The change in working relationships also increased the percentage of children attending "out of the home" day care or pre-school. For example in 1965 24% of three year olds were in a sponsored daycare/preschool, but by 2010, that percentage had increased to 60%. In my own family, both my spouse and I worked outside the home and our children were in some form of day care.

Answer: 1972

The first broadcast of a television program in color was the 1954 Rose Parade. However, high prices for color television sets and higher production costs to create programs in color kept the volume of colorized programs to a minimum in the 1950s. In 1965, only three percent of televisions sold in the US were color sets. In 1965, the US broadcast networks announced they would begin to broadcast at least half of their programs in color. By 1967, all US television shows were broadcast in color. However the cost of color sets compared to black and white sets remained significantly higher, and it was not until 1972 that sales of color sets exceeded those of black and white sets. By 1978, 78% percent of US households had some form of color TV.

My memory of my grandparents first color television is quite vivid. I was told never to touch the television, as it was very expensive. In 1965, the least expensive RCA "Vista Color" television was $495. While staying at my grandparent's house on November 9, 1965 at exactly 5:27 pm, I committed the cardinal sin of touching the television to change the channel. At the precise moment I touched the television, my uncle saw me and the power went off in the house. My grandmother was on the phone with my mother and told her that I had caused the power to go out in the house. My mother informed her that the lights were out all of New York City. My grandmother yelled at me "look what you did, you caused the whole city to lose power". For nearly a decade after that I went through life thinking my contact with that color television had caused the massive 1965 Northeast US blackout.