{"site":"https://www.howlongitlasted.com","note":"Data from How Long It Lasted. Every entry lists its own sources - verify against them before reuse, and link back if you build on this.","count":127,"entries":[{"slug":"adobe-flash-player","name":"Adobe Flash Player","aka":["Macromedia Flash Player","Shockwave Flash"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"browser plugin","maker":"Adobe","country":"US","born":{"value":"1996","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2020-12-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Open web standards absorbed everything Flash did, without the plugin or the security record.","summary":"Flash was the reason the web could animate, play video, and run games for roughly fifteen years, and it was also one of the most reliably exploited pieces of software ever installed on consumer machines. Adobe announced end-of-life three years ahead of time and browsers blocked the plugin outright in January 2021. Its death took an enormous archive of interactive culture with it, which is why emulation projects now exist purely to keep the era playable.","replacedByName":"Open web standards","sources":[{"title":"Adobe Flash Player","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260719060509/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player"},{"title":"Adobe Flash Player End of Life","url":"https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html","publisher":"Adobe","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240604150201/https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"aereo","name":"Aereo","category":"software-services","subcategory":"streaming television","maker":"Aereo, Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"2012","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2014-06-28","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"lawsuit","causeNote":"Aereo suspended operations on 28 June 2014, three days after the Supreme Court ruled that its service infringed broadcasters' copyrights.","summary":"Aereo routed broadcast television to subscribers over the internet and argued it was merely renting them equipment, which is why it owed the broadcasters nothing. The Supreme Court decided it was functionally a cable company. Three days later, at 11:30 in the morning, chief executive Chet Kanojia told subscribers he was pausing operations and that the journey was far from done. The journey reached Chapter 11 on 21 November 2014.","sources":[{"title":"Following High Court Decision, Aereo Suspends Operations","url":"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/06/28/326425476/following-high-court-decision-aereo-suspends-operations","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250505001807/https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/06/28/326425476/following-high-court-decision-aereo-suspends-operations"},{"title":"Aereo Suspends Service Following Supreme Court Ruling","url":"https://deadline.com/2014/06/aereo-pause-service-supreme-court-797508/","publisher":"Deadline","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Aereo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"airbus-a380","name":"Airbus A380","aka":["Superjumbo"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"airliner","maker":"Airbus","country":"FR","born":{"value":"2007-10-25","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2021-12-16","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"Emirates dropped an order for 39 aircraft in February 2019, leaving Airbus without enough demand to keep the production line open.","summary":"Airbus spent an estimated 25 billion dollars on a double-decker built for a hub-and-spoke future that never arrived, and never earned it back. It sold 251. Emirates took 123 of them, then traded its remaining order for 40 A330-900s and 30 A350-900s, which ended the argument. The last A380 was handed over in Hamburg on 16 December 2021, fourteen years and two months after the first one carried passengers.","sources":[{"title":"Emirates completes A380 fleet with 123rd delivery of iconic aircraft","url":"https://www.emirates.com/media-centre/emirates-completes-a380-fleet-with-123rd-delivery-of-iconic-aircraft/","publisher":"Emirates","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"The last ever A380 superjumbo is delivered to Emirates","url":"https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/last-a380-emirates","publisher":"CNN","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Airbus A380","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"alert-energy-caffeine-gum","name":"Alert Energy Caffeine Gum","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Chewing gum","maker":"Wrigley","country":"US","born":{"value":"2013-04-29","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2013-05-08","precision":"day"},"status":"revived","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"Wrigley halted production, sales and marketing on 8 May 2013 after meetings with the FDA, which had opened a review of caffeine added to foods the day after the gum went on sale.","summary":"Wrigley put Alert on sale on 29 April 2013 with 40mg of caffeine per piece, about the same as half a cup of coffee. On 30 April, one day later, the FDA announced it would take a fresh look at caffeine in food and its effect on children and teenagers. Nine days after launch Wrigley paused the product, and the FDA publicly applauded the retreat and asked the rest of the industry to show similar restraint. The gum returned in October 2017 as Alert Caffeine Gum, same 40mg per piece, after the FDA guidelines Wrigley had been waiting on never arrived.","sources":[{"title":"Wrigley halts production of caffeine gum","url":"https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/health/wrigley-caffeine-gum-production","publisher":"CNN","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Wrigley: Maybe We Won't Sell Caffeinated Gum After All","url":"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/09/182562583/wrigley-maybe-we-wont-sell-caffeinated-gum-after-all","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Mars Wrigley seeks sales jolt with caffeine gum relaunch","url":"https://www.fooddive.com/news/mars-wrigley-seeks-sales-jolt-with-caffeine-gum-relaunch/507997/","publisher":"Food Dive","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"amazon-dash-button","name":"Amazon Dash Button","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"Smart home","maker":"Amazon","country":"US","born":{"value":"2015-03","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2019-08-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Amazon disabled all physical Dash Buttons on 31 August 2019, six months after ending their sale.","summary":"The Dash Button was an adhesive plastic button that reordered exactly one product when pressed, and in 2015 this genuinely looked like the future of shopping. Amazon stopped selling them in February 2019 while promising existing owners could keep pressing, then switched every button off on 31 August 2019 anyway. Alexa and free virtual buttons did the same job without requiring anyone to glue hardware to a washing machine.","sources":[{"title":"Amazon's press-to-order Dash buttons are officially discontinued","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/28/18245315/amazon-dash-buttons-discontinued","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260621061038/https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/28/18245315/amazon-dash-buttons-discontinued"},{"title":"Amazon's Dash Buttons will stop working on August 31","url":"https://www.techspot.com/news/81270-amazon-dash-buttons-stop-working-august-31.html","publisher":"TechSpot","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251014065459/https://www.techspot.com/news/81270-amazon-dash-buttons-stop-working-august-31.html"},{"title":"Amazon Dash Buttons set to stop working by August 31","url":"https://www.techradar.com/news/amazon-dash-buttons-set-to-stop-working-by-august-31","publisher":"TechRadar","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251114032035/https://www.techradar.com/news/amazon-dash-buttons-set-to-stop-working-by-august-31"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"amazon-fire-phone","name":"Amazon Fire Phone","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"smartphone","maker":"Amazon","country":"US","born":{"value":"2014","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2015-09","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Amazon sold through its remaining Fire Phone stock and confirmed it had no plans to replenish it.","summary":"Amazon's answer to the iPhone arrived in 2014 with four face-tracking cameras and a 3D interface nobody had asked for. Reviews were poor, sales were worse, and in October of its first year Amazon wrote down $170 million of unsold inventory; by the summer of 2015 it was clearing the phone at $60 with a year of Prime attached. In September 2015 the 32GB and 64GB models simply ran out, and a spokeswoman confirmed there were no plans to build more.","sources":[{"title":"Amazon's Fire Phone Is Off The Market","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/09/amazons-fire-phone-is-off-the-market/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Amazon discontinues disappointing Fire Phone","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/09/amazon-discontinues-disappointing-fire-phone.html","publisher":"CNBC","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"aol-instant-messenger","name":"AOL Instant Messenger","aka":["AIM"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"Communication","maker":"AOL","country":"US","born":{"value":"1997-05","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2017-12-15","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"AOL shut AIM down on 15 December 2017 after its user base collapsed to a fraction of its peak.","summary":"AIM launched as a standalone app in 1997 and taught a generation to weaponize the away message. By 2011 one survey put its share of installed messaging clients at 0.73 percent, having been beaten first by text messaging and then by every phone app that came after. AOL closed it on 15 December 2017, letting users download their old images on the way out. Twenty years of buddy lists, and nothing built to replace them.","sources":[{"title":"AOL Instant Messenger is shutting down after 20 years","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/06/aol-instant-messenger-shut-down/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260426145225/https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/06/aol-instant-messenger-shut-down/"},{"title":"RIP AIM: AOL Instant Messenger dies in December","url":"https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/10/06/rip-aim-aol-instant-messenger-dies-december/739076001/","publisher":"USA Today","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260428105344/https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/10/06/rip-aim-aol-instant-messenger-dies-december/739076001/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"apple-airport","name":"Apple AirPort","aka":["AirPort Extreme","AirPort Express","AirPort Time Capsule"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"Networking","maker":"Apple","country":"US","born":{"value":"1999-07","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2018-04-26","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Apple confirmed it was discontinuing the AirPort base stations on 26 April 2018, five years after the last hardware update.","summary":"Apple sold Wi-Fi to normal people in 1999 with the AirPort, a base station that worked at a time when almost nothing else did. Then it stopped updating the Express in 2012 and the Extreme and Time Capsule in 2013, reassigned the engineering team in 2016, and confirmed the discontinuation on 26 April 2018 with stock sold off while supplies lasted. By then every broadband customer got a router free in the box, which is a difficult price to beat.","sources":[{"title":"Apple officially discontinues AirPort router line, no plans for future hardware","url":"https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/26/apple-airport-cancellation/","publisher":"9to5Mac","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251226143931/https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/26/apple-airport-cancellation/"},{"title":"Apple Officially Discontinues AirPort Wireless Router Lineup","url":"https://www.macrumors.com/2018/04/26/apple-officially-discontinues-airport-wireless-router-lineup/","publisher":"MacRumors","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260622194742/https://www.macrumors.com/2018/04/26/apple-officially-discontinues-airport-wireless-router-lineup/"},{"title":"Apple discontinues its AirPort WiFi routers","url":"https://www.engadget.com/2018-04-26-apple-discontinues-airport-wifi-routers.html","publisher":"Engadget","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260705200116/https://www.engadget.com/2018-04-26-apple-discontinues-airport-wifi-routers.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"astroworld","name":"AstroWorld","aka":["Six Flags AstroWorld"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"theme park","maker":"Six Flags, Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1968-06-01","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2005-10-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"Six Flags closed AstroWorld after its final night on October 30, 2005 in order to cut corporate debt by selling the land underneath it.","summary":"Former Houston mayor Roy Hofheinz opened AstroWorld beside the Astrodome on June 1, 1968, on roughly 116 acres he had raised with 600,000 cubic yards of hauled dirt. Six Flags bought the park in 1975 and ran it for thirty more seasons before concluding the dirt was worth more than the rides, citing corporate debt, declining attendance and rising property values. It closed at the end of its thirty-seventh season and was dismantled within months. The land had been valued as high as $150 million and sold for $77 million.","sources":[{"title":"Astroworld","url":"https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/astroworld","publisher":"Texas State Historical Association","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"A look back at Houston's Six Flags AstroWorld","url":"https://abc13.com/post/a-look-back-at-houstons-six-flags-astroworld/1051306/","publisher":"ABC13 Houston (KTRK)","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"atari-jaguar","name":"Atari Jaguar","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"games console","maker":"Atari Corporation","country":"US","born":{"value":"1993-11","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"1996","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"It was marketed as 64-bit, was awkward to program for, and shipped 63 games in its entire life.","summary":"The Jaguar was Atari's last console, sold on a 64-bit claim that depended on how you counted its five processors. Developers found the architecture difficult and the library never arrived: 63 licensed games total, against thousands on its competitors. It ended Atari's hardware business in 1996, and the company was absorbed the following year.","sources":[{"title":"Atari Jaguar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Jaguar","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260718095727/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Jaguar"},{"title":"Atari Jaguar (1993-1996)","url":"https://hiscoga.wordpress.com/atari-jaguar-1993-1996/","publisher":"History of Console Gaming","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20250415071254/https://hiscoga.wordpress.com/atari-jaguar-1993-1996/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"aunt-jemima-brand","name":"Aunt Jemima, as a brand name","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"food brand name","maker":"The Quaker Oats Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1889","precision":"circa"},"died":{"value":"2021-06","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeNote":"Quaker Oats dropped the name after acknowledging the brand's character was based on a racial stereotype, and the packaging changed over in June 2021.","summary":"The self-rising pancake mix originated at the Pearl Milling Company in 1889 and picked up the Aunt Jemima name and its minstrel-derived character not long after. Quaker Oats bought the brand in 1925 and spent decades softening the image without ever retiring it. The company announced the name was going in June 2020, revealed the replacement in February 2021, and changed the boxes that June. The recipe and the red packaging survived; the name did not.","replacedByName":"Pearl Milling Company","sources":[{"title":"Aunt Jemima Rebrands As Pearl Milling Company","url":"https://www.pepsico.