For half a century, shoe shops fitted shoes under X-rays.
From the 1920s to the 1970s stores had X-ray machines to show how a foot sat in a shoe; around 10,000 were sold in the US alone.
More amazing facts
- 1923 · 1955 The insulin patent was sold for one dollar, and the polio vaccine was never patented.
- 1923 · 1949 The Hollywood Sign began as an ad for a housing estate and read HOLLYWOODLAND.
- 1925 The first 'face' on television belonged to a ventriloquist's dummy.
- 1926 Australia and New Zealand have argued for decades over who invented the pavlova.
- 1927 · 1952 The last wild European bison was killed in the Caucasus in 1927.
- 1927 The first feature-length talkie was mostly silent.