00:00From personal computers to dishwashers and refrigerators,
00:04here are 11 everyday things that were once filthy expensive,
00:07beginning with spices you use today without thinking.
00:10Salt and pepper.
00:11Hundreds of years back, salt was so valuable that people called it white gold,
00:15it kept meat from rotting before fridges existed.
00:18That single use made it worth fighting wars over.
00:21During the Middle Ages, taxes on salt sometimes hit 70% of its price,
00:25and royal families locked down salt monopolies to control the market.
00:29The big change came in the 1800s and 1900s.
00:32Better mining tools, smarter evaporation methods, and cheap shipping lets salt flow everywhere.
00:37Black pepper came from India's Malabar coast,
00:39and Europeans called it black gold, or the king of spices.
00:42For a long stretch of history, pepper was worth its weight in gold or more.
00:46People used it to pay rent, taxes, and dowries.
00:48Now pepper sits in every kitchen, and a jar costs less than a sandwich.
00:52Moving on to something that was treated like a rare fine spice in the past.
00:56Sugar.
00:57Originating in Asia and the Middle East, sugar reached Europe during the 11th century crusades.
01:02It was initially a rare medicine, spice, and artistic medium used by the elite for
01:06elaborate banquet displays.
01:08Most regular people had never tasted it.
01:10The reason sugar stayed so expensive came down to how hard it was to make.
01:14Workers had to crush sugar cane, boil the juice down, and refine the syrup into crystals.
01:18That process took a lot of labor.
01:20In 14th century Britain, sugar was way more expensive than honey,
01:23so honey stayed the everyday sweetener for poor families.
01:26Rich households locked their sugar away in cabinets like jewelry.
01:29The expansion of plantations in Madeira, Brazil, and the Caribbean,
01:33driven by enslaved labor, drastically increased production, and lowered prices.
01:38By the early 1900s, sugar was a kitchen staple in tea,
01:41cakes, and processed food for every social class around the world.
01:45Up next is something most of us drink today to stay awake.
01:48Coffee.
01:48Coffee started in Ethiopia and Yemen.
01:51The legend tells of Chaldi the goat herder who noticed his goats acting wild after eating
01:55red berries from a strange tree.
01:57Those berries were coffee.
01:59Sufi monks in the Muslim world used the drink to stay awake during long prayer rituals.
02:04By the 1600s, coffee had crossed into Europe, where it became a luxury for royalty and nobles.
02:09Drinking coffee felt strange to many Europeans at first, but the rich loved it.
02:13Special spots called coffee houses, sometimes nicknamed penny universities, popped up in London,
02:19Venice, and Paris.
02:20The price stayed high because coffee traveled huge distances from Africa and Arabia.
02:24Then the Dutch built plantations in their colonies.
02:27Mass production in the 1800s, plus brands like Folgers in America, dropped coffee prices fast.
02:33Now billions drink it daily without thinking twice,
02:36moving ahead to an item that was once worth more than gold.
02:39Aluminum.
02:40Here's a weird fact.
02:41Aluminum is the most common metal in the Earth's crust, but it was once worth more than gold.
02:46Pulling pure aluminum out of rock was almost impossible with older methods,
02:50so the small amount that existed was treated like treasure.
02:53French Emperor Napoleon III owned a set of aluminum cutlery he saved only for his most
02:58honored banquet guests.
02:59Lesser guests settled for gold or silver.
03:02At the 1855 Paris Exposition, aluminum jewelry reportedly sold for three times the price of gold.
03:08Then in 1886, Charles Martin Hall and Paul Eruld figured out how to use electricity to pull
03:15aluminum from bauxite ore.
03:17The Hall-Eruld process changed everything.
03:19Prices crashed.
03:20Within years, aluminum started showing up in cans, foil, cookware, and airplane parts.
03:25Today you crush a can without thinking, but a century ago, a king would have envied it.
03:30Next up an upgrade that happened in 1935.
03:33Color Photographs and TV.
03:34Before color became the norm, both photography and television were in black and white.
03:40Color film like Kodachrome arrived in 1935, but it cost more, took longer to develop,
03:46and stayed out of reach for most regular families.
03:49Color TV had it worse.
03:50The first color sets went on sale in the United States in the early 1950s for around $1,175.
03:57Adjusted for today's money, that's roughly $13,000 for a single TV.
04:01On top of that, very few shows aired in color.
04:04The shift happened slowly through the 1960s.
04:07Networks started showing more programs in color.
04:10Mass production drove prices down.
04:12By the 1980s, color TV had taken over normal living rooms.
04:15Today, black and white is mostly a creative choice.
04:18Moving ahead, an item that is now a basic, everyday tool.
04:22Mobile phones and smartphones.
04:24The first commercial cell phones in the 1980s were bricks.
04:27The Motorola Dynatac weighed close to two pounds, looked like a small loaf of bread,
04:31and cost thousands on top of expensive monthly fees.
04:34Calls were charged by the minute.
04:36Only executives, doctors, lawyers, and wealthy folks could justify owning one.
04:41The phone wasn't just a tool.