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021/aunt-jemima-rebrands-as-pearl-milling-company","publisher":"PepsiCo","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Aunt Jemima brand gets a new name: Pearl Milling Company","url":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/aunt-jemima-brand-gets-a-new-name-pearl-milling-company","publisher":"PBS NewsHour","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Aunt Jemima No More; Pancake Brand Renamed Pearl Milling Company","url":"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966166648/aunt-jemima-no-more-pancake-brand-renamed-pearl-milling-company","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Our History","url":"https://www.pearlmillingcompany.com/our-history","publisher":"Pearl Milling Company","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"betamax","name":"Betamax","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"video format","maker":"Sony","country":"JP","born":{"value":"1975","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2016-03","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"VHS offered longer recording time, and length beat picture quality decisively.","summary":"Betamax is the standard shorthand for a better product losing, though the reality is more that Sony optimised for image quality while JVC optimised for how long a tape could record, and consumers wanted the whole film on one cassette. Sony lost the consumer market by the late 1980s but kept manufacturing cassettes for four more decades, finally stopping in 2016. The format outlived its own defeat by roughly thirty years.","replacedByName":"VHS","sources":[{"title":"Betamax","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260721103134/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax"},{"title":"Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes","url":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34776424","publisher":"BBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260715063445/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34776424"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"blockbuster","name":"Blockbuster","aka":["Blockbuster Video","Blockbuster LLC"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"retail chain","maker":"Blockbuster LLC","country":"US","born":{"value":"1985-10","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2014-01","precision":"month"},"status":"zombie","cause":"successor","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"Mail-order and then streaming removed the entire reason to drive to a video shop.","summary":"At its peak Blockbuster ran more than 9,000 stores and made a meaningful share of its profit from late fees, which is a business model with a natural predator. The last company-owned stores closed in January 2014, four years after bankruptcy. One franchised location in Bend, Oregon is still trading, still renting discs, and has become a tourist destination in its own right, which makes Blockbuster officially dead and demonstrably still open.","replacedByName":"Streaming video","sources":[{"title":"Last Blockbuster","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Blockbuster","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260524174516/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Blockbuster"},{"title":"Oregon city will have last Blockbuster store in the world","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oregon-city-will-have-last-blockbuster-store-world-n980401","publisher":"NBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240922080512/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oregon-city-will-have-last-blockbuster-store-world-n980401"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"boeing-747","name":"Boeing 747","aka":["Jumbo Jet","Queen of the Skies"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"airliner","maker":"Boeing","country":"US","born":{"value":"1970-01-22","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2023-01-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"Twin-engine widebodies flew the same routes on half the engines, leaving no market for a new four-engine airliner.","summary":"The 747 entered service with Pan Am in January 1970 and made long-haul flying affordable for people who were not diplomats. Then Boeing and Airbus spent fifteen years building widebodies that did the same work with two engines instead of four, and the passenger orders stopped. Freight kept the line open until 31 January 2023, when the 1,574th and last one went to Atlas Air. The Queen of the Skies left through the cargo door.","sources":[{"title":"Boeing, Atlas Air Celebrate Delivery of Final 747, an Airplane that Transformed Aviation and Global Air Travel","url":"https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2023-01-31-Boeing,-Atlas-Air-Celebrate-Delivery-of-Final-747,-an-Airplane-that-Transformed-Aviation-and-Global-Air-Travel","publisher":"Boeing","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260703183747/https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2023-01-31-Boeing,-Atlas-Air-Celebrate-Delivery-of-Final-747,-an-Airplane-that-Transformed-Aviation-and-Global-Air-Travel"},{"title":"Boeing delivers last 747 jumbo jet, bidding farewell to an icon","url":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/boeing-delivers-last-747-jumbo-jet-bidding-farewell-to-an-icon","publisher":"PBS NewsHour","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251020001709/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/boeing-delivers-last-747-jumbo-jet-bidding-farewell-to-an-icon"},{"title":"Boeing 747","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"boeing-767-freighter","name":"Boeing 767 Freighter","aka":["767-300F","767-300ERF"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"freighter aircraft","maker":"Boeing","country":"US","born":{"value":"1995-10","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2027","precision":"year"},"status":"dying","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"New emissions and noise standards taking effect for aircraft produced from 2028 close the 767 Freighter's production window at the end of 2027.","summary":"The 767 has been flying since 1982, and its dedicated freighter arrived in October 1995, which means it outlasted the launch of its own replacement by more than a decade. New ICAO emissions and noise rules bite in 2028, so in October 2024 Boeing said it will build out its remaining 29 freighter orders and close the Everett line in 2027. Congress had already written the aircraft a domestic exemption running to 2033. Boeing is ending it anyway.","sources":[{"title":"Boeing will stop production of the Everett-built 767 in 2027","url":"https://www.heraldnet.com/2024/10/11/boeing-will-stop-production-of-the-everett-built-767-in-2027/","publisher":"The Daily Herald (Everett)","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"FAA adopts ICAO 2027 emissions, noise rules; death knell for new production 767F, 777F","url":"https://leehamnews.com/2022/06/16/faa-adopts-icao-2027-emissions-noise-rules-death-knell-for-new-production-767f-777f/","publisher":"Leeham News and Analysis","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260708001421/https://leehamnews.com/2022/06/16/faa-adopts-icao-2027-emissions-noise-rules-death-knell-for-new-production-767f-777f/"},{"title":"Boeing to End 767-300F Production in 2027; Postpones 777X Delivery Start","url":"https://flightplan.forecastinternational.com/2024/10/16/boeing-to-end-767-300f-production-in-2027-postpones-777x-delivery-start/","publisher":"Forecast International","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260214141203/https://flightplan.forecastinternational.com/2024/10/16/boeing-to-end-767-300f-production-in-2027-postpones-777x-delivery-start/"},{"title":"Boeing 767","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_767","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260724205716/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_767"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"borders","name":"Borders","aka":["Borders Group","Borders Books and Music"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"retail chain","country":"US","born":{"value":"1971","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2011-09","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"It outsourced its own website to Amazon in 2001 and never got the customers back.","summary":"Borders was the bookshop that took the category seriously, with deep stock and staff who had read things. Its fatal decision came early: rather than build online, it handed its e-commerce operation to Amazon for most of a decade, training its own customers to buy books somewhere else. It also bet heavily on CDs and DVDs as those collapsed. Liquidation finished in September 2011, and Barnes & Noble inherited the survivors.","replacedByName":"Amazon","sources":[{"title":"Borders Group","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260705055010/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group"},{"title":"Headed For Liquidation, Borders Will Close Its Doors","url":"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/18/138491830/headed-for-liquidation-borders-will-close-its-doors","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251230175801/https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/18/138491830/headed-for-liquidation-borders-will-close-its-doors"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"braniff-international","name":"Braniff International Airways","aka":["Braniff"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","country":"US","born":{"value":"1928","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1982-05-12","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"It expanded aggressively into deregulated routes and ran out of cash before the routes matured.","summary":"Braniff was the most stylish airline America ever had: Alexander Girard designed the identity, Emilio Pucci designed the uniforms, and Alexander Calder painted an entire aircraft. When deregulation arrived in 1978 it seized dozens of new routes almost overnight, which required aircraft and cash it did not have. It grounded its fleet in May 1982, the first major US carrier to fail after deregulation.","sources":[{"title":"Braniff International Airways","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_International_Airways","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260720203248/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_International_Airways"},{"title":"5 Defunct Airlines That Ruled the 80s","url":"https://worthly.com/most-expensive/planes/defunct-airlines-that-ruled-the-80s/","publisher":"Worthly","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260519062516/https://worthly.com/most-expensive/planes/defunct-airlines-that-ruled-the-80s/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"brontosaurus-genus","name":"Brontosaurus, as a valid genus","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"scientific name","born":{"value":"1879","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1903","precision":"year"},"status":"revived","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Elmer Riggs concluded it was the same animal as the earlier-named Apatosaurus, and the older name wins.","summary":"Brontosaurus was named in 1879 and demoted twenty-four years later when Elmer Riggs decided the specimen belonged to a genus already named Apatosaurus. Under the rules of zoological nomenclature the earlier name takes priority, so the better name lost on a technicality. It stayed officially dead for 112 years while remaining completely alive in public usage, and a 2015 reanalysis reinstated it as a separate genus after all.","replacedByName":"Apatosaurus","sources":[{"title":"Brontosaurus: Reinstating a prehistoric icon","url":"https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/brontosaurus-reinstating-a-prehistoric-icon.html","publisher":"Natural History Museum","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260708212825/https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/brontosaurus-reinstating-a-prehistoric-icon.html"},{"title":"Brontosaurus name resurrected by new dino family tree","url":"https://www.science.org/content/article/brontosaurus-name-resurrected-new-dino-family-tree","publisher":"Science","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250623023554/https://www.science.org/content/article/brontosaurus-name-resurrected-new-dino-family-tree"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"burger-chef","name":"Burger Chef","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"restaurant chain","maker":"General Foods","country":"US","born":{"value":"1957","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1996","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"The owner of Hardee's bought the chain and converted or closed the restaurants rather than run a second burger brand.","summary":"Burger Chef opened in Indianapolis in 1957 and by 1971 had more than 1,200 restaurants, which made it a genuine rival to McDonald's rather than a footnote to it. General Foods bought it in 1968, ran it down through the 1970s, and sold it on to the owner of Hardee's, who spent the following years changing the signs. The last Burger Chef, in Cookeville, Tennessee, kept its name in court and held out until 1996.","sources":[{"title":"Burger Chef: Hoosier Fast-Food Pioneer","url":"https://blog.history.in.gov/burger-chef-hoosier-fast-food-pioneer/","publisher":"Indiana History Blog (Indiana State Library)","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260416231115/https://blog.history.in.gov/burger-chef-hoosier-fast-food-pioneer/"},{"title":"What Happened To McDonald's Long Lost Rival Chain, Burger Chef?","url":"https://www.foodrepublic.com/1884658/whatever-happened-burger-chef-chain/","publisher":"Food Republic","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260124111007/https://www.foodrepublic.com/1884658/whatever-happened-burger-chef-chain/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"cape-kennedy","name":"Cape Kennedy","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"place name","maker":"United States Board on Geographic Names","country":"US","born":{"value":"1963-11","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"1973-10-09","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"Florida legislated the older name back onto its own maps and the US Board on Geographic Names followed.","summary":"Six days after the assassination, Lyndon Johnson announced in a televised address that Cape Canaveral would carry Kennedy's name, and the federal map-makers obliged within the month. Floridians never took to it. The state legislature voted to restore the original name and the US Board on Geographic Names agreed on 9 October 1973, giving Cape Kennedy a run of just under ten years. The space centre next door, which is what Johnson's executive order actually renamed, kept its name and still has it.","sources":[{"title":"Why And When Was Cape Canaveral's Name Changed?","url":"https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/why-and-when-was-cape-canaveral-s-name-changed.html","publisher":"WorldAtlas","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260418014011/https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/why-and-when-was-cape-canaveral-s-name-changed.html"},{"title":"Cape Kennedy named","url":"https://myfloridahistory.org/date-in-history/november-29-1963/cape-kennedy-named","publisher":"Florida Historical Society","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"History of Cape Canaveral, Chapter 3","url":"https://www.spaceline.org/history-cape-canaveral/history-cape-canaveral-chapter-3/","publisher":"Spaceline","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260719123203/https://www.spaceline.org/history-cape-canaveral/history-cape-canaveral-chapter-3/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ceylon","name":"Ceylon, as a country name","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"country name","country":"LK","born":{"value":"1833","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1972","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"The country became a republic in 1972 and the new constitution changed its official name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka.","summary":"Ceylon was the European mapmakers' name for the island, extended over the whole of it when the British united it under one administration in 1833, and kept through independence in 1948. In 1972 the country became a republic and adopted the name Sri Lanka. The old name is not entirely gone: it still turns up in trade, which is why tea from a country that has not been called Ceylon in more than fifty years is still sold as Ceylon tea.","replacedByName":"Sri Lanka","sources":[{"title":"Sri Lanka | History, Map, Flag, Population, Capital, & Facts","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Sri-Lanka","publisher":"Encyclopaedia Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Sri Lanka country profile","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11999611","publisher":"BBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"chevrolet-volt","name":"Chevrolet Volt","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"plug-in hybrid car","maker":"Chevrolet","country":"US","born":{"value":"2010-12-15","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2019-02-15","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"GM's November 2018 restructuring idled the Detroit-Hamtramck plant and discontinued the Volt with it.","summary":"GM spent an estimated $900 million to prove a plug-in hybrid could work, then built almost 160,000 of them and stopped. The Volt was briefly the best-selling plug-in vehicle in America, in 2012 and 2013, before buyers moved to crossovers and to fully electric rivals including the Tesla Model 3 and GM's own Bolt EV. Condemned in a November 2018 restructuring, it then ended two weeks early to match slow demand: the final car left Detroit-Hamtramck on 15 February 2019, eight years and two months after a retired airline pilot in New Jersey took delivery of the first one.","sources":[{"title":"GM rolls last Chevy Volt off Detroit assembly line","url":"https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1121681_gm-rolls-last-chevy-volt-off-detroit-assembly-line","publisher":"Green Car Reports","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Unplugged: Final Chevrolet Volt Leaves The Assembly Line","url":"https://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/02/unplugged-final-chevrolet-volt-leaves-the-assembly-line/","publisher":"GM Authority","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"First Chevy Volt Delivered To Customer","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/first-chevy-volt-delivered-to-customer/","publisher":"CBS News Detroit","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"chi-chis","name":"Chi-Chi's","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"restaurant chain","maker":"Prandium Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1975","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2004-09","precision":"month"},"status":"revived","cause":"disaster","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"A hepatitis A outbreak traced to imported green onions served at its Monaca, Pennsylvania restaurant killed four people and finished a chain already in Chapter 11.","summary":"Chi-Chi's had already filed for Chapter 11 when one of its restaurants outside Pittsburgh produced the largest hepatitis A outbreak in American history: 650 cases and four deaths, traced by state investigators to imported green onions served raw. The remaining 65 restaurants closed over a single weekend in September 2004. The name came back in October 2025, twenty-one years later, in a Minneapolis suburb, run by the founder's son.","sources":[{"title":"Chi-Chi's","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi%27s","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260530202352/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi%27s"},{"title":"Chi-Chi's Restaurant To Reopen 20 Years After Fatal Hepatitis Outbreak Scandal","url":"https://www.newsweek.com/chi-chi-reopening-20-years-after-fatal-hepatitis-outbreak-1995439","publisher":"Newsweek","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250725000028/https://www.newsweek.com/chi-chi-reopening-20-years-after-fatal-hepatitis-outbreak-1995439"},{"title":"Chi-Chi's may reopen, but let's not forget the over 500 with Hepatitis A, 4 deaths and a liver transplant","url":"https://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/chi-chis-may-reopen-but-lets-not-forget-the-over-500-with-hepatitis-a-4-deaths-and-a-liver-transplant/","publisher":"Marler Blog","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260531222007/https://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/chi-chis-may-reopen-but-lets-not-forget-the-over-500-with-hepatitis-a-4-deaths-and-a-liver-transplant/"},{"title":"Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant Chain Returns After 20 Years. See New Location and Menu","url":"https://www.today.com/food/chi-chi-restaurant-returns-location-menu-rcna235614","publisher":"TODAY","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260609181002/https://www.today.com/food/chi-chi-restaurant-returns-location-menu-rcna235614"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"choco-taco","name":"Choco Taco","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Frozen novelties","maker":"Klondike (Unilever)","country":"US","born":{"value":"1983","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2022-07","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"Klondike dropped it in July 2022 to free manufacturing capacity for higher-volume products after a two-year surge in demand across its portfolio.","summary":"The Choco Taco was invented in 1983 by a Jack and Jill Ice Cream employee named Alan Drazen and killed in July 2022 by a spreadsheet. Klondike's stated reason was an unprecedented spike in demand across its portfolio, which is an unusual way to lose a product. A sitting US senator threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act over it, and Reddit's co-founder offered to buy it outright. Klondike says the original is coming back eventually.","sources":[{"title":"Choco Taco discontinued by Klondike after nearly 40 years","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/choco-taco-discontinued-klondike/","publisher":"CBS