Roller Skates From 1910
Belgian inventor John Joseph Merlin made the first roller skates in 1760. However, roller skating didn’t become popular until American James Plimpton made the “rocking” skate a hundred years later. Over the years, roller skates have changed in many ways. Edvard Petrini, a Swedish inventor, made the Takypod, a type of roller skate that is powered by pedalling, in the early 1900s. Even though Takypods could have been a great alternative to bikes, they were never made in large numbers.
The 1960s milkmen
Milkmen used to be common in American neighbourhoods, just like paperboys and mailmen. In the early 1960s, about 30% of US consumers chose to have milk brought to their homes. But as refrigerators became more common, there was less of a need for milk delivery over time. By 1975, less than 7% of consumers had their milk brought to them. By 2005, this number had gone down even more, to 0.4%. Only a few companies in the US still deliver milk these days.