310- 77 Steps

<p>As the U.S. war effort ramped up in the early 1940s, the Navy put out a request for chair design submissions. They needed a chair that was fireproof, waterproof, lightweight and strong enough to survive a torpedo blast. In response, engineer named Wilton C. Dinges designed a chair made out of aluminum, bent and welded to be super strong.</p> <p>To show off the durability of his creation, Dinges took it up to the eighth floor of a hotel in Chicago, where the Navy was examining submissions, and threw it out of the window. It bounced, but didn't bend or break.</p> <p>And so the Navy gave its inventor the contract, and he, in turn, opened a factory and called new his business the Electrical Machine and Equipment Company, or: Emeco.</p> <p>Over the decades the Emeco Navy chair became so popular that companies began to copy it. There are now tons of knockoffs -- fakes. Last month, <a href="http://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Benjamen Walker of </a><em><a href="http://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Theory of Everything</a></em> walked 99% Invisible Host Roman Mars around New York city, pointing out real and fake Emeco chairs. </p> <p><a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/?p=25280&amp;post_type=episode" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">77 Steps</a></p>