News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260512165425/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/choco-taco-discontinued-klondike/"},{"title":"Klondike discontinues Choco Taco after nearly 4 decades on the market","url":"https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/klondike-discontinues-choco-taco-after-nearly-4-decades-market","publisher":"Fox Business","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Get excited! The Choco Taco is coming back","url":"https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232383825/get-excited-the-choco-taco-is-coming-back","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250723185232/https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232383825/get-excited-the-choco-taco-is-coming-back"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"chromecast","name":"Chromecast","aka":["Google Chromecast","Chromecast with Google TV"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"Streaming devices","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2013-07","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2024-08-06","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Google discontinued the Chromecast line on 6 August 2024 when it announced the Google TV Streamer.","summary":"The Chromecast was an HDMI dongle with no remote and no interface of its own, and Google sold roughly 100 million of them across eleven years and several generations. On 6 August 2024 Google discontinued the entire line in favor of the Google TV Streamer, a 100 dollar set-top box costing twice what the Chromecast it replaced did. The cheapest way to put streaming on a dumb television was retired for a box with a remote.","sources":[{"title":"Google Releases New TV Streamer Device To Replace Chromecast","url":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2024/08/06/new-google-tv-streamer-replaces-chromecast-nest-aware-gemini/","publisher":"Forbes","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Google Discontinues the Chromecast, Announces the Google TV Streamer","url":"https://www.techpowerup.com/325315/google-discontinues-the-chromecast-announces-the-google-tv-streamer","publisher":"TechPowerUp","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260131122431/https://www.techpowerup.com/325315/google-discontinues-the-chromecast-announces-the-google-tv-streamer"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"circuit-city","name":"Circuit City","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"retail chain","country":"US","born":{"value":"1949","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2009-03","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"It fired its most experienced sales staff to cut wages and lost the expertise customers came in for.","summary":"Circuit City's most-cited decision came in 2007, when it laid off around 3,400 of its highest-paid store employees and invited them to reapply at lower wages. In a business where people buying an expensive television want someone who can answer questions, this removed the reason to visit. It filed for bankruptcy the following year and liquidated in March 2009. The trademark has since been relaunched more than once, without the stores.","sources":[{"title":"Circuit City","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260716175842/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City"},{"title":"Circuit City is back from the dead, again","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/28/circuit-city-is-back-from-the-dead-again.html","publisher":"CNBC","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250318094942/https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/28/circuit-city-is-back-from-the-dead-again.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"coca-cola-spiced","name":"Coca-Cola Spiced","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Soft drink","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"2024-02","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2024","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Coca-Cola ended production roughly six months after launch, saying only that it was phasing Spiced out to introduce a new flavor in 2025.","summary":"Coca-Cola launched Spiced in February 2024 with a splashy ad campaign and promoted it as a permanent addition to the lineup, built on research that raspberry had been selected more than 5 million times on its Freestyle machines in 2022. The drink was Coke with raspberry and spiced notes and was not actually spicy, which did little for either awareness or word of mouth. In September 2024 Coca-Cola confirmed it was ending production six months in, to make room for a new flavor in 2025. That flavor was Orange Cream, which reached stores in February 2025.","sources":[{"title":"Coca-Cola is pulling its newest 'permanent' flavor from store shelves","url":"https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/24/food/coca-cola-spiced-discontinued/index.html","publisher":"CNN","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Coca-Cola taps into nostalgia with launch of Orange Cream flavor","url":"https://www.fooddive.com/news/coca-cola-launches-orange-cream-soda-spiced/737917/","publisher":"Food Dive","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"concorde","name":"Concorde","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"airliner","maker":"Aérospatiale / BAC","born":{"value":"1976-01-21","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2003-10-24","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"disaster","causeNote":"Maintenance costs rose as passenger demand collapsed, and the fleet stopped paying for itself.","summary":"Concorde crossed the Atlantic in under three and a half hours for twenty-seven years, and never once made economic sense at scale. Only fourteen entered commercial service, sonic boom restrictions confined it to ocean routes, and the 2000 Air France crash at Gonesse ended the aura of invincibility that justified the fare. Air France and British Airways retired the fleet within months of each other in 2003. No supersonic passenger aircraft has flown commercially since.","sources":[{"title":"Concorde","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260721074615/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde"},{"title":"End of an era for Concorde","url":"https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3211053.stm","publisher":"BBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260220014208/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3211053.stm"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"crystal-pepsi","name":"Crystal Pepsi","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"soft drink","maker":"PepsiCo","country":"US","born":{"value":"1992","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1993","precision":"year"},"status":"revived","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Shoppers found a clear cola that tasted like cola confusing rather than futuristic.","summary":"Crystal Pepsi arrived at the peak of the early-nineties belief that clear meant pure, and lasted roughly a year at national scale. The product worked on its own terms; the positioning did not survive contact with people who expected a clear drink to taste like a clear drink. PepsiCo has since brought it back for several deliberately short nostalgia runs, which makes it one of the few entries here with a genuine afterlife.","sources":[{"title":"Crystal Pepsi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pepsi","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260616205753/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pepsi"},{"title":"The Rise and Fall of Crystal Pepsi","url":"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/rise-and-fall-crystal-pepsi-180960311/","publisher":"Smithsonian Magazine","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"czechoslovakia","name":"Czechoslovakia, as a country name","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"place name","born":{"value":"1918","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1992-12-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"The federal parliament passed a constitutional act dissolving the state at the end of the year.","summary":"Czechoslovakia dissolved on the last day of 1992 into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, by legislation, on schedule, without a referendum and without a shot fired. It is the standard example of a country ending quietly, and it is called the Velvet Divorce in deliberate echo of the Velvet Revolution three years earlier. Polling at the time suggested most citizens of both halves would have preferred to stay together.","sources":[{"title":"Dissolution of Czechoslovakia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260708223616/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia"},{"title":"Czechoslovak history: Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/Velvet-Revolution-and-Velvet-Divorce","publisher":"Encyclopædia Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260227023428/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/Velvet-Revolution-and-Velvet-Divorce"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"dodge-viper","name":"Dodge Viper","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"sports car","maker":"Dodge","country":"US","born":{"value":"1992","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2017-08","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"A new federal ejection-mitigation airbag requirement would not fit the Viper's existing packaging.","summary":"Twenty-five years of a hand-assembled 8.4-litre V10, built at the end by a crew of 87 people in a plant whose Detroit zip code made the Viper the only American sports car actually built in Motor City. It was not killed by neglect: FCA design boss Ralph Gilles said publicly that the car had sold well over its final couple of years and that the problem was a coming ejection-mitigation airbag regulation the body could not package. The last Viper rolled off the Conner Avenue line in August 2017, weeks before the plant closed for good.","sources":[{"title":"The last Dodge Viper has rolled off the assembly line","url":"https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1112169_the-last-dodge-viper-has-rolled-off-the-assembly-line","publisher":"Motor Authority","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"The end is here: The Dodge Viper dies on August 31","url":"https://www.foxnews.com/auto/the-end-is-here-the-dodge-viper-dies-on-august-31","publisher":"Fox News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"eastern-air-lines","name":"Eastern Air Lines","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","country":"US","born":{"value":"1926","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1991-01-18","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"merger","causeNote":"A bitter strike and an owner selling off the profitable routes drained it past recovery.","summary":"Eastern once ran the busiest air route in the country and was, under Eddie Rickenbacker, among the most profitable airlines in the world. Its final decade was a war between management and its unions that culminated in a 1989 strike the airline never recovered from, while its most valuable routes and aircraft were sold to service debt. It stopped flying in January 1991, eleven months before Pan Am did the same.","sources":[{"title":"Eastern Air Lines","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723224236/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines"},{"title":"Eastern Airlines Is Shutting Down and Plans to Liquidate Its Assets","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/19/business/eastern-airlines-is-shutting-down-and-plans-to-liquidate-its-assets.html","publisher":"The New York Times","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250829083556/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/19/business/eastern-airlines-is-shutting-down-and-plans-to-liquidate-its-assets.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"edsel","name":"Edsel","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"Ford Motor Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1957-09","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"1959-11","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Ford spent years telling America something extraordinary was coming and then showed them a slightly odd Mercury.","summary":"The Edsel is the benchmark against which every subsequent product failure is measured, and it earned the title mostly through anticipation. Ford ran a long, deliberately mysterious campaign promising a car unlike any other, then launched a vehicle that was recognisably a Ford at a price nobody wanted during a recession. It lasted twenty-six months and cost roughly $250 million, and its name became a common noun for failure.","sources":[{"title":"Edsel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260724210456/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel"},{"title":"Autos: The $250 Million Flop","url":"https://time.com/archive/6888827/autos-the-250-million-flop/","publisher":"TIME","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20241219012251/https://time.com/archive/6888827/autos-the-250-million-flop/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"enron","name":"Enron","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"energy trading company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1985","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2001-12-02","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeNote":"Enron filed for Chapter 11 on December 2, 2001, after restatements exposed the off-balance-sheet partnerships that had been hiding its debts and losses.","summary":"Formed in 1985 by the merger of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, Enron spent the 1990s persuading Wall Street that a pipeline company was really a trading floor. The accounting behind that story turned out to be a set of subsidiaries built to park debt where investors could not see it. Dynegy walked away from an $8.4 billion rescue in late November 2001, and the filing came days later, with more than $60 billion in assets, the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history at the time.","sources":[{"title":"Enron Fast Facts","url":"https://www.cnn.com/us/enron-fast-facts","publisher":"CNN","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Enron files for bankruptcy","url":"https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-2/enron-files-for-bankruptcy","publisher":"History.com","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Enron scandal","url":"https://www.britannica.com/event/Enron-scandal","publisher":"Encyclopaedia Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"flip-video","name":"Flip Video","aka":["Flip","Flip Mino","Flip UltraHD"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"Cameras","maker":"Cisco Systems (originally Pure Digital Technologies)","country":"US","born":{"value":"2006","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2011-04-12","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"Cisco closed the Flip business on 12 April 2011 as part of a retreat from consumer products, cutting 550 jobs.","summary":"The Flip was a pocket camcorder with almost no buttons and a USB plug that flipped out of the case, and it sold well enough that Cisco paid 590 million dollars for its maker in 2009. Two years later Cisco decided it should not be in consumer electronics at all and closed the business on 12 April 2011, eliminating 550 jobs. The product was still a hot seller when it was killed. It was simply owned by the wrong company.","sources":[{"title":"Cisco To Shut Down Flip Video Business, Will Give Pink Slips To 550 Employees","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/cisco-to-shut-down-flip-video-business-will-give-pink-slips-to-550-employees/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250926093749/https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/cisco-to-shut-down-flip-video-business-will-give-pink-slips-to-550-employees/"},{"title":"Why Cisco killed the Flip mini camcorder","url":"https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/why-cisco-killed-the-flip-mini-camcorder/","publisher":"CNET","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251227003402/https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/why-cisco-killed-the-flip-mini-camcorder/"},{"title":"Cisco to close Flip video camera business","url":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13052370","publisher":"BBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ford-model-t","name":"Ford Model T","aka":["Tin Lizzie"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"mass-market car","maker":"Ford Motor Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1908-10","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"1927-05-26","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"Ford stopped the Model T so the factories could be retooled for its replacement, the Model A, after demand fell too far to sustain both.","summary":"Nineteen years and roughly 15 million cars, at a price that fell from about $850 to as little as $260. By 1927 it was obsolescent technology next to more powerful, more comfortable rivals, and Ford sold fewer than 500,000 cars that year, less than half of Chevrolet's total. Henry and Edsel Ford drove the fifteen-millionth car off the Highland Park line on 26 May 1927, and the Model A arrived in select cities that December.","replacedByName":"Ford Model A","sources":[{"title":"Last day of Model T production at Ford","url":"https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-26/last-day-of-model-t-production-at-ford","publisher":"HISTORY","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Model T","url":"https://www.asme.org/about-asme/engineering-history/landmarks/233-model-t","publisher":"ASME","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Fifteen-Millionth Ford Car on the Assembly Line on the Last Day of Model T Production, May 26, 1927","url":"https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/304044","publisher":"The Henry Ford","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"four-loko-caffeinated","name":"Four Loko (caffeinated formula)","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Alcoholic beverage","maker":"Phusion Projects","country":"US","born":{"value":"2005","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2010-11","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"The FDA told four manufacturers on 17 November 2010 that the caffeine added to their alcoholic malt beverages was an unsafe food additive and that seizure of the products was possible, a day after Phusion Projects said it would reformulate.","summary":"Three Ohio State graduates founded Phusion Projects in 2005 and launched Four Loko the same year, a caffeinated malt beverage in 12-ounce cans at 6% ABV. A bigger, stronger, camouflage-printed can in 2008 made it a campus fixture and earned it the nickname blackout in a can. Phusion announced on 16 November 2010 that it would strip out the caffeine, guarana and taurine; the FDA warned four makers the next day that the added caffeine was an unsafe food additive and that seizure was possible. Four Loko is still sold, minus the stimulants that made it famous.","sources":[{"title":"Caffeinated Alcoholic Beverages","url":"https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/caffeinated-alcoholic-beverages","publisher":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"FDA Issues Warning to Four Loko, 3 Other Drink