As late as the 1980s, half the vacuum cleaners sold in the UK were Hoovers. The Hoover company then saw their sales dwindle under recession and competition. In 1991, a travel agency approached Hoover about a sales promotion in which people who bought Hoover vacuums could get free airline flights. It seemed like a solid idea, so Hoover offered flights to Europe for people who spent £100 or more on their products.  

On November 1, 1992, Hoover expanded its free ticket offer to include flights to America.

Under a new promotion, that same £100 Hoover purchase could net a UK-based customer two free round-trip flights to New York or Orlando — a package worth £600+ (£1200, or $1,460 USD, today).

When Hoover ran this plan by risk management professionals, the company was warned that it would be an absolute disaster.

“To me it made no logical sense,”  recalled Mark Kimber, one of the consultants. “Having looked at the details of the promotion [and] attempting to calculate how it would actually work I declined to even offer risk management coverage,” recalled Mark Kimber.

Unfortunately, Hoover chose to ignore this advice.

The promotion was a success in one way, as people flocked to buy vacuum cleaners from Hoover, but it ended up angering so many customers that Hoover Europe's reputation was shattered. One customer went so far as a to hold a delivery van hostage for 13 days! The firm went deep into the red and was sold off to an Italian company only a couple of years later. Read how the promotion went completely off the rails at The Hustle. -via Digg

(Image credit: INTV1980)

Fred Rogers appeared on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982. After an introductory blooper in which he unsuccessfully tried to pitch a tent, Rogers talked about his childhood, his early days TV, and Eddie Murphy's skit Mister Robinson's Neighborhood.

Jonathan Agnew and Brian Johnston were broadcasting the action during a cricket match on August 9, 1991. Johnson had a sense of humor, but he'd been a respected announcer for the BBC since 1946, always professional, and never lost his composure on air.  

However, this all changed on that fateful August day in 1991 when Johnston and his foil were commentating about a particularly unusual incident that had occurred during the second day of a Test match between England and the West Indies. In short, cricketer Ian Botham had been caught off-guard by a particularly fast bowl (essentially a pitch for anyone more familiar with baseball) causing him to stumble, lose his balance and trample over his own wicket while attempting to step over it (those three sticks behind the batsman). Johnston was recounting this incident to listener and turned to Agnew for comment who quickly answered without a hint of humor, “He just didn’t quite get his leg over.”

For those unfamiliar with British slang “getting your leg over” is a euphemism for having sex, an innuendo that was especially on-the-nose given that tabloids at the time were filled with salacious stories about Botham’s off-pitch sexual adventures.

Johnston heroically attempted to soldier on with his summary of the day’s cricket as Agnew and the rest of the commentary box stifled their laughter. Johnston managed to last about 30 seconds before suddenly exclaiming, “Aggers for goodness sake, stop it!” and then himself becoming audibly short of breath as he attempted to suppress his laughter for several seconds. Finally, the ultra refined bastion of British stoicism broke- wheezing and giggling like a schoolgirl, all the while still trying, futilely, to continue commentating.

Johnson was so mortified at his unintentional bon mot and the giggle fit that followed that he avoided pairing up with Agnew on air for a year afterward. How this led to a traffic jam is a story told at Today I Found Out.

(Unrelated image credit: Sam Kelly)

Fixed the audio for you. pic.twitter.com/YvvTm9WEcb

— Tuft e. Cake (@Tuftecake) August 11, 2019

Whoosh Innovations introduced their salmon cannon in 2014. It was not only a good idea for helping salmon over manmade barriers to get to their spawning grounds, it was a treat to watch. Now Tuft e. Cake has improved the audio of the company's promotional video with sounds from Super Mario 64.  -via Digg

Atlas Obscura community members were asked to recommend an obscure sport. The replies ranged from local games played in countries around the world to elite pastimes like ice yachting. There were also some surprisingly weird but fun sports innovations like flaming puck unicycle hockey. Playing hockey on unicycles is strange enough, but setting the puck on fire takes it to a new level.

“Invented in Toronto, Canada (of course!) by Darrin Bedford, it’s a summer hockey game played on unicycles on pavement with a special puck that’s dunked in a flammable fluid and set on fire just before play (the flame makes a nice blue flame line as you hit it to start the game). Regular ice hockey rules apply—sticks down, etc. We played this game at NAUCC some years ago, and it’s crazy fun on a unicycle!” — sinclairpam

You can see people playing flaming puck unicycle hockey, underwater rugby, broom ball, one foot high kick, and other sports (18 in all) at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: YouTube)

Army ants are serious warriors. They prioritize unity with the colony over individual survival, which makes them a formidable force. They march in formation, killing and consuming almost everything in their path. Army ants attack other ant colonies, and they take no prisoners. Other species have developed ways to deal with army ants, otherwise they'd be long gone now. These ants don't look as awful as they act in the day-glo colors of Kurzgesagt.

