Curio Cabinet

Crouch, Bind, Set! World Rugby has just announced that the U.S. will host the 2031 Men’s Rugby World Cup and the 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cup. This marks the first time that the U.S. will get to host the RWC, but also the first for any nation to host both the men’s and women’s competitions over 2 years. Rugby is a contact sport in which two teams of 15 players try to score the most points by advancing a ball to their opponents side and touching it to the ground, not unlike in American football. Although rugby has long been popular around the world, with 1.7 million fans attending the 2019 RWC in Japan, its rise in popularity within the U.S. is relatively recent. USA Rugby, the national governing body for the sport, was founded in 1975. The first professional league in the country—Major League Rugby—was only just founded in 2017, with the inaugural season following in 2018. There are currently 13 professional teams across the U.S. competing in two conferences, and the sport has also been gaining popularity at the collegiate level, with 67 Division 1-A Rugby teams.
 
Shortly after World Rugby made its announcement, USA Rugby chief executive Ross Young stated in a press release, "I speak for the rugby community and fans across the United States when I express our sincere gratitude to World Rugby for their trust and endorsement of our vision to grow this incredible sport exponentially across our country…We look forward to partnering with World Rugby in the years ahead to ensure that our preparations for these tournaments and the events themselves are a paradigm-shifting catalyst for the growth of our sport, not only here in the United States but around the world.” Get ready for the scrum.
 

[Image description: Rugby players in blue-and-white uniforms participate in a scrum, grouping close together with their heads down.] Credit & copyright: MonicaVolpin, Pixabay
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Cher’s birthday, enjoy these curios about things that were going on in the 1960s and 70s, during the height of the pop star’s career.
 
You think surfers are chill? While surfing may seem like a laid-back lifestyle sport, it can get intense. From Hawaii to California to Australia, many of the best surf beaches are guarded by local surf gangs. The phenomenon started in the 1960s when surfing's growing popularity began causing overcrowding at popular surf spots. Established local surfers, frustrated they could no longer surf at will in their hometowns, began banding together in places like Long Beach, California and Hawaii's North Shore. The groups adopted local hangouts, got matching tattoos, and gave themselves names like the Longos, the Black Shorts, the Wolfpak, and the Bra Boys. Most gang activities were limited to encouraging the cardinal rule: locals get precedence at the best surf spots. But things sometimes turn violent. The Lunada Bay Boys, an LA surf gang started in the ‘60s, has been known to physically rough up new surfers, and even make death threats. Then again, the gang is not quite like "Straight Outta Compton." They are mostly middle-aged white men with graying hair who live in the wealthy Palos Verdes Estates. Today the gang is mostly known for pelting rookie surfers with rocks, verbally assaulting them, and vandalizing their parked cars. This brings a whole new meaning to surfin' turf!

 
Credit & copyright: Kanenori, Pixabay
 

It’s just a cube—how hard can it be? Rubik’s Cubes, the iconic puzzle toy, were released in May of 1980, and over 350 million of them have been sold since. Invented by Ernő Rubik of Hungary in 1974, Rubik originally called it Bűvös kocka (the Magic Cube). Rubik claims that he wanted to create a puzzle based on geometry, and made his original prototypes out of wood and rubber bands. In 1979, he sold the rights to produce and sell the toy to US-based Ideal Toy & Novelty Company, which renamed it the Rubik’s Cube. As soon as it hit store shelves, the confounding cube became an international sensation, selling 100 million units in the first 2 years by enticing challengers to discover the secrets hidden under its deceptively simple looking facade. No one was more surprised by the toy’s runaway success and mass appeal than Rubik himself, who thought it would have limited appeal—only drawing in those who were interested in math and science.
 