Makers","url":"https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fda-weighing-ban-alcoholic-energy-drinks/story?id=12160466","publisher":"ABC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"8 Things You Should Know About Four Loko","url":"https://vinepair.com/articles/ntk-four-loko/","publisher":"VinePair","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"funai-vcr","name":"Funai VCR","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"videocassette recorder","maker":"Funai Electric","country":"JP","born":{"value":"1985","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2016-07","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"Funai halted VCR production because its key component suppliers had left a market too small to serve.","summary":"Funai started building videotape players in 1983 and recorders in 1985, and at the peak the industry was shipping 15 million machines a year. In 2015 Funai made 750,000, and the component suppliers it depended on walked away from a market that had shrunk that far. A company spokesman said Funai would like to keep going to meet customer requests but could no longer get the parts, which made it the last company on earth to build a VCR.","sources":[{"title":"Japanese company Funai pulls the plug on VCR production","url":"https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/funai-vcr-1.3693660","publisher":"CBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"World's Last Remaining VCR Company to Cease Production This Month","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/world-s-last-remaining-vcr-company-cease-production-month-n614836","publisher":"NBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"RIP VHS: World's Last VCR Will Be Made This Month","url":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/brittanyhodak/2016/07/23/rip-vhs-worlds-last-vcr-to-be-made-this-month/","publisher":"Forbes","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-daydream-view","name":"Google Daydream View","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"VR headset","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2016","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2019-10-15","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Google stopped selling Daydream View after consumer and developer adoption never arrived.","summary":"Google's cloth-covered viewer turned a Pixel into a VR headset, launched alongside the first Pixel in 2016, and only worked with a short list of certified phones. Not one phone released in 2019 supported it, including Google's own Pixel 4. Google's postmortem was unusually blunt for a hardware obituary: there had never been the broad consumer or developer adoption it hoped for, and usage of the headset had been falling the whole time.","sources":[{"title":"Google is discontinuing the Daydream View VR headset, and the Pixel 4 won't support Daydream","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20915609/google-daydream-view-vr-headset-discontinued-pixel-4-support","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Google Ships Pixel 4 Without Daydream VR Support, Stops Selling Daydream Viewer","url":"https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/pixel-4-google-daydream-vr-1203371182/","publisher":"Variety","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-glass-consumer","name":"Google Glass (consumer edition)","aka":["Glass Explorer Edition"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"wearable","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2013-04","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2015-01-19","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"A camera you could not tell was recording made wearers unwelcome in bars, cinemas and conversations.","summary":"Glass failed on etiquette rather than engineering. The hardware worked; the problem was that nobody around the wearer could tell whether they were being filmed, which produced bans, confrontations, and the word Glasshole entering the language within a year. Google ended consumer sales in January 2015 after about twenty-one months and redirected the product into factories and warehouses, where nobody has to consent to being near it.","sources":[{"title":"Google to stop consumer sales of Glass to redesign device","url":"https://federalnewsnetwork.com/technology-main/2015/01/google-to-stop-consumer-sales-of-glass-to-redesign-device/","publisher":"Federal News Network","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Google Glass","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260717192147/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-podcasts","name":"Google Podcasts","category":"software-services","subcategory":"Media app","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2018-06","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2024-06","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Google shut the Google Podcasts app down in 2024 and moved podcast listening into YouTube Music.","summary":"Google Podcasts launched on Android in June 2018, took until March 2020 to reach iOS, and was marked for death in September 2023 so its audience could be herded into YouTube Music. American users lost the app on 2 April 2024; everyone else lost it that June. Six years is a respectable run by the standards of Google's own graveyard, which now has enough residents to need a filing system.","sources":[{"title":"Google Podcasts' shutdown date came and went, but it still works (for now)","url":"https://www.androidpolice.com/google-podcasts-shutdown-app-service/","publisher":"Android Police","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Google shutting down Podcasts app globally in June 2024","url":"https://www.androidheadlines.com/2024/04/google-shutting-down-podcasts-app-globally-in-june-2024.html","publisher":"Android Headlines","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250810051748/https://www.androidheadlines.com/2024/04/google-shutting-down-podcasts-app-globally-in-june-2024.html"},{"title":"Google Podcasts Shutting Down, Content Producers Urged To Migrate To YouTube Music","url":"https://deadline.com/2024/03/google-podcasts-shutting-down-content-producers-migrate-youtube-music-1235872435/","publisher":"Deadline","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250723203452/https://deadline.com/2024/03/google-podcasts-shutting-down-content-producers-migrate-youtube-music-1235872435/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-reader","name":"Google Reader","category":"software-services","subcategory":"RSS reader","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2005-10-07","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2013-07-01","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"Google retired it to concentrate on fewer products, over the objections of a small but intensely loyal userbase.","summary":"For eight years Google Reader was how a large share of the technical internet read the technical internet. Google's shutdown notice cited declining usage and a company-wide push toward fewer products, and gave users a three-month runway to export their subscriptions. The closure is still cited as the moment RSS stopped being a mainstream consumer technology, and a small industry of replacement readers exists because of it.","sources":[{"title":"Powering Down Google Reader","url":"https://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html","publisher":"Official Google Reader Blog","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260722172723/http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html"},{"title":"Google kills Reader, breaks internet's heart","url":"https://www.techradar.com/news/internet/google-kills-reader-breaks-internet-s-heart-1137374","publisher":"TechRadar","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251221180831/https://www.techradar.com/news/internet/google-kills-reader-breaks-internet-s-heart-1137374"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-stadia","name":"Google Stadia","category":"software-services","subcategory":"cloud gaming","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2019-11-19","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2023-01-18","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Nobody would buy a games library from a company with a reputation for switching things off.","summary":"Stadia worked. The streaming technology was genuinely good, and reviewers said so. What it could not overcome was the reasonable suspicion that Google would lose interest, which made buying full-price games on the platform feel like a bet rather than a purchase. That suspicion proved correct in three years and two months, and Google refunded every game and every piece of hardware on the way out.","sources":[{"title":"Here's Google Stadia's Exact Date And Time Of Death","url":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/01/11/heres-google-stadias-exact-date-and-time-of-death/","publisher":"Forbes","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20250725162320/https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/01/11/heres-google-stadias-exact-date-and-time-of-death/"},{"title":"Google Stadia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Stadia","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260720232628/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Stadia"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-wave","name":"Google Wave","category":"software-services","subcategory":"collaboration","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2009","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2012-04","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Google stopped development barely a year in, after users proved unable to explain what it was for.","summary":"Wave merged email, chat, and document editing into one live-updating object, and its demo was genuinely dazzling. The problem was that nobody could say what problem it solved, including the people who liked it. Google halted development in August 2010, roughly a year after the preview opened, and finally switched the service off in 2012. Several of its ideas resurfaced later inside Google Docs, which is the usual afterlife for an interesting failure.","sources":[{"title":"Google Wave","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260722115718/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave"},{"title":"Update on Google Wave","url":"https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html","publisher":"Google (Official Google Blog)","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260723140134/http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"google-plus","name":"Google+","aka":["Google Plus"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"social network","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2011-06-28","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2019-04-02","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"Google disclosed a bug exposing private profile data and announced the consumer shutdown in the same breath.","summary":"Google+ was pushed onto users through every product Google owned, which generated enormous account numbers and very little actual use. The end came in October 2018, when Google revealed an API flaw that had exposed private profile fields and announced the consumer version's closure alongside it. The stated reasons were the security problem and low engagement together, which is a rare case of a company naming both the trigger and the underlying cause at once.","replaces":["orkut"],"sources":[{"title":"Google+","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%2B","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723050856/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%2B"},{"title":"Project Strobe: Protecting your data, improving our third-party APIs","url":"https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/","publisher":"Google","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251228223902/https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"grooveshark","name":"Grooveshark","category":"software-services","subcategory":"music streaming","maker":"Escape Media Group","country":"US","born":{"value":"2006","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2015-04-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"lawsuit","causeNote":"Grooveshark shut down immediately on 30 April 2015 as a term of its copyright settlement with Universal, Sony and Warner.","summary":"Grooveshark's model was letting users upload whatever they liked and streaming it back to everyone else, free, which Universal, Sony and Warner took to court. On the eve of trial, with up to 736 million dollars in damages on the table, Escape Media agreed to pay 50 million and switch the service off the same day. The farewell note left in its place opened, entirely without irony, with the words Dear music fans.","sources":[{"title":"Grooveshark Shuts Down After Eight Years","url":"https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grooveshark-shuts-down-after-eight-years-74101/","publisher":"Rolling Stone","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250604084256/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grooveshark-shuts-down-after-eight-years-74101/"},{"title":"Digital Music Provider Grooveshark Dismantled in Major Victory for Music Recording Industry","url":"https://www.proskauer.com/alert/digital-music-provider-grooveshark-dismantled-in-major-victory-for-music-recording-industry","publisher":"Proskauer Rose LLP","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260104171157/https://www.proskauer.com/alert/digital-music-provider-grooveshark-dismantled-in-major-victory-for-music-recording-industry"},{"title":"Grooveshark","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260703213311/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"hahnium","name":"Hahnium (element 105)","aka":["Ha"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"element name","maker":"International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry","born":{"value":"1970","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1997","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"IUPAC settled the naming dispute over element 105 by awarding it to the Russian laboratory as dubnium.","summary":"Berkeley made element 105 in 1970 and proposed hahnium, after Otto Hahn. Dubna had got there first and proposed nielsbohrium. American textbooks then printed hahnium for a quarter of a century while Soviet ones printed something else, which is how the periodic table acquired a Cold War front line. IUPAC ended the Transfermium Wars in 1997 by naming element 105 dubnium, after the Russian town, and hahnium after nothing at all.","sources":[{"title":"Dubnium - Element information, properties and uses","url":"https://periodic-table.rsc.org/element/105/dubnium","publisher":"Royal Society of Chemistry","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260713023819/https://periodic-table.rsc.org/element/105/Dubnium"},{"title":"Dubnium Element Facts","url":"https://www.chemicool.com/elements/dubnium.html","publisher":"Chemicool","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260507001219/https://www.chemicool.com/elements/dubnium.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"hd-dvd","name":"HD DVD","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"optical disc format","maker":"Toshiba","country":"JP","born":{"value":"2006-03-31","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2008-02-19","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Warner Bros. defected to Blu-ray in January 2008 and Toshiba abandoned the format within six weeks.","summary":"HD DVD was the loser of the last great format war, and it lost fast. Toshiba shipped the first player in March 2006 and announced the format's discontinuation twenty-three months later, after Warner Bros. went Blu-ray exclusive and Walmart followed. Toshiba's CEO framed the surrender as a service to the market: a swift decision would let high-definition video actually develop rather than stall in a standoff.","replacedByName":"Blu-ray","sources":[{"title":"Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses","url":"https://www.global.toshiba/ww/news/corporate/2008/02/pr1903.html","publisher":"Toshiba","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260606181934/https://www.global.toshiba/ww/news/corporate/2008/02/pr1903.html"},{"title":"Toshiba Kills HD DVD, Official","url":"https://gizmodo.com/toshiba-kills-hd-dvd-official-357957","publisher":"Gizmodo","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20240619001100/https://gizmodo.com/toshiba-kills-hd-dvd-official-357957"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"hi-c-ecto-cooler","name":"Hi-C Ecto Cooler","aka":["Ecto Cooler"],"category":"food-drink","subcategory":"juice drink","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1987","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2001","precision":"year"},"status":"revived","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"The cartoon that justified a bright green citrus drink had been off the air for a decade.","summary":"Ecto Cooler was a promotional tie-in for The Real Ghostbusters, and it outlived the cartoon by roughly eleven years, quietly dropping the branding along the way and selling on taste alone. Coca-Cola finally retired it in 2001. It has returned twice since for limited runs timed to Ghostbusters films, which means the drink has now been resurrected more often than the franchise that created it.","sources":[{"title":"Ecto Cooler","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecto_Cooler","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260301061049/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecto_Cooler"},{"title":"Coca-Cola may bring back 'Ghostbusters' Hi-C Ecto Cooler","url":"https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/coca-cola-may-bring-back-ghostbusters-hi-c-ecto-cooler","publisher":"Fox News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"howard-johnsons","name":"Howard Johnson's restaurants","aka":["HoJo's","Howard Johnson's Restaurants"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"restaurant chain","maker":"Howard Johnson's Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1925","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2022-03","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"Interstate fast-food chains took the highway traffic the orange-roofed restaurants had been built to catch.","summary":"At its peak Howard Johnson's was the largest restaurant chain in America, more than 1,000 orange roofs selling twenty-eight flavours of ice cream and fried clam plates to the interstate. Fast food ate the format from underneath it, and by 2015 a handful were left. The last one, in Lake George, New York, never reopened after the winter of 2022, and it was not even a franchise by then, just a grandfathered licence to use the name.","sources":[{"title":"Howard Johnson's","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Johnson%27s","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Final Howard Johnson's restaurant shuts down","url":"https://www.boston.com/news/restaurants/2022/06/02/final-howard-johnsons-restaurant-shuts-down/","publisher":"Boston.com","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Last HoJo's closed in Lake George","url":"https://www.wcax.com/2022/06/02/last-hojos-closed-lake-george/","publisher":"WCAX (Associated Press)","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20220612234530/https://www.wcax.com/2022/06/02/last-hojos-closed-lake-george/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"icq","name":"ICQ","category":"software-services","subcategory":"Communication","maker":"VK (originally Mirabilis)","country":"IL","born":{"value":"1996-11","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2024-06-26","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"VK shut ICQ down on 26 June 2024 after decades of declining use.","summary":"ICQ arrived in November 1996, gave the world the uh-oh notification sound, and had 100 million registered accounts by 2001. AOL bought it, then sold it to a Russian company, and it drifted quietly for another fourteen years. The end came as a two-line notice on icq.com reading \"ICQ will stop working from June 26.