20 Things Turning 100 In 2022

If a time traveler got picked up out of 1922 and dropped into 2022, it's kind of mind-blowing to think about everything that would look different. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, and it's not just a matter of things like satellites, television, and Netflix. A century ago, things like hamburgers and Coca-Cola were the hip new things that all the kids were into. It was only in 1916, says Futurism, that the first supermarket opened — it was the Piggly Wiggly, and it opened in Memphis, Tennessee. John D. Rockefeller had just done something unthinkable when his personal wealth crossed the billion-dollar threshold, and how about those speed limits? Most roads were capped at a death-defying 10 mph.

What about smartphones? Oberlo says that in 2021, the number of smartphone users across the globe rose to 6.4 billion. Just about 100 years ago — in 1917 — just 8% of American homes had a telephone landline. And seriously: That's the kind of change that makes even the biggest skeptics think there just might be something to this whole alien thing after all. 

The world has come a long way in just 100 years, so let's take a look at some of the things that will be celebrating their 100th birthday in 2022. Some? They're more than a little unexpected.

Vampire movies of all different kinds — and with different levels of sparkle — have been all the rage in the 21st century, but they're all pale imitations of the original, which turns 100 in 2022. When "Nosferatu" was released in 1922, it helped define what horror movies could — and should — be, but it almost didn't see the light of day.

At a glance, there aren't many similarities between the vampires themselves, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and the ghoulish Count Orlock. Still, CBR says that the official story is that "Nosferatu" was an adaptation of Stoker's turn-of-the-century work, and to be more specific, it was an unauthorized version. The production company behind "Nosferatu" had started with "Dracula," and when Stoker's widow refused to sell the rights, they changed all the names, called it good enough, and started filming.

Three years after the film's 1922 premiere, Stoker's widow didn't just win her lawsuit, but the courts ordered all copies, negatives, and prints of "Nosferatu" destroyed. Many were, and the movie almost didn't survive. However, in a story that weirdly parallels Dracula's own tale, copies of the film were taken overseas (to the U.S., and it's nice to imagine there was a coffin involved), where an accidentally expired copyright meant the story was in the public domain. Fly free, Count Orlock!

While most people might have 24/7 access to the news, weather, and sports scores today, it's easy to forget that wasn't always the case. As radio and television became more and more popular, those tuning in were likely to hear amateur stations — until November 14, 1922. That's when the then-named British Broadcasting Company made their very first broadcast, and a century later, they remain a go-to for everything from news to entertainment to sport, have an international presence, and employ around 23,000 people.

What was that first radio broadcast? According to the Oxford University Press, Arthur Burrows went on-air at 6 p.m. to deliver a news bulletin that awesomely included an update about a train robbery. Other stories were a little more familiar to modern ears, and those who tuned in to that very first broadcast heard about political goings-on, the weather, and sports scores.

The BBC didn't have a general manager until exactly a month later, and Charles Walsham Reith later explained, "I hadn't the remotest idea as to what broadcasting was."

Not everything that makes it to a 100th birthday is a good thing, and case in point? Zyklon B. That is, of course, the chemical that's most famous for being used in the gas chambers of World War II, creating horrible sights like the one recounted by Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (via the Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine Museum): "Only after a few hours, the doors were unbolted... It was the first time that I saw this many bodies of people killed by gas... I was petrified by the sight. ... I never had any second thoughts about killing the Soviet prisoners. It was the order which I had to follow."

Zyklon B wasn't originally meant to be a weapon of mass slaughter. On June 20,1922, a patent application was submitted to the German Corporation for Pest Control, and for a long time, that's exactly what it was used for: a pesticide. As unthinkable as it is, the chemical concoction of granulated prussic acid was rebranded after the war, and until 2015, it was still being used as a pesticide.

Between 1942 and 1944, around 56 tons of Zyklon B was sold to and used in Nazi concentration camps.

The "Necronomicon" shows up in scores of horror movies and novels, but the very first time this deadly, demonic book was mentioned, it was in a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. "The Hound" was published in "Weird Tales" in 1924, but according to Tor, Lovecraft first wrote the story in 1922. So, that's when the book was "born," probably kicking, screaming, and dragging some demons up from the depths of hell along with it.

The story is about two grave robbers who head to Holland and a 500-year-old tomb. When they dig up the surprisingly well-preserved skeleton, they see it's been buried with a jade amulet: "... we recognized it as the thing hinted of in the forbidden "Necronomicon" of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred;" That's really all it takes to make your skin crawl, and that's it for the mention of the book that went to be featured throughout the horror genre as the bound-in-skin source of all that is evil in this world... and all others. Happy birthday!

The franchise that started out as "Our Gang" and morphed into "The Little Rascals" when it made the jump from the silver screen to the small one is turning 100, as the original film — simply titled "Our Gang" debuted in 1922. Sadly, IMDB says that much of the original, 20-minute short about a group of kids who step in to help a shopkeeper targeted by an unscrupulous rival has been lost over the years.