Government regulations had a lot to do with the design of the neighborhoods we live in today. The judgements of the Federal Housing Administration decades ago shape the way we live now, particularly how dependent we are on automobiles. Why bother with mass transit when everyone already had to have a car just to move to that suburb in the first place? -via Digg

At the beginning of the 20th century, farmers grew crops and raised livestock the way their families always had, and sold their produce to market with hopes that people would buy it. The U.S. Bureau of Home Economics, a division of the USDA, wanted to boost agriculture by improving the taste of the foods those farmers produced, so they experimented with livestock to find the best way to raise tasty meat, and experimented in the kitchen to find the best ways to prepare the meat. That involved extensive taste tests. Lucy Alexander, the USDA's "chief poultry cook," was one of the testers and had, over a couple of decades, "tasted and tested the left hind legs of more than 2,300 lambs." But it wasn't just anyone who could be a taste tester.

The taste testers that Alexander enlisted were a mix of USDA secretaries, executives, and lab workers whom Alexander had selected to take an afternoon off their regular work in order to spend it, blindfolded, tasting dozens of different meats. Numbering around 20 in all, they were chosen because they were exceptionally familiar with whichever type of food the Bureau of Home Economics was testing that day. One 1937 consumer guide published by the USDA noted that, "if the aim is to find the better of two methods of making jelly, then judges are persons acquainted with standards of jelly excellence."

Even for subject matter experts, the Bureau held a careful vetting process to establish who made the cut. According the Asbury Park Evening Press, taste testers first had to go through a USDA employee named Nicholas G. Barbella, who fed them sucrose, salt, caffeine and tartaric acid in order to elicit their reactions to the "four primary taste sensations." If Barbella judged that their taste sensations were "not too sensitive, not too dull," they would be approved for the job.

Read about the Bureau of Home Economics and the lengths they went to in order to boost the flavor of US foods at Smithsonian.

Hosico is an attractive cat who lives in Russia. The humans in his family built him a cardboard maze, which naturally piques his curiosity. Hosico found his way out, but while that may be the human goal, for a cat it's all about exploring every nook and cranny along the way. You can see more of Hosico in his Instagram gallery.  -via Boing Boing

You might be surprised to learn that the U.S. Army owns a huge collection of fossils of dinosaurs and other extinct species. It wasn't on purpose. The Army Corps of Engineers controls eight million acres of land, procured through their flood control projects that began in the 1930s and moved vast amounts of earth up through the 1970s. All that digging revealed archaeological and paleontological treasures.

While many of these fossils are left in situ, like in Coralville, the Corps has taken pains to excavate certain superstar specimens. In 1988 in the Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana, amateur fossil hunter Kathy Wankel saw something sticking out of a slope in the Hell Creek Formation, a spectacularly rich fossil site. Wankel remembers the fortuitous way the light fell on the cornice of stone, illuminating a webby pattern of bone marrow, she told The Washington Post. It was Corps land, so in the years that followed, the Army brushed away the dirt to reveal a 38-foot-long Tyrannosaurs rex skeleton, almost 90 percent intact. Known scientifically as MOR555 and casually as “Wankel’s T. Rex,” the skeleton was a paleontological gold mine—the first tyrannosaurus found with a complete, laughably tiny arm.

Wankel’s T. Rex is on display to the public, as are other army fossils, but the vast majority are still waiting too be studied and cataloged. Read about the Army Corps of Engineers' fossils at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Greg Goebel)

Rockin' 1000 brought us "Learn to Fly" in 2015, when they were just a large local group of Italian musicians trying to invite the Foo Fighters to Cesena, Italy (it worked).  

Now the project has gone global. On July 7, 2019, a thousand musicians from all over the world performed Rage Against the Machine's song "Kiling in the Name" at Commerzbank-Arena in Frankfurt, Germany. The lyrics are NSFW. You can follow Rockin' 1000's upcoming group projects at Facebook.