\" Nearly 28 years of service, closed with less ceremony than a parking notice.","sources":[{"title":"ICQ, One of the Oldest Instant Messengers, Is Shutting Down","url":"https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-apps/152479/icq-one-of-the-oldest-instant-messengers-is-shutting-down","publisher":"PCMag","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260217143302/https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-apps/152479/icq-one-of-the-oldest-instant-messengers-is-shutting-down"},{"title":"Pioneering instant messaging program ICQ is finally shutting down after nearly 30 years","url":"https://www.pcgamer.com/software/well-miss-you-pioneering-instant-messaging-program-icq-is-finally-shutting-down-after-nearly-30-years/","publisher":"PC Gamer","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"inbox-by-gmail","name":"Inbox by Gmail","category":"software-services","subcategory":"email client","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2014-10-22","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2019-04-02","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Google folded its best ideas into Gmail and retired the app that had them first.","summary":"Inbox was Google's attempt to rethink email around bundling, snoozing, and reminders, and it developed the kind of devoted following that a second product inside a company with a dominant first product is not allowed to keep. Google migrated the features it liked into Gmail and shut Inbox down on the same day it closed consumer Google+. Its users are still noticeably bitter about it.","replacedByName":"Gmail","sources":[{"title":"Inbox by Gmail","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbox_by_Gmail","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260717192147/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbox_by_Gmail"},{"title":"Inbox is signing off: find your favorite features in the new Gmail","url":"https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/inbox-signing-find-your-favorite-features-new-gmail/","publisher":"Google","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260612112210/https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/inbox-signing-find-your-favorite-features-new-gmail/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"internet-explorer","name":"Internet Explorer","aka":["IE","Microsoft Internet Explorer"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"web browser","maker":"Microsoft","country":"US","born":{"value":"1995-08-16","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2022-06-15","precision":"day"},"status":"zombie","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Microsoft replaced it with Edge and spent years actively persuading people to stop using it.","summary":"Internet Explorer won the first browser war so completely that it reached roughly 95% share, then stopped being developed, which is how the second browser war started. Its long decline made it the internet's default punchline, and Microsoft eventually joined in with its own campaign urging users to switch. It was retired in 2022 after nearly 27 years, though IE mode still runs inside Edge to keep corporate systems alive, which means it is dead and still quietly executing.","replacedByName":"Microsoft Edge","sources":[{"title":"Internet Explorer 11 has retired and is officially out of support","url":"https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2022/06/15/internet-explorer-11-has-retired-and-is-officially-out-of-support-what-you-need-to-know/","publisher":"Microsoft","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723170755/https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2022/06/15/internet-explorer-11-has-retired-and-is-officially-out-of-support-what-you-need-to-know/"},{"title":"Internet Explorer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260724112333/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ipod-classic","name":"iPod Classic","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"media player","maker":"Apple","country":"US","born":{"value":"2007-09-05","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2014-09-09","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Apple could no longer source the parts, and the phone in everyone's pocket had absorbed the job anyway.","summary":"The Classic was the last iPod with a spinning hard drive and a click wheel, and by the end it was the only way to carry a very large music library in your pocket. Apple removed it from the store the day it announced the Apple Watch, without ceremony. Tim Cook later explained the parts were simply no longer available and redesigning it was not worth doing.","replacedByName":"The iPhone","sources":[{"title":"iPod Classic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Classic","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260716070054/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Classic"},{"title":"iPod classic comes to an end: a look back at Apple’s iconic music player","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/4715274/ipod-classic-discontinued-a-visual-history","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260606144752/https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/4715274/ipod-classic-discontinued-a-visual-history"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ipod-nano","name":"iPod nano","aka":["iPod Nano"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"Media players","maker":"Apple","country":"US","born":{"value":"2005-09","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2017-07-27","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Apple discontinued the iPod nano on 27 July 2017, leaving the app-capable iPod touch as the only iPod.","summary":"The iPod nano arrived in 2005 as a flash-memory sliver that immediately killed the iPod mini, then ran through seven generations including a square one people wore as a wristwatch. Apple last gave it a meaningful update in 2012 and pulled it from the website without a press release on 27 July 2017, offering only a line about \"simplifying our iPod lineup.\" Twelve years, seven redesigns, and one phone in every pocket that already did the job.","sources":[{"title":"Apple discontinues iPod nano and shuffle, and doubles iPod touch capacities","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/27/apple-discontinues-ipod-nano-and-shuffle-and-doubles-ipod-touch-capacities-to-32gb-and-128gb/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Apple discontinues iPod Nano and Shuffle, updates iPod Touch models","url":"https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/07/apple-discontinues-ipod-nano-and-shuffle-updates-ipod-touch-models/","publisher":"Ars Technica","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260716113258/https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/07/apple-discontinues-ipod-nano-and-shuffle-updates-ipod-touch-models/"},{"title":"Apple kills off iPod Nano and Shuffle","url":"https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/27/apple-kills-off-ipod-nano-and-shuffle/516812001/","publisher":"USA Today","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ipod-touch","name":"iPod touch","aka":["Apple iPod touch"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"portable media player","maker":"Apple","country":"US","born":{"value":"2007-09","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2022-05-10","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Apple discontinued the iPod touch because the rest of its product line had absorbed the job of carrying your music.","summary":"Apple introduced the iPod touch on September 5, 2007 as the iPhone's Multi-Touch interface without the phone, and it went on to outlive every other iPod by years. Apple's own explanation for retiring it was that the iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac had absorbed the job, alongside a music library that had grown from 1,000 songs on a hard drive to more than 90 million streamable ones. The last model was still selling at $199 on a 2019 processor when Apple announced on May 10, 2022 that it would be available only while supplies lasted, ending the iPod line 20 years after the first one shipped.","sources":[{"title":"The music lives on","url":"https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/the-music-lives-on/","publisher":"Apple Newsroom","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Apple discontinues the last iPod model","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/apple-discontinues-the-last-ipod-model.html","publisher":"CNBC","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"After 20 years, Apple is discontinuing the iPod: Available while supplies last","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apple-ipod-touch-discontinued/","publisher":"CBS News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"itt-technical-institute","name":"ITT Technical Institute","aka":["ITT Tech"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"for-profit college chain","maker":"ITT Educational Services, Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1969","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2016-09-06","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"ITT closed all 136 campuses on September 6, 2016, twelve days after the Department of Education barred it from enrolling new students who rely on federal aid.","summary":"ITT Educational Services had run career programs under the ITT Technical Institute name since 1969, funded almost entirely by federal student aid. On August 25, 2016 the Department of Education cut off that supply, banning new federally funded enrollments and tightening cash requirements. Twelve days later the company shut all 136 campuses across 38 states at once, leaving roughly 35,000 enrolled students with nowhere to finish, and announced it would cease operations entirely effective September 16.","sources":[{"title":"The Closure of ITT Technical Institute (IN10577)","url":"https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IN10577.html","publisher":"Congressional Research Service","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"ITT Technical Institutes To Cease Operations","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/itt-technical-institutes-to-cease-operations/","publisher":"CBS News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"ITT Educational Services, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2015","url":"https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/922475/000119312516504396/d129120d10k.htm","publisher":"U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"juicero","name":"Juicero","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"connected kitchen appliance","maker":"Juicero","country":"US","born":{"value":"2016-03","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2017-09-01","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"scandal","causeNote":"Juicero could not make its press profitable and suspended sales while hunting for an acquirer.","summary":"A $700 wifi-connected press that squeezed proprietary produce packs, backed by roughly $120 million from Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. In April 2017 a Bloomberg report showed the packs could be squeezed by hand just as well, and the price had already been cut to $400. Sixteen months after launch the company suspended sales of the Press and the packs, offered 90 days of refunds, and went looking for someone to buy the remains.","sources":[{"title":"Juicero, the ridiculous $400 juicer company, is shutting down","url":"https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-01-juicero-shuts-down-ridiculous-400-really.html","publisher":"Engadget","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Silicon Valley's Infamous $400 Juicer Startup Is Shutting Down","url":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/09/01/silicon-valleys-infamous-400-juicer-startup-is-shutting-down/","publisher":"Forbes","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"RIP Juicero, the $400 venture-backed juice machine","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/01/rip-juicero-the-400-venture-backed-juice-machine/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"hurricane-name-katrina","name":"Katrina, as a hurricane name","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"retired storm name","maker":"World Meteorological Organization","born":{"value":"1981","precision":"circa"},"died":{"value":"2006-04","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"disaster","causeNote":"The WMO retires any storm name attached to a disaster too deadly for the name to be reused.","summary":"Atlantic hurricane names rotate on a six-year cycle, so a name normally comes back around forever. The exception is a storm so destructive that reusing the name would be insensitive, at which point the WMO's hurricane committee strikes it permanently. Katrina was retired in spring 2006 alongside Dennis, Rita, Stan and Wilma, the largest single retirement in the list's history. The replacement name is Katia.","sources":[{"title":"Tropical cyclone naming","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_naming","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260720185641/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_naming"},{"title":"Tropical Cyclone Naming History and Retired Names","url":"https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml","publisher":"NOAA National Hurricane Center","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723083638/https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"kinect","name":"Kinect","aka":["Project Natal","Kinect for Xbox 360","Kinect for Xbox One"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"Game peripherals","maker":"Microsoft","country":"US","born":{"value":"2010-11","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2017-10","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Microsoft ended Kinect production in October 2017 after unbundling the sensor from the Xbox One.","summary":"Kinect was teased as Project Natal in 2009, launched in November 2010, and sold around 35 million units on the premise that gaming's future involved standing up in your living room. Bundling it with every Xbox One went badly enough that Microsoft unbundled it, and production ended in October 2017 with no announcement at all. The news surfaced only because its creator mentioned it in an interview.","sources":[{"title":"Microsoft kills off Kinect, stops manufacturing it","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/25/16542870/microsoft-kinect-dead-stop-manufacturing","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Microsoft Is Finally Laying Kinect To Rest, Officially Ending Production","url":"https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-ends-kinect-production,35776.html","publisher":"Tom's Hardware","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Microsoft has officially discontinued the Kinect","url":"https://mobilesyrup.com/2017/10/25/microsoft-has-officially-discontinued-the-kinect/","publisher":"MobileSyrup","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"kodachrome","name":"Kodachrome","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"photographic film","maker":"Eastman Kodak","country":"US","born":{"value":"1935","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2010-12-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Digital sensors removed the reason to shoot film, and the K-14 process was too complex to keep alive for the remainder.","summary":"Kodachrome produced colour so distinctive that it defined how the twentieth century looks in photographs, and it required a development process so specialised that only a handful of labs on Earth could handle it. Kodak stopped manufacturing it in 2009. The last roll was processed at Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas on 30 December 2010, and there is now no way to develop any remaining stock. The dyes are exceptionally stable, so the images will outlast almost everything shot since.","replacedByName":"Digital photography","sources":[{"title":"Kodachrome's road ends at Kansas photo lab","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna40853048","publisher":"NBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20241221185744/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna40853048"},{"title":"Kodachrome","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260714065027/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"laserdisc","name":"LaserDisc","aka":["DiscoVision"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"video format","born":{"value":"1978","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2009-07","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"DVD delivered comparable quality on a disc a quarter the size that people could also record onto.","summary":"LaserDisc offered far better picture and sound than VHS from 1978 onward and never captured more than a sliver of the market, because the discs were the size of a dinner plate, you had to flip them mid-film, and you could not record. It found a real home among collectors and in Japan, where new titles kept appearing until 2001. Pioneer built the last players in 2009, thirty-one years after launch.","replacedByName":"DVD","sources":[{"title":"LaserDisc","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260717031538/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc"},{"title":"7 Discontinued Home Video Formats That Were Commercial Failures","url":"https://www.slashgear.com/1679204/discontinued-home-video-formats-failed/","publisher":"SlashGear","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20251214101850/https://www.slashgear.com/1679204/discontinued-home-video-formats-failed/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"lehman-brothers","name":"Lehman Brothers","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"investment bank","country":"US","born":{"value":"1850","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2008-09-15","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"disaster","causeNote":"Lehman filed for Chapter 11 in the early hours of September 15, 2008, after a weekend of rescue talks produced neither a buyer nor a federal backstop.","summary":"Three German immigrant brothers running a store in Montgomery, Alabama founded the firm in 1850, and it survived the Civil War, the Depression and every panic in between. What it did not survive was a balance sheet leveraged into subprime mortgages. When the weekend of emergency talks ended with no buyer and no government rescue, it filed before dawn on Monday declaring $639 billion in assets against $613 billion in debts, still the largest bankruptcy in US history.","sources":[{"title":"Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers","url":"https://www.britannica.com/event/bankruptcy-of-Lehman-Brothers","publisher":"Encyclopaedia Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy","url":"https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/september-15/lehman-brothers-collapses","publisher":"History.com","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/sep/15/lehmanbrothers.creditcrunch","publisher":"The