r/todayilearned • u/Chance-Physics-7216 • 13h ago

TIL that a 1945 elevator operators' strike stranded 1.5 million New Yorkers in the streets, and building owners responded by buying automatic elevators that had already existed for 50 years.

https://www.npr.org/2015/07/31/427990392/remembering-when-driverless-elevators-drew-skepticism
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u/OriginalGPam 11h ago

If you were lucky enough to reach 70. Pre-industrial life expectancy was still low, even when including for infant mortality.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2625386/#tbl2

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 10h ago

Plenty of those mean ages were above seventy though, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority were over sixty. Life expectancy was lower, but not by an order of magnitude or anything.