Some origins

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Sports bras are not as modern as one might think. Ancient female Greek athletes used a tight band of cloth known as an apodesmos over the breasts to restrict movement, making athletics a little easier. Another piece of cloth known as a strophion could be worn over the clothes, providing the same type of support as an apodesmos. Both garments were normally made of wool or linen, and they were usually tied or pinned in the back. Various statues have been found depicting the goddess Aphrodite wearing an apodesmos, leading some to believe that thinner versions may have had an erotic connotation.

A brass statue of Aphrodite applying a apodesmos.

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Popcorn is another item that goes way back.

Corn was first domesticated 9,000 years ago in what is now Mexico, with evidence showing that the popping of corn goes back thousands of years. In Mexico, for example, remnants of popcorn have been found that date to around 3600 BC.

During the Great Depression, popcorn was fairly inexpensive at 5–10 cents a bag and became popular. Thus, while other businesses failed, the popcorn business thrived and became a source of income for many struggling farmers.

An early popcorn machine in a street cart, invented in the 1880s by Charles Cretors in Chicago.

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The first modern flight recorder, called "Mata Hari", was created in 1942 by Finnish aviation engineer Veijo Hietala. This black high-tech mechanical box was able to record all important aviation details during test flights of World War II fighter aircraft that the Finnish army repaired or built in their main aviation factory in Tampere, Finland. The "Mata Hari" black box is displayed in the Vapriikki Museum in Tampere, Finland.

Mata Hari flight recorder

In 1953, Australian engineer David Warren conceived a device that would record not only the instruments reading, but also the cockpit voices, when working with the Australian Research Laboratories. He built the first prototype in 1958. Local interest was nonexistent but the Poms liked it and funded developing the prototype to the airborne stage, which included a fire and shockproof case, a reliable system for encoding and recording aircraft instrument readings and voice on one wire, and a ground-based decoding device. In 1965 the units were redesigned and moved to the rear of airplanes to improve the probability of successful data retrieval after a crash.

Dr. Warren never patented his idea and received little financial reward for his invention, preferring to leave his device for airline safety throughout the world.

Dr Warren with his Black Box Flight Recorder

The term "black box" is almost never used within the flight safety industry or aviation, which prefers the term "flight recorder". The recorders are not permitted to be black in color, and must be bright orange, as they are intended to be spotted and recovered after incidents. The term "black box" has been popularised by the media in general.

Some possible explanations for the term “Black Box”:

• That it comes from the early film-based design of flight data recorders, which required the inside of the recorder to be perfectly dark to prevent light leaks from corrupting the record, as in a photographer's darkroom.

• That a journalist told Warren: "This is a wonderful black box." 

• That it comes from World War II RAF jargon. Prior to the end of the war in 1945, new electronic innovations were added to planes. The prototypes were roughly covered in hand-made metal boxes, painted black to prevent reflections. After a time any piece of "new" electronics was referred to as the "box-of-tricks" (as illusionist box) or the "black box".