Guardian","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"leningrad","name":"Leningrad, as a city name","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"city name","country":"RU","born":{"value":"1924","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1991","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"The name was retired in 1991 when the city's pre-revolutionary name, Saint Petersburg, was officially restored during the collapse of the Soviet Union.","summary":"The city was renamed Petrograd in 1914 and Leningrad in 1924, immediately after Lenin's death. The Soviet name lasted 67 years and went out with the system that issued it, the old imperial name returning in 1991 along with the original names of streets, squares and monuments. The surrounding region is still Leningrad Oblast, so the name outlived the city it was made for.","replacedByName":"St. Petersburg","sources":[{"title":"St. Petersburg | Map, Points of Interest, & History","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/St-Petersburg-Russia","publisher":"Encyclopaedia Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"26 years ago: Leningrad renamed original title","url":"https://www.rbth.com/history/326095-26-years-ago-leningrad-renamed","publisher":"Russia Beyond","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"mcdlt","name":"McDLT","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"fast food","maker":"McDonald's","country":"US","born":{"value":"1984","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1990","precision":"circa"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"Environmental pressure forced McDonald's to drop the polystyrene clamshell that was the product's entire reason to exist.","summary":"The McDLT shipped in a two-sided foam container so the hot side could stay hot and the cool side could stay cool, a proposition McDonald's committed to hard enough to hire Jason Alexander to sing about it. The packaging was the product. When sustained environmental campaigning pushed McDonald's off polystyrene at the end of the decade, there was no version of the McDLT left to sell.","sources":[{"title":"McDLT","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDLT","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260406172648/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDLT"},{"title":"McDonald’s McD.L.T. Double Clam Shell Container","url":"https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1200811","publisher":"Smithsonian National Museum of American History","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250526070500/https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1200811"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"mercury-brand","name":"Mercury","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"Ford Motor Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1938","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2011-01-04","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Ford announced on 2 June 2010 that it would stop building Mercury after years of declining sales.","summary":"Mercury spent 72 years occupying the narrow gap between a Ford that was slightly too plain and a Lincoln that was slightly too expensive, and eventually the gap closed. Ford made it official on 2 June 2010, blaming years of declining sales, and planned to wind production down in the fourth quarter. Fleet orders dragged it into the new year: the last Mercury, a Grand Marquis, cleared final assembly at St. Thomas on 4 January 2011.","sources":[{"title":"Ford says it is scrapping the Mercury brand","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna37472005","publisher":"NBC News / Associated Press","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Mercury Officially Gets Ax From Ford","url":"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/06/mercury_officially_gets_ax_fro.html","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Mercury Grand Marquis - St. Thomas Ford Assembly Plant","url":"https://www.elgincounty.ca/ElginCounty/CulturalServices/Archives/st_thomas_ford_exhibit/the_vehicles/merc_grand_marquis.html","publisher":"Elgin County Archives","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"minidisc","name":"MiniDisc","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"audio format","maker":"Sony","country":"JP","born":{"value":"1992","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2013-03","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Flash memory made a rewritable optical disc for audio pointless.","summary":"MiniDisc was technically excellent, beloved by a small and permanent constituency, and commercially irrelevant outside Japan. It arrived to replace the cassette just as the CD burner and then the MP3 player made the entire premise moot. Sony announced in 2013 that it would stop shipping MiniDisc players after twenty-one years, and the format retains an unusually devoted afterlife among people who like owning physical media that clicks.","replacedByName":"The MP3 player","sources":[{"title":"MiniDisc","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260722224826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc"},{"title":"Sony quits manufacturing the 21-year-old MiniDisc player","url":"https://www.pcworld.com/article/456690/sony-quits-manufacturing-the-21-year-old-minidisc-player.html","publisher":"PCWorld","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20221126215020/https://www.pcworld.com/article/456690/sony-quits-manufacturing-the-21-year-old-minidisc-player.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"mixer","name":"Mixer","aka":["Beam"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"game livestreaming","maker":"Microsoft","country":"US","born":{"value":"2017","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2020-07-22","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Mixer never reached the viewership scale needed to compete with Twitch and YouTube, so Microsoft closed it and moved its community to Facebook Gaming.","summary":"Microsoft bought the startup Beam Interactive in 2016, relaunched it as Mixer in 2017, and paid millions to pull Ninja and Shroud off Twitch. None of it moved the numbers. Gaming chief Phil Spencer conceded Mixer had started 'pretty far behind' on monthly active viewers and never closed the gap, and the shutdown was announced during Apple's WWDC keynote, which is where you put news you would rather nobody read. Streamers got 30 days before every Mixer URL began redirecting to Facebook Gaming.","replacedByName":"Facebook Gaming","sources":[{"title":"Microsoft is shutting down Mixer and partnering with Facebook Gaming","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21299032/microsoft-mixer-closing-facebook-gaming-partnership-xcloud-feature","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Mixer Shutting Down, Microsoft Partnering With Facebook Gaming","url":"https://www.gamespot.com/articles/mixer-shutting-down-microsoft-partnering-with-face/1100-6478822/","publisher":"GameSpot","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Microsoft kills Mixer, will push users to Facebook Gaming","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/microsoft-kills-mixer-its-twitch-competitor/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"montgomery-ward","name":"Montgomery Ward","aka":["Wards","Montgomery Ward & Co."],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"retail chain","maker":"Montgomery Ward & Co.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1872-08","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2001","precision":"year"},"status":"revived","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"A weak Christmas ended a Chapter 11 turnaround and the company chose liquidation over another year of trading.","summary":"Montgomery Ward invented the mail-order catalogue in 1872 as a single sheet of paper with prices on it, and spent a century as the shop rural America ordered from. It killed the catalogue in 1985 to concentrate on stores it was steadily losing to Walmart and Target, filed Chapter 11, and gave up after one bad Christmas. It announced liquidation on 28 December 2000, closed 250 stores, cut 37,315 jobs, and returned in 2004 as a website.","sources":[{"title":"Montgomery Wards closing stores","url":"https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/12/28/Montgomery-Wards-closing-stores/4863977979600/","publisher":"United Press International","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250124115047/https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/12/28/Montgomery-Wards-closing-stores/4863977979600/"},{"title":"Montgomery Ward & Co.","url":"https://www.britannica.com/money/Montgomery-Ward-and-Co","publisher":"Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260720135055/https://www.britannica.com/money/Montgomery-Ward-and-Co"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"napster","name":"Napster","category":"software-services","subcategory":"file sharing","maker":"Napster, Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1999","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2001-07-11","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"lawsuit","causeNote":"Napster shut its entire network on 11 July 2001 to comply with a court injunction won by the record labels.","summary":"A March 2001 injunction ordered Napster to keep copyrighted music off its network. Napster filtered until it was blocking 99.4 percent of infringing files, and the court wanted 100, which at that scale is less a filtering problem than an existence problem. It shut the network down on 11 July 2001, roughly two years after launch. The brand has been bought and sold repeatedly since, always by someone selling music legally.","sources":[{"title":"Napster","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"20 Years Later: Metallica v. Napster, Inc.","url":"https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2020/04/13/20-years-later-metallica-v-napster-inc/","publisher":"Plagiarism Today","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260226234806/https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2020/04/13/20-years-later-metallica-v-napster-inc/"},{"title":"Napster Was Forced to Shut Down by Court Order 25 Years Ago","url":"https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/napster-forced-shut-down-court-195007963.html","publisher":"Yahoo Entertainment","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260527022516/https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/napster-forced-shut-down-court-195007963.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"necco-wafers","name":"Necco Wafers","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Confectionery","maker":"New England Confectionery Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1847","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2018-07","precision":"month"},"status":"revived","cause":"merger","causeNote":"Round Hill Investments, which had bought Necco out of bankruptcy months earlier, announced it was selling the brands on and closed the Revere plant the same day.","summary":"Necco Wafers had been in production since 1847, a 171-year run that ended with no notice at all. In July 2018 the company's new owner announced it was selling the brands to another manufacturer and closing the Revere, Massachusetts plant that same day; the roughly 230 workers were told to come back Friday for their final paychecks. Spangler bought the brand and had wafers back in production by May 2020, out of a plant in Mexico.","sources":[{"title":"Necco Plant Abruptly Closes","url":"https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/07/25/necco-plant-abruptly-closes","publisher":"WBUR","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Necco Candy Company Abruptly Shuts Down Revere, Mass. Plant, Stuns More Than 200 Workers","url":"https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/necco-candy-company-shuts-down-revere-massachusetts-plant-stuns-more-than-200-workers/138952/","publisher":"NBC Boston","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240304173128/https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/necco-candy-company-shuts-down-revere-massachusetts-plant-stuns-more-than-200-workers/138952/"},{"title":"Necco Wafers make their triumphant return 2 years after the factory that made them closed its doors","url":"https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/business/necco-wafers-trnd","publisher":"CNN Business","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251212004340/https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/business/necco-wafers-trnd/"},{"title":"Necco Wafers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necco_Wafers","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"nestle-magic-ball","name":"Nestlé Magic","aka":["Nestlé Magic Ball"],"category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Confectionery","maker":"Nestlé USA","country":"US","born":{"value":"1997","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1997-10","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"Nestlé withdrew it after the FDA refused to retreat from its position that a 1938 federal law banning nonnutritive objects inside confections made the toy-filled ball illegal.","summary":"Nestlé Magic was a hollow milk chocolate ball with a Disney figurine sealed inside, which had been illegal in the United States since 1938 under a law barring nonnutritive objects in confections. Nestlé sold it anyway in 1997, then reported a dozen incidents of children gagging on Hercules and Simba to federal regulators. With fourteen state attorneys general circling and the FDA refusing to back down, Nestlé pulled it that October.","sources":[{"title":"Nestle Pulls Controversial Gadget: Small Disney Toy Inside Of Chocolate-Covered Ball Called Danger To Children","url":"https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/oct/02/nestle-pulls-controversial-gadget-small-disney/","publisher":"The Spokesman-Review","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Why the FDA doesn't like chocolate eggs with toys inside","url":"https://www.marketplace.org/story/2017/04/14/why-fda-doesnt-chocolate-eggs-toys-inside","publisher":"Marketplace","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251114115227/https://www.marketplace.org/story/2017/04/14/why-fda-doesnt-chocolate-eggs-toys-inside"},{"title":"Wonder Ball","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Ball","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"new-coke","name":"New Coke, as the only Coca-Cola","aka":["Coke II"],"category":"food-drink","subcategory":"soft drink","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1985-04-23","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"1985-07-11","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"A national revolt made it unsellable despite it winning nearly every blind taste test Coca-Cola ran.","summary":"Coca-Cola tested the new formula on roughly 200,000 people and it beat both Pepsi and the original. What the research never asked was whether anyone wanted the old one taken away. The company received tens of thousands of angry calls and letters, protest groups formed, and 79 days later the original returned as Coca-Cola Classic. The reformulated version survived under other names until 2002, but its 79 days as the only Coke is the number everyone remembers.","replacedByName":"Coca-Cola Classic","sources":[{"title":"New Coke","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260716160917/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke"},{"title":"The Infamous 1985 Launch of New Coke","url":"https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/the-infamous-1985-launch-of-new-coke","publisher":"The Coca-Cola Company","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260213073458/https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/the-infamous-1985-launch-of-new-coke"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"northwest-airlines","name":"Northwest Airlines","aka":["Northwest Airways","NWA"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","maker":"Northwest Airlines Corporation","country":"US","born":{"value":"1926","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2010-01","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeNote":"Delta folded Northwest's flights into its own schedule, retired the flight numbers and switched off nwa.com.","summary":"Northwest Airways was incorporated in Minnesota in 1926, a few months before Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, and grew into the sixth-largest US airline by passenger miles. It filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and agreed to be bought by Delta in 2008. The brand did not end with a ceremony: over one weekend in January 2010 the reservation systems merged, nwa.com stopped resolving, and eighty-three years of flight numbers became Delta's.","sources":[{"title":"Delta Completes Integration of Northwest Airport and Reservations Systems; Northwest Flight Numbers and nwa.com Retired","url":"https://ir.delta.com/news/news-details/2010/Delta-Completes-Integration-of-Northwest-Airport-and-Reservations-Systems-Northwest-Flight-Numbers-and-nwacom-Retired/default.aspx","publisher":"Delta Air Lines","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"The rise and fall of Northwest Airlines","url":"https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2016/04/rise-and-fall-northwest-airlines/","publisher":"MinnPost / MNopedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20241214174307/https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2016/04/rise-and-fall-northwest-airlines/"},{"title":"Northwest Airlines","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260712083125/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"odwalla","name":"Odwalla","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Juices and smoothies","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1980","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2020-07","precision":"month"},"status":"revived","cause":"cost","causeNote":"Coca-Cola shut the brand along with the chilled direct-store-delivery network it required, a fleet of roughly 230 refrigerated trucks.","summary":"Odwalla was founded in 1980 by jazz musicians and sold to Coca-Cola in 2001, which then spent nearly two decades trying to make fresh juice fit a soda company's logistics. It never did. Odwalla moved on its own fleet of about 230 refrigerated trucks, and after July 31, 2020 Coca-Cola shut down the brand and the fleet together. Mexico's Grupo Jumex bought the name and brought Odwalla back in 2025.","sources":[{"title":"Coca-Cola is shutting down Odwalla juice","url":"https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/business/odwalla-juice-coca-cola","publisher":"CNN Business","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250912023229/https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/business/odwalla-juice-coca-cola/"},{"title":"Coca-Cola to Discontinue Odwalla Juice Brand","url":"https://www.cspdailynews.com/beverages/coca-cola-discontinue-odwalla-juice-brand","publisher":"CSP Daily News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Odwalla Returns Under Grupo Jumex's Stewardship","url":"https://www.bevnet.com/news/2025/odwalla-returns-under-grupo-jumexs-stewardship/","publisher":"BevNET","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Odwalla Juices, Smoothies Return Five Years After Being Discontinued","url":"https://www.foodprocessing.com/product-development/beverage-products/news/55260349/odwalla-juices-smoothies-return-five-years-after-being-discontinued","publisher":"Food Processing","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260208192136/https://www.foodprocessing.com/product-development/beverage-products/news/55260349/odwalla-juices-smoothies-return-five-years-after-being-discontinued"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ok-soda","name":"OK Soda","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Soft drinks","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1994","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1995","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"It never took more than 3% of any of its eight test markets and Coca-Cola declared it out of production in 1995 rather than expand it nationally.","summary":"Coca-Cola marketing chief Sergio Zyman built a soda for Generation X on the theory that the demographic was too cynical for advertising, so the advertising should be cynical too. Cans came in drab grey, one mascot was drawn with Charles Manson's facial features, and the slogan was \"Things are going to be OK.