“Morning again in America.” Silicon Valley takes on Big Brother at the Super Bowl. A celluloid poet of teen angst captures the Zeitgeist. The best basketball rivalry of all time resumes, and gets even better. And four music icons dominate the Billboard charts just as a newfangled small plastic disc encoded with digital data hits the music marketplace.

During the late 19th Century, the United States experienced a bicycle craze, thanks largely to the invention of the “safety bicycle,” which had two wheels of equal size rather than the one giant wheel found on the penny-farthing bikes that preceded it.

These new bikes were easier to ride for men and women alike and their popularity spread like wildfire across the country.