Vacuum Cleaner: The Mouthful of DustHow a lungful of grime changed cleaning forever.

From the show

The Secret Life of Objects

In 1901, engineer Hubert Cecil Booth attended a demo for a machine that cleaned railway cars by blowing compressed air, which merely scattered the filth. Convinced the process was backwards, Booth knelt before a plush chair in a restaurant, pressed a handkerchief to the fabric, and inhaled as hard as he could. He nearly choked on the intake, but the dark ring of trapped grime on the cloth proved that suction was the future of hygiene.