\" It reached eight test markets in spring 1994, never took 3% of any of them, and sold about a million cases before Coca-Cola quit in 1995.","sources":[{"title":"OK Soda: The '90s Soft Drink for Gen X That Fell Flat","url":"https://www.mentalfloss.com/food/beverages/ok-soda-coca-cola-history","publisher":"Mental Floss","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"OK Soda","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260720220541/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"oldsmobile","name":"Oldsmobile","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"General Motors","country":"US","born":{"value":"1897","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2004-04-29","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"GM could no longer say who the brand was for, and neither could its customers.","summary":"Oldsmobile was America's oldest surviving car brand, older than Ford, and it built the first mass-produced automobile in the country. Its problem by the 1990s was positional rather than technical: squeezed between Chevrolet below and Buick above, it spent a decade advertising that it was not your father's Oldsmobile, which mostly reminded everyone that it had been. The last one rolled off the line in 2004 after 107 years.","sources":[{"title":"Oldsmobile","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260719161215/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile"},{"title":"Defunct Car Brands And Why They Died","url":"https://carbuzz.com/features/defunct-car-brands-and-why-they-died/","publisher":"CarBuzz","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"omegle","name":"Omegle","category":"software-services","subcategory":"Communication","maker":"Leif K-Brooks","country":"US","born":{"value":"2009-03","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2023-11-08","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"lawsuit","causeNote":"Omegle's permanent shutdown on 8 November 2023 was a term negotiated in the settlement of a child sexual abuse lawsuit.","summary":"Omegle spent fourteen years pairing strangers at random for one-on-one video chats, which went roughly as well as that description predicts. It closed on 8 November 2023, one week after settling a 22 million dollar suit brought by a woman groomed on the site when she was eleven. Her lawyer confirmed the permanent shutdown was the negotiated price of avoiding a jury verdict. Founder Leif K-Brooks, who launched it at 18, thanked her by her initials in the farewell note.","sources":[{"title":"Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit From a Sexual Abuse Survivor","url":"https://www.wired.com/story/omegle-shutdown-lawsuit-child-sexual-abuse/","publisher":"WIRED","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260602143726/https://www.wired.com/story/omegle-shutdown-lawsuit-child-sexual-abuse/"},{"title":"Omegle shut down: Video chat website closed after abuse claims","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67364634","publisher":"BBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Goodbye Omegle: how the anonymous chatroom traumatized our teen years","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/15/omegle-closing-random-video-chat","publisher":"The Guardian","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"orbitz-drink","name":"Orbitz","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"soft drink","maker":"Clearly Canadian","country":"CA","born":{"value":"1997","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1998","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"People bought one bottle to look at it and never bought a second to drink.","summary":"Orbitz was a clear fruit drink with coloured gelatin spheres suspended motionless throughout the bottle, an effect achieved by matching the density of the balls to the liquid. It looked like a lava lamp and sold like a novelty, which is to say once per customer. It lasted under a year and is now a collector's item, with unopened bottles trading among people who have no intention of drinking them.","sources":[{"title":"Orbitz (drink)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitz_(drink)","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260621060300/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitz_(drink)"},{"title":"The Rise And Fall Of This Old School Soda","url":"https://www.chowhound.com/1895859/was-orbitz-discontinued-old-school-soda/","publisher":"Chowhound","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260121180449/https://www.chowhound.com/1895859/was-orbitz-discontinued-old-school-soda/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"orkut","name":"Orkut","category":"software-services","subcategory":"social network","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2004-01","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2014-09-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Facebook took its two remaining strongholds and Google redirected the effort into Google+.","summary":"Orkut launched the same month as Facebook and lost the English-speaking world quickly, but it became genuinely dominant in Brazil and India for years. Google eventually conceded the category and closed it to concentrate on Google+, which then outlived Orkut by less than five years. It is one of the rare products killed by a successor that died first.","replacedBy":"google-plus","sources":[{"title":"Orkut","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260715113421/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut"},{"title":"Google Will Shut Down Its Orkut Social Network In September","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/google-will-shut-down-its-orkut-social-network-in-september/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240422140947/https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/google-will-shut-down-its-orkut-social-network-in-september/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"pan-am","name":"Pan American World Airways","aka":["Pan Am"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","maker":"Pan American World Airways, Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1927","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1991-12-04","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"disaster","causeNote":"Deregulation, fuel shocks and the Lockerbie bombing drained the cash faster than asset sales could replace it.","summary":"Pan Am was the American flag carrier in everything but name, and for decades its blue globe was the most recognisable logo in aviation. Airline deregulation removed the protected routes it was built around, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing destroyed public confidence, and the airline spent its final years selling off its most valuable routes to stay airborne. The last flight landed in December 1991. The brand has been resurrected several times since by unrelated companies, none of which flew for long.","sources":[{"title":"Pan American World Airways","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260711185502/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways"},{"title":"Its Cash Depleted, Pan Am Shuts","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/05/business/its-cash-depleted-pan-am-shuts.html","publisher":"The New York Times","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251006002408/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/05/business/its-cash-depleted-pan-am-shuts.html"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"periscope","name":"Periscope","category":"software-services","subcategory":"live video streaming","maker":"Twitter","country":"US","born":{"value":"2015-03-26","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2021-03-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"Twitter said the standalone app had been in an unsustainable maintenance-mode state for years, with declining usage and support costs that would only keep rising.","summary":"Periscope arrived as Twitter's answer to Meerkat and helped bury it within a year. Twitter had bought the app before it was even public, then spent 2016 folding its best features into the main Twitter client, which left the standalone version as a chore nobody wanted to own. Twitter's own farewell called it 'an unsustainable maintenance-mode state' with declining usage, and the app went dark six years and five days after it launched.","replacedByName":"Twitter Live","sources":[{"title":"Twitter will discontinue its standalone Periscope apps in March","url":"https://www.engadget.com/twitter-periscope-shut-down-march-2021-203734102.html","publisher":"Engadget","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Periscope App Officially Shutting Down After Today","url":"https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/31/periscope-app-officially-shutting-down-after-today/","publisher":"MacRumors","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Periscope, Twitter's answer to Meerkat-style live streaming, is now available","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/26/8293353/periscope-live-streaming-twitter-meerkat","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"picasa","name":"Picasa","category":"software-services","subcategory":"Photo software","maker":"Google","country":"US","born":{"value":"2002","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2016-05-01","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Google retired Picasa to consolidate on Google Photos, closing Picasa Web Albums on 1 May 2016.","summary":"Picasa was a genuinely good photo organizer that Google bought from Lifescape in July 2004 and then spent a decade quietly outgrowing. On 12 February 2016 Google announced it was retiring the whole thing: desktop support ended 15 March and Picasa Web Albums closed on 1 May, with everything pushed toward Google Photos. Anyone who had already downloaded the desktop app could keep using it unsupported, which made Picasa software that outlived its own funeral.","sources":[{"title":"Google will retire Picasa on May 1, 2016","url":"https://www.ghacks.net/2016/02/12/google-will-retire-picasa-on-may-1-2016/","publisher":"gHacks Tech News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Google is shutting down Picasa on May 1, 2016","url":"https://venturebeat.com/media/google-is-shutting-down-picasa-on-may-1-2016","publisher":"VentureBeat","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Google Killing Off Picasa to Focus on Google Photos","url":"https://petapixel.com/2016/02/12/google-killing-off-picasa-focus-google-photos/","publisher":"PetaPixel","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"piltdown-man","name":"Piltdown Man, as a human ancestor","aka":["Eoanthropus dawsoni"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"scientific name","country":"GB","born":{"value":"1912","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1953-11-21","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeNote":"Chemical testing proved the skull was a modern human cranium joined to a stained orangutan jaw.","summary":"Piltdown Man was announced in 1912 as the missing link between apes and humans, conveniently found in England at a moment when England had no significant hominin fossils of its own. It shaped four decades of research and sent the field down blind alleys, because a large-brained early ancestor was exactly what many scientists expected to find. Fluorine dating exposed it as a deliberate forgery in 1953. The forger's identity was not settled for another sixty years.","sources":[{"title":"Piltdown Man","url":"https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/services/library/collections/piltdown-man.html","publisher":"Natural History Museum","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260714162301/https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/services/library/collections/piltdown-man.html"},{"title":"Study reveals culprit behind Piltdown Man, one of science's most famous hoaxes","url":"https://www.science.org/content/article/study-reveals-culprit-behind-piltdown-man-one-science-s-most-famous-hoaxes","publisher":"Science","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251208131805/https://www.science.org/content/article/study-reveals-culprit-behind-piltdown-man-one-science-s-most-famous-hoaxes"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"playstation-vita","name":"PlayStation Vita","aka":["PS Vita"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"handheld game console","maker":"Sony","country":"JP","born":{"value":"2011-12","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2019-03","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Sony ended production of the last two Vita models after years of withdrawn support and thin sales.","summary":"Sony launched the Vita in Japan in December 2011, precisely as phones and tablets were making a dedicated handheld a hard argument to win. The phase-out took most of a decade: first-party games stopped in 2015, physical game cards were retired, and the PS Plus freebies ended. In March 2019 the last two models in production, the PCH-2000 in black and aqua blue, changed status on Sony's Japanese site to 'shipments ended.'","sources":[{"title":"Sony officially discontinues the PlayStation Vita","url":"https://www.engadget.com/2019-03-02-sony-discontinues-ps-vita.html","publisher":"Engadget","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"PS Vita production ended in Japan","url":"https://www.gematsu.com/2019/03/ps-vita-production-ended-in-japan","publisher":"Gematsu","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"pluto-planet-status","name":"Pluto's status as a planet","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"astronomical classification","maker":"International Astronomical Union","born":{"value":"1930-02-18","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2006-08-24","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"424 astronomers in Prague voted to define \"planet\" in a way that excluded it.","summary":"Pluto was a planet for 76 years on the strength of having been found. The IAU's 2006 vote required a planet to orbit the Sun, be round, and have cleared its orbital neighbourhood; Pluto manages the first two. The decision was made by a fraction of the IAU's membership present on the final day of the General Assembly, which is part of why the public never fully accepted it and why the argument is still live twenty years later.","sources":[{"title":"IAU 2006 General Assembly: Result of the IAU Resolution votes","url":"https://iauarchive.eso.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0603/","publisher":"International Astronomical Union","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260618063050/https://iauarchive.eso.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0603/"},{"title":"Aug. 24, 2006: Pluto is demoted","url":"https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/aug-24-2006-pluto-is-demoted/","publisher":"Astronomy Magazine","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260410203114/https://www.astronomy.com/today-in-the-history-of-astronomy/aug-24-2006-pluto-is-demoted/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"plymouth-brand","name":"Plymouth","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"Chrysler","country":"US","born":{"value":"1928","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2001-06-28","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"Chrysler announced at the end of 1999 that it would discontinue Plymouth and move its models to the Chrysler and Dodge brands.","summary":"Plymouth was launched in 1928 to sell Chryslers to people who could not afford Chryslers, and finished its 74-year run selling Dodges to people who would not buy Dodges. The formal announcement came at the end of 1999; the Prowler and Voyager went to Chrysler, the Neon went to Dodge. The last Plymouth, a silver 2001 Neon LX with a five-speed manual, was built at Belvidere on 28 June 2001 and bought by a Chrysler vice president for his own collection.","sources":[{"title":"Last Plymouth rolls off Chrysler assembly line","url":"https://www.deseret.com/2001/7/13/19596036/last-plymouth-rolls-off-chrysler-assembly-line/","publisher":"Deseret News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"This is the last Plymouth ever made, and it could be yours","url":"https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/this-is-the-last-plymouth-ever-made-and-it-could-be-yours/","publisher":"Hagerty","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240715044740/https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/this-is-the-last-plymouth-ever-made-and-it-could-be-yours/"},{"title":"June 28, 2001 - The final Plymouth","url":"https://automotivehistory.org/june-28-2001-the-final-plymouth/","publisher":"This Day In Automotive History","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20240831082835/https://automotivehistory.org/june-28-2001-the-final-plymouth/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"pontiac","name":"Pontiac","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"General Motors","country":"US","born":{"value":"1926","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2010-10-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"GM's bankruptcy restructuring required shedding brands, and Pontiac was one of the four cut.","summary":"Pontiac spent forty years as GM's performance division and built the GTO, the Firebird, and a genuine claim to inventing the muscle car. By the 2000s it was selling rebadged versions of other GM products, which is a slow way to lose a reason to exist. When GM restructured through bankruptcy in 2009 it kept four brands and killed four, and Pontiac's franchise agreements ran out at the end of October 2010.","sources":[{"title":"Pontiac","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_(automobile)","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260713031230/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_(automobile)"},{"title":"Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, And Saab: Performance Cars General Motors Let Die","url":"https://carbuzz.com/performance-cars-general-motors-let-die/","publisher":"CarBuzz","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"pontiac-aztek","name":"Pontiac Aztek","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"crossover SUV","maker":"General Motors","country":"US","born":{"value":"2000","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2005","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"It sold roughly a