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Like so many other great inventions, the Slinky, a favorite of both kids and physics teachers, was just a grand accident. Richard James, a naval engineer, "discovered" this enduring toy in 1943. Working to help the war effort, James was developing an anti-vibration device for ship instruments when he knocked over some springs and was fascinated by the way the springs appeared to "walk" down the shelves. James showed his invention to his wife, Betty, who provided the name. (Tabloid trivia: Betty eventually came to run the company, after Richard left for Bolivia to join an obscure religious group.) The Jameses took their first batch of 400 Slinkys to Gimbel's department store in Philadelphia during the winter of 1945, right in time
for Christmas shopping. They were so desperate to sell the toy, they paid a friend $1 to buy one and start the feeding frenzy. Ninety minutes later, not one Slinky remained. And the rest is Slinky history. Some other little known facts: Slinkys were among the first toys to to travel into space; a stamp commemorating the 1940s features the beloved toy; during the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers would toss a Slinky into a tree for use as a makeshift radio antenna; and, if stretched end-to-end, the Slinky toys sold since 1945 (about 250
million) would wrap around the world 126 times. How did we learn all this fascinating Slinky trivia? You guessed it, from a Yahoo! search on "slinky." Make sure to visit the unofficial Slinky home page, which compares the old and new versions of the Slinky song, and MetalToys.com, the place to find anything remotely slinky. We leave you with this riddle: "What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound?"
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