A 'Vampire's' Remains Were Found 30 Years Ago. DNA Is Now Revealing Who He Was https://t.co/XOtNm7z5EP

— ScienceAlert (@ScienceAlert) August 3, 2019

In 1990, a mining operation found an abandoned graveyard in Griswold, Connecticut. Investigators found the remains of 28 people buried in the early 1800s, mostly children. But one coffin was especially intriguing, the one marked with brass tacks as "JB 55," presumably the man's initials and age at death. The body had been exhumed and reburied some years after the original burial, and the bones had been rearranged. Connecticut state archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni tells the story.

"Every one was in good anatomical position . . . except this one individual, JB 55," Bellantoni said.

Under his coffin lid, Ballantoni and his colleagues found the strange skull and cross bones arrangement.

"His thigh bones . . . were uprooted from the anatomical position and crossed over the chest," he said.

"The chest had been broken into, and the . . . skull was decapitated and moved away," he said. "I was totally befuddled. I had no clue what I was looking at."

Research soon suggested a link to the New England vampire folk belief, he said.

History revealed why this man was considered a vampire, and although a DNA test in 1994 was inconclusive, more advanced tests have recently given him a name: John Barber. In life, he was a farmer. In death, he is the only American vampire scrutinized by scientists. Read about the case at ScienceAlert. -via Strange Company

The Dorothea Lange photograph known as Migrant Mother brought the plight of Depression-era farm workers to the public. The photo of Florence Owens Thompson and her children was taken in 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange wrote the story how the picture came about, but Thompson later contradicted that account. Thompson's real life story is quite interesting. She regretted her face becoming the image of poverty in America, but her children have come to grips with its influence. -via Boing Boing

A Tweet from @jdesmondharris opened up the floodgates for people who, as adults, can't tie their shoelaces in a bow or read an analog clock. It seems everyone has at least one basic life skill that they just never mastered, and often it's a secret shame.

Yesterday we learned that our landlord (a Stanford-educated engineer) doesn't know how to open a combination lock. And Joel admitted he can't blow up balloons. So now I'm obsessed with knowing what everyone's weird life skill blind spots are.

— Jenée (@jdesmondharris) August 4, 2019

It's no secret I never learned to touch type, but I grew up in a time when that was not considered a basic life skill, and you had to take a class to learn it. Now that the letters have worn off the e, r, and t on my keyboard, it can get weird. I also cannot whistle to save may life. Sometimes it happens when I try, but that's mostly by accident. At my day job, I was surprised by how many people cannot tie an apron around their back by themselves.

I dont know my left or right when driving so when I gave someone navigating me, it your way, my way, or straight!

— Carrie Jo Frommelt (@FrommeltJo) August 8, 2019

A huge number of people have trouble finding their way around. Some have trouble with maps, others with directions, and some can't tell left from right. Then there are  few who didn't realize their training was geographically specific.

I moved from the Chicagoland area to Southern California in 2006. After growing up in Denver (mountains = west). I’m surprised I can know what direction I’m going on any given day.

— Ayanna Gaines (@PopCulLibrn) August 6, 2019

Some of the replies are downright surprising.

I had to read that tweet three times to even understand how the words related to the numbers

— Dylan Reeve (@DylanReeve) August 5, 2019

You can see plenty more responses at Lifehacker, like this one from panthercougar:

Many years ago, when my now wife and I were first living together, she called me at work for instructions on how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. My coworker, who heard my half of the conversation, thought it was hilarious.

That was followed by many stories of people who make grilled cheese the "wrong" way. There are more contributions in the comments at Metafilter, like the deficits splen admits to.

I am unable to blow a bubble with bubble gum. I will carry that shame with me to the grave, it just isn't happening.

I also have a natural aversion to diving into a pool. It ends up being a belly flop no matter what. If I were hoisted by my feet above a pool and dropped straight down, somehow I'd end up turning 90 degrees.

The good news is that these are people who manage to navigate everyday life just fine without that one skill they never mastered. For the most part.  

(Image credit: asobuno)

Magnetic balls are kind of pricy and dangerous, but on video, you can enjoy them at someone else's expense. YouTuber Magnetic Games has lots of magnets: large, powerful magnets and thousands of magnetic balls. Watch him demonstrate their attraction to each other in slow motion.

I assure you that the impact between the Monolith and 2592 magnetic balls scared me. The collision of magnets was violent and the balls were splashed all over the room. I wore protective glasses at every impact, and it served.

The interaction between the magnets is fascinating and satisfying, but eventually you have to feel for the task ahead of sorting all those balls back into their colors. There are links to product pages for the larger magnets with specifications at the YouTube page.  -via Laughing Squid