That initial group of short films delighted Depression-era and World War II-era children right up to 1944, and according to The Wall Street Journal, there were a lot of them: 221, to be precise. Their enduring popularity came for a whole host of reasons, from the charm and relatability of the children themselves to the fact that although Jim Crow laws were the norm throughout much of the U.S., the cast of "Our Gang" featured a racially diverse cast of characters.

According to NPR, there was some pushback: Theaters who showed the films in the south could expect to be targeted by some protests, but at the same time haters were hating, Julia Lee, author of "Our Gang: A Racial History of The Little Rascals" explains the overall mentality toward the Black cast members: "They were absolute stars. They were considered saviors in many ways."

There are some things that just seem like they've been around forever, and when it comes to clothing, sure styles may come and go, but bras were always a thing, right? Right?

Not precisely: According to the Jewish Women's Archive, the modern bra was only created in the 1920s. At the time, it was a boyish figure that was all the rage, and when Ida Rosenthal turned her seamstress business into an undergarment manufacturer, she copyrighted the name "Maidenform" to set her apart from others in the industry. Rosenthal registered her copyright in 1922, says PBS, and remained afloat even throughout the difficult years of the Depression and World War II. (The war, incidentally, gave the industry a boost as women were asked to donate corsets to the steel industry. They did, and they donated enough steel to build a battleship.)

It was about the same time that Maidenform became another first: When they kicked off a massive 1940s-era marketing campaign, they became the first women's intimate apparel company to advertise.

It's the little things that can make the day bearable, and milkshakes are definitely one of those things. Fans should celebrate a 100th birthday in 2022, then, not of the milkshake itself, but of the device that makes them so much easier to make: the electric blender.

It took Polish immigrant Stephen Poplawski about four years to invent and perfect the electric blender before applying for his patent in 1922. He had originally been hired to come up with a machine that would make working in a malt shop and prepping all those delicious shakes much easier, and his device with a base-mounted "agitator" and cup was so popular that the company who hired him — Arnold Electric Co. — became wildly successful and was ultimately folded into Hamilton Beach. The Wisconsin Historical Society says that he then went on to invent a home version in 1933, and a hand-held mixer in 1940. Good news! That makes baking a birthday cake much, much easier.

Reader's Digest was way ahead of its time: 100 years ahead, to be exact. While social media and the internet have conditioned 21st-century minds to like little bite-sized pieces of news and entertainment, Reader's Digest was doing that way back in 1922.

According to Funding Universe, DeWitt Wallace got the idea from his own habit of making notes as he read. If notes were handy for him, he reasoned, others might appreciate them, too. So, he decided to start a magazine that would essentially take full-size articles, condense them down to more manageable, abridged versions, and compile them into a magazine he'd sell via the mail.

It was a massive hit, and he had nearly a quarter of a million subscribers by 1929. Condensed books were added in 1950, and although the publication had some 21st century struggles and bankruptcies, CNBC says new management turned things around with a digitally-focused rebrand.

Reiki, says the University of Minnesota, is a form of therapy where practitioners hold their hands on or above a person's body in order to heal them. It sounds like an ancient and mystical process, right? They also say that it dates back to 1922, and a lay monk named Mikao Usui.

Usui credited his life-long spiritual practices and exposure to the different beliefs of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Taoism for allowing him to develop the practice of Reiki, which he discovered in "a profound revelation" just 100 years ago. Originally training just 16 Reiki masters, Usui saw his teachings spread largely thanks to one of his original students, Chujiro Hayashi. Although the Reiki that is taught and practiced today is pretty different from the original form, the basic principles remain the same.

How and why does it work? U of M says no one's quite sure what's going on, and current scientific research is still in the "theory" territory.

Childhood isn't complete unless it involves some serious heartbreak and nightmare-inducing stories, and while tales like "Bambi" certainly fit the bill, the little deer who loses his mother to a hunter's bullet isn't the only traumatic childhood tale.

Let's talk about "The Velveteen Rabbit," the 1922 story of a toy rabbit who is initially tossed aside by the child who gets him as a Christmas gift. The boy eventually becomes attached to the rabbit and imagines him to be a real, flesh-and-blood bunny. Things get super dark when the boy nearly dies of scarlet fever, and in order to disinfect his room, all his possessions — including his beloved rabbit — are thrown on a pile for burning. Before that can happen, a fairy appears and grants the rabbit's wish: to become a real rabbit. He escapes the fire, but those who read it definitely didn't escape the heartbreak.

In fact, Penn State University Libraries said that ever-present themes of sadness were one of the biggest criticisms of author Margery Williams Bianco's work. She believed that no one could grow up, mature, and change without a little sadness, and so this incredibly sad tale has now been giving kids a complex about their stuffed toys for 100 years.