04:42It was a status symbol.
04:44Carrying a Dynatac in public told everyone you had arrived.
04:47Movies showed rich villains and high-powered businessmen barking into their massive phones.
04:52The image stuck.
04:53Then miniaturization took over.
04:55Phones got smaller.
04:56Digital networks replaced older systems.
04:58Prices dropped.
04:59By the early 2000s, regular families could afford one.
05:02The iPhone launched in 2007 and changed the game entirely.
05:06Suddenly, your phone became a camera, a map, and a tiny computer.
05:10Today, even kids in remote villages have one.
05:12Up next is an item that most houses now own more than one.
05:16Personal computers.
05:17In the 1970s and 1980s, models like the Apple II and early IBM PCs cost thousands of dollars.
05:23Adjusted for today, you'd be looking at $4,000 to $10,000 or more for a single computer.
05:28Who used them at first?
05:29Businesses, universities, and hobbyists.
05:32Wealthy parents bought them for their kids, hoping to give them a head start.
05:36Most homes had no computer at all.
05:38Software was limited.
05:39The machines were complex, and you needed real technical patience just to load a program.
05:43Owning a PC said something about your money and your interests.
05:46The 1990s changed everything.
05:49Microprocessors got faster and cheaper every year.
05:51Competition between brands like IBM, Apple, Compaq, and others pushed prices down.
05:57The internet arrived and gave people a real reason to buy one.
06:00By the 2000s, PCs were household essentials.
06:04This next item had a brutal price when it first arrived.
06:07Refrigerators.
06:08Before fridges, families used iceboxes.
06:11Wooden chests packed with blocks of ice that needed regular delivery from the Iceman.
06:15The first home electric refrigerators arrived around 1913 to 1918, made by Fred W. Wolf and
06:22later Frigidaire.
06:23A single unit cost around $500 to $1,000, which translates to roughly $6,500 to $13,000 today.
06:31Those early fridges also ran on toxic gases that sometimes leaked.
06:34Even rich folks had to weigh the risk.
06:36Most families kept the icebox going and hoped the Iceman showed up on time.
06:40The big change came with Freon in the 1930s.
06:43It was a safer refrigerant, and once it took over, prices dropped while sales jumped.
06:47By the 1950s, electric fridges became standard in American homes.
06:51Frozen foods became a thing.
06:53Moving on to a household item that became the norm in the 1970s.
06:57Washing machines.
06:58Before washing machines, laundry was punishment.
07:01People scrubbed clothes by hand on washboards.
07:03Others hauled dirty bundles to communal wash houses or rivers.
07:07The whole process ate up a full day.
07:09In 1900, the average household spent about 58 hours a week on housework, and laundry was
07:14a huge chunk of that.
07:15The first electric washing machine showed up around 1908, designed by Alva Fischer and
07:20called the Thor.
07:21Early electric models cost thousands in today's dollars.
07:24Most families couldn't afford one, so they kept scrubbing by hand or paid laundresses.
07:29Washing machines lived in rich households or commercial laundries.
07:32The real shift came after World War II.
07:34Mass production and the spread of electricity pushed prices down.
07:37The spin dryer arrived in the 1950s.
07:39By the 1970s, washing machines were standard in middle-class homes worldwide.
07:44This next item has a fun origin story.
07:47Dishwashers.
07:47Josephine Cochran invented the first practical dishwasher and patented it in 1886.
07:54She was a wealthy socialite tired of her servants chipping her fine china, so she built
07:58a machine to clean dishes faster and safer than human hands.
08:01Her first customers were hotels and restaurants.
08:04Early home dishwashers were luxury items.
08:06Most houses didn't have the right plumbing or hot water systems to run one.
08:09Adding a dishwasher meant upgrading the whole kitchen.
08:12That kept it as a wealthy household feature for decades.
08:15After World War II, new homes came with modern plumbing already installed.
08:20Mass production drove prices down.
08:22By the 1970s, dishwashers became standard in North American kitchens.
08:26By 2012, over 75% of homes in the United States and Germany had one.
08:31Last on the list, an item that used to be toys for wealthy men.
08:35Automobiles.
08:36The Benz patent motor wagon rolled out in 1886, and other inventors followed with their own
08:43hand-built machines.
08:44Each one was custom-made, costly, and unreliable.
08:47There were almost no roads built for them, no gas stations, and no mechanics to fix them
08:52when they broke down.
08:53So owning a car meant you had money to burn and patience to spare.
08:56Through the late 1800s and early 1900s, cars stayed as playthings for wealthy inventors
09:01and aristocrats.
09:02Horses still ruled the streets.
09:04Then came one man with one idea that flipped the entire industry.
09:07Henry Ford released the Model T in 1908.
09:10And in 1913, he built the first moving assembly line.
09:13That single change cut production time and slashed prices.
09:16The Model T became something a middle-class family could actually afford.
09:20Other companies copied the method.
09:21By the mid-1900s, cars were everywhere in America and growing fast in Europe.
09:26If you enjoyed this video, click on the ones showing on your screen to enjoy more.
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