With six colored sides made up of 27 smaller cubes called “cubies,” the toy doesn’t look too complicated at a glance. But twist around the cube a few times, and you can end up with one of over 43 quintillion combinations of configurations. If one wants to get the Rubik’s Cube back to its original, pristine state with all its colors neatly sorted without a plan, they could conceivably die of old age before solving it. Of course, the cube has been conquered over and over again, and there have been books and guides published dedicated to providing all sorts of tips and tricks to solving it. There are even people called “speedcubers” who try to solve the cube as fast as possible. In fact, the fastest current record for solving the cube is 3.47 seconds, set by Yusheng Du of China in 2018. If that isn’t impressive enough, there are even speedcubers who can solve the cube blindfolded, with the current record of 14.61 seconds set by Tommy Cherry of the U.S. in March of this year. Just try and wrap your head around that.

 
[Image description: A slightly-twisted Rubik’s Cube sits on a desk.] Credit & copyright: duanegabriel, Pixabay

Sports weren’t always “anyone’s game”, but this innovation was equalizing! As warm weather ushers in the return of fun outdoor activities like jogging, it’s hard to believe that, not so long ago, women were discouraged from participating in them. Before 1970’s Title IX, which banned sex-based discrimination in sports, the prevailing attitude in the U.S. was that sports were unladylike or even dangerous for girls and women. After Title IX’s passage, sports-minded women found that there wasn’t much on offer when it came to athletic gear that fit their needs. Enter Lisa Lindahl, Polly Palmer Smith, and Hinda Miller, inventors of a modern athletic staple: the sports bra.
 
By the late 1970s, Title IX and other breakthroughs had made womens’ sports suddenly popular. Jogging was particularly in vogue, likely due to the influence of figures like Kathrine Switzer, who had run in the 1967 Boston Marathon even though women were banned. In 1977, 28-year-old University of Vermont graduate student Lisa Lindahl was jogging around 30 miles per week. There was just one problem: jogging was extremely uncomfortable for her chest due to a lack of proper support. Lindahl tried wearing different bras while jogging, even going so far as to wear one a size too small, but nothing seemed to work. Her sister, who often jogged with her, also complained of chest and back pain from jogging, and joked that there should be a jockstrap for women. Realizing that many women were likely suffering from the same problem, Lindahl turned to her costume-designer friend, Polly Palmer Smith. Smith brought fellow costume designer Hinda Miller in on the project as well. Together, the three women began working on garments that might solve their jogging support problem. After many failed attempts, it was Lindahl’s inside joke with her sister that offered a solution. Having heard the joke about a jockstrap for women, Lindahl’s husband strolled into her shared workshop wearing two jockstraps on his chest. The three women immediately saw design potential in the way that the straps crossed across his back, and they began sewing jockstraps together in different configurations. Their prototype was appropriately dubbed the “JockBra”, which they eventually changed to the more appealing “JogBra.” Designed to provide chest, shoulder, and back support, the Jogbra featured crisscrossing straps and seams on the outside, to minimize chafing and blistering. Unlike normal bras, Jogbras came in three standard sizes: small, medium, and large.
 
Yet the male-dominated athletic industry took some time to warm up to the innovation. After Smith left the operation to pursue other design work, Lindahl and Miller took on the task of explaining to male store owners that the JogBra wasn’t underwear or lingerie. “Almost every time they'd say ‘we don't sell bras in our store,’” Lindahl told the BBC. The inventors got around the problem by giving free JogBra samples to female assistant managers. That’s when the JogBra really got moving. By 1978, JobBras were selling like hotcakes at $16 each, and in 1979 their design was officially patented. After making around $500,000 in its first year, Jogbra Inc. grew around 25 percent per year until the late 1980s. In 1990, Lindahl and Miller decided to sell their company to Playtex. By then, larger companies like Reebok were making their own versions of the sports bra, eating into JogBra Inc.’s profits.
 
Today, the sports bra is considered one of the most important inventions in sports history. In fact, in 2018, Runner’s World magazine called it “The Greatest Invention in Running—EVER.” This year, Lindahl, Miller, and Smith were inducted into the The National Inventors Hall of Fame, which is part of the U.S. Patent and Trade Office. A JogBra prototype can be found in the archives of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The stores that refused to carry sports bras must be feeling a little sheepish, these days.

 
[Image description: Colorful sports bras hang in a store.] Credit & copyright: Rusty Clark, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size, image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here.