third of GM's own projection in its best year.","summary":"The Aztek is the standard reference point for a car that lost an argument with its own committee: a genuinely clever package, including an optional tent, wrapped in bodywork that focus groups reportedly rejected before launch. GM built it for five model years against consistently poor sales. Its reputation was partially rehabilitated by television two decades later, which is a form of afterlife but not a form of production.","sources":[{"title":"Pontiac Aztek","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Aztek","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260612014639/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Aztek"},{"title":"Biggest Automotive Missteps: Pontiac Aztek","url":"https://carbuzz.com/news/biggest-automotive-missteps-pontiac-aztek/","publisher":"CarBuzz","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"rdio","name":"Rdio","category":"software-services","subcategory":"music streaming","maker":"Rdio, Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"2010","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2015-12-22","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"Rdio filed for bankruptcy and sold its assets to Pandora, which could not keep the service running because the record label licences did not transfer with the sale.","summary":"Founded by Skype's Janus Friis and launched in 2010, Rdio was the streaming service critics adored and consumers ignored. It filed for bankruptcy in November 2015 and sold its assets to Pandora for $75 million, but label licences do not transfer in an acquisition, so Pandora had bought the engineering team and not the right to keep the lights on. Rdio emailed subscribers its goodbye and switched off worldwide at 8PM ET on 22 December 2015, about five years after launch.","sources":[{"title":"Rdio to Shut Down on December 22","url":"https://variety.com/2015/digital/news/rdio-shutting-down-december-22-1201663154/","publisher":"Variety","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Rdio will shut down for good in one week","url":"https://www.engadget.com/2015-12-15-rdio-shutdown-december-22.html","publisher":"Engadget","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Rdio's Bankruptcy: Inside a Failing Music Streaming Service","url":"https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rdio-bankruptcy-story-how-it-happened-failing-streaming-service-7519014/","publisher":"Billboard","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"ricicles","name":"Ricicles","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Breakfast cereal","maker":"Kellogg's","country":"GB","born":{"value":"1955","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2018-01","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"regulation","causeNote":"Kellogg's cut the cereal during a UK drive to reduce sugar in children's breakfasts after concluding that its 34g-of-sugar-per-100g recipe could not be reformulated without ruining the taste.","summary":"Ricicles were sugar-coated rice puffs, on British shelves since 1955. Kellogg's announced in late 2017 that production would end the following January as part of a sugar reset that cut Coco Pops from 30g to 17g of sugar per 100g and Rice Krispies by 20%. Ricicles sat at 34g per 100g and could not be reformulated without wrecking the taste, so after 62 years it was dropped instead. It was selling GBP 2.27m a year at the time, down 5.4%.","sources":[{"title":"Kellogg UK to axe Ricicles in major sugar reset","url":"https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/kellogg-uk-to-axe-ricicles-in-major-sugar-reset/560712.article","publisher":"The Grocer","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Kellogg's axes Ricicles in health drive","url":"https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/kelloggs-axes-ricicles-health-drive-thousands-mourn-loss-childhood-favourite-104046740.html","publisher":"Yahoo Finance UK","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"saab-automobile","name":"Saab Automobile","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"Saab Automobile AB","country":"SE","born":{"value":"1949","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2011-12-19","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"Saab filed for bankruptcy on 19 December 2011 after General Motors blocked a Chinese consortium from completing its purchase of the company.","summary":"An aircraft company launched its first production car in 1949 and spent six decades building aerodynamic oddities for drivers who liked the ignition key between the seats. Spyker bought Saab from General Motors in February 2010 and spent 2011 hunting Chinese money to keep it alive. GM refused to license its technology to a Chinese-controlled owner, which chief executive Victor Muller called the last nail in the coffin. NEVS later bought the estate, but never the name.","sources":[{"title":"Saab declares bankruptcy as GM blocks Chinese deal","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna45720823","publisher":"NBC News / Associated Press","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251207004856/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna45720823"},{"title":"Saab Automobile","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Automobile","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260714055806/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Automobile"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"saturn","name":"Saturn","aka":["Saturn Corporation"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"General Motors","country":"US","born":{"value":"1985","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2010-10-31","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"A sale to Penske collapsed at the last moment and GM had no appetite to keep funding it.","summary":"Saturn was GM's attempt to build a different kind of car company inside itself: separate plants, separate labour agreement, no-haggle pricing, and famously enthusiastic owners who attended reunions at the factory. GM gradually reabsorbed it into the corporate parts bin, which removed the entire point. A deal to sell the brand to Penske fell through in 2009, and it closed with Pontiac the following year.","sources":[{"title":"Saturn Corporation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Corporation","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260703042420/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Corporation"},{"title":"GM to close Saturn as sale to Penske falls through","url":"https://www.foxnews.com/auto/gm-to-close-saturn-as-sale-to-penske-falls-through.print","publisher":"Fox News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"sega-dreamcast","name":"Sega Dreamcast","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"games console","maker":"Sega","country":"JP","born":{"value":"1998-11","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2001-03","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"The PlayStation 2 played DVDs, and buyers waited for it rather than committing to Sega again.","summary":"The Dreamcast was first to the generation, shipped with a modem for online play years before that was normal, and is widely regarded as the best hardware Sega ever built. It was also following the Saturn, which had burned publishers and buyers alike, and it arrived a year before a PlayStation 2 that doubled as the cheap DVD player everyone wanted. Sega discontinued it after about 28 months and left the hardware business permanently.","replacedByName":"PlayStation 2","sources":[{"title":"Dreamcast","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723141743/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast"},{"title":"10 Failed Electronics Retailers We'll Always Keep in Our Hearts","url":"https://www.cepro.com/news/10-failed-electronic-retailers/226/","publisher":"CE Pro","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260508121237/https://www.cepro.com/news/10-failed-electronic-retailers/226/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"segway-pt","name":"Segway Personal Transporter","aka":["Segway PT","Segway HT","Ginger","IT"],"category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"personal transport","maker":"Segway Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"2001-12-03","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2020-07-15","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"It was too expensive for pedestrians and too slow for roads, so it ended up owned mostly by tour operators and mall security.","summary":"Before launch, under the codenames Ginger and IT, the Segway was rumoured to be so significant that cities would be redesigned around it, and Steve Jobs reportedly said it could be bigger than the PC. What arrived cost several thousand dollars, weighed 45 kilos, and made the rider look faintly ridiculous, which turned out to matter enormously. It sold in the tens of thousands rather than the predicted tens of thousands per week, and production ended after nineteen years.","sources":[{"title":"After Nearly Two Bumpy Decades, The Original Segway Will Be Retired In July","url":"https://www.npr.org/2020/06/23/882536320/after-nearly-two-bumpy-decades-the-original-segway-will-be-retired-in-july","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251101091904/https://www.npr.org/2020/06/23/882536320/after-nearly-two-bumpy-decades-the-original-segway-will-be-retired-in-july"},{"title":"Segway PT","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260723034847/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"sierra-mist","name":"Sierra Mist","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Soft drink","maker":"PepsiCo","country":"US","born":{"value":"1999","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2023-01","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"PepsiCo retired it in January 2023 and replaced it with Starry, a reformulated lemon-lime soda pitched at Gen Z.","summary":"Sierra Mist launched in 1999 as PepsiCo's answer to Sprite and spent 24 years failing to be one. By 2022 it held about 0.1% of an $82 billion US soda market while Sprite held roughly 7%. PepsiCo discontinued it in January 2023 and rolled out Starry, a sharper, more citrus-forward recipe sold under the slogan Starry Hits Different, which remains the company's only lemon-lime soda.","replacedByName":"Starry","sources":[{"title":"New Starry lemon lime soda with 'more citrus' replaces Sierra Mist for PepsiCo","url":"https://abcnews.com/GMA/Food/new-starry-lemon-lime-soda-citrus-replaces-sierra/story?id=96388874","publisher":"ABC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Pepsi lemon-lime soda Sierra Mist discontinued, replaced with citrus-flavored Starry","url":"https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/12/sierra-mist-discontinued-pepsi-replaced-citrus-fla/","publisher":"The Washington Times","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"skype","name":"Skype","category":"software-services","subcategory":"Communication","maker":"Microsoft","born":{"value":"2003-08","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2025-05-05","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeSecondary":"indifference","causeNote":"Microsoft retired Skype on 5 May 2025 and directed remaining users to the free version of Microsoft Teams.","summary":"Skype made international calls free in 2003 and got big enough to become a verb, which is roughly when Microsoft bought it for 8.5 billion dollars. It then spent fourteen years being slowly replaced by an app Skype users had never asked for. On 5 May 2025 the service was retired in favor of free Teams, taking SMS, voicemail, call forwarding and caller ID with it. Leftover call credit survived. The brand did not.","sources":[{"title":"Microsoft is shutting down Skype in favor of Teams","url":"https://www.theverge.com/news/621353/microsoft-skype-shutting-down-retirement-may-2025","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260723223803/https://www.theverge.com/news/621353/microsoft-skype-shutting-down-retirement-may-2025"},{"title":"Microsoft is shutting down Skype after a 21-year run","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/28/microsoft-is-retiring-skype-in-may-encouraging-people-to-adopt-teams.html","publisher":"CNBC","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Skype is retiring in May 2025: What you need to know","url":"https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/skype-is-retiring-in-may-2025-what-you-need-to-know","publisher":"Microsoft Support","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260721105900/https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/skype-is-retiring-in-may-2025-what-you-need-to-know"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"standard-oil","name":"Standard Oil","aka":["the Standard Oil Trust"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"corporate trust","maker":"Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey","country":"US","born":{"value":"1870","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1911","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"lawsuit","causeNote":"The Supreme Court upheld a decree ordering the trust dissolved and gave it six months to break itself apart.","summary":"By 1879 Standard Oil owned or controlled 90% of American petroleum production, shipping, refining and sales, assembled through secret railroad rebates and the quiet purchase of anyone who could not match its prices. On 15 May 1911 the Supreme Court upheld the order to dissolve it, inventing the rule of reason on the way and giving the trust six months. The 34 companies that fell out include the ancestors of Exxon, Mobil and Chevron, several of which have since merged back together.","sources":[{"title":"May 15, 1911: Supreme Court orders Standard Oil breakup","url":"https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/may-15-1911-supreme-court-orders-standard-oil-breakup","publisher":"ABA Journal","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Standard Oil Company v. United States (1911)","url":"https://civics.supremecourthistory.org/article/standard-oil-company-v-united-states/","publisher":"Supreme Court Historical Society","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"studebaker","name":"Studebaker","category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car brand","maker":"Studebaker Corporation","country":"US","born":{"value":"1902","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1966-03-17","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Studebaker left the car business and closed its last assembly plant, in Hamilton, Ontario, putting around 700 people out of work.","summary":"Studebaker was founded in 1852 to build wagons, added electric cars in 1902 and gasoline cars in 1904, and so was older than most of the industry that outlived it. South Bend stopped building cars on 20 December 1963, leaving one plant in Hamilton, Ontario doing the work of a national automaker. It closed on 17 March 1966 and took roughly 700 jobs with it, ending 114 years of vehicle manufacturing.","sources":[{"title":"The last Studebaker car was made in Hamilton. An Ontario man's trip to see it brought back fond memories","url":"https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/studebaker-s-hamilton-history-1.7613874","publisher":"CBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Studebaker","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260723070740/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"stumbleupon","name":"StumbleUpon","category":"software-services","subcategory":"Web platform","maker":"StumbleUpon","country":"US","born":{"value":"2002","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2018-06-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Co-founder Garrett Camp closed StumbleUpon on 30 June 2018 and migrated every account to Mix.","summary":"StumbleUpon offered one button that threw you at a random interesting webpage, and roughly 40 million people pressed it over sixteen years. Co-founder Garrett Camp announced the shutdown on Medium and gave users until 30 June 2018 to move their favorites to Mix, a curation platform built at his own startup studio. The web's best argument for aimless browsing was retired in favor of something that wanted you to make collections.","sources":[{"title":"Goodbye, StumbleUpon, one of the last great ways to find good things online","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/24/17389230/stumbleupon-shut-down-internet-discovery","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"StumbleUpon is closing down after 16 years","url":"https://venturebeat.com/business/stumbleupon-is-closing-down-after-16-years","publisher":"VentureBeat","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"surge","name":"Surge","aka":["MDK","Urge"],"category":"food-drink","subcategory":"soft drink","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1996","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2003","precision":"year"},"status":"revived","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Mountain Dew held the category and Coca-Cola redirected the budget to its own energy drinks.","summary":"Surge was Coca-Cola's direct assault on Mountain Dew, marketed hard at teenage boys with a campaign built around the word itself being shouted. It sold reasonably and then declined, and Coca-Cola wound it down by 2003. A sustained online campaign by former drinkers got it reissued in 2014, initially sold only through Amazon, which makes it one of the few products here brought back by organised nostalgia rather than corporate whim.","sources":[{"title":"Surge (drink)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_(drink)","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260722194030/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_(drink)"},{"title":"21 Popular Drinks That Have Disappeared From Store Shelves","url":"https://www.tastingtable.com/1504924/popular-discontinued-drinks-store-shelves/","publisher":"Tasting Table","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260519011022/https://www.tastingtable.com/1504924/popular-discontinued-drinks-store-shelves/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"swaziland","name":"Swaziland","aka":["Kingdom of Swaziland"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"country name","maker":"King Mswati III","country":"SZ","born":{"value":"1968","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2018-04-19","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"King Mswati III declared at his fiftieth-birthday celebrations that the country would revert to its precolonial name.","summary":"Swaziland spent fifty years as an independent country carrying a name that was half Swazi and half English, and that its king said caused confusion abroad. On 19 April 2018, in a stadium in Manzini marking both the fiftieth anniversary of independence and his own fiftieth birthday, Mswati III declared the Kingdom of Swaziland to be the Kingdom of Eswatini. He had been quietly using the new name at the UN since 2017.","sources":[{"title":"Swaziland is now eSwatini, country's king declares","url":"https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/swaziland-king-eswatini-1.4626869","publisher":"CBC News (Reuters)","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250818104444/https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/swaziland-king-eswatini-1.4626869"},{"title":"Swaziland king changes country's name to Kingdom of Eswatini","url":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/4/19/swaziland-king-changes-countrys-name-to-kingdom-of-eswatini","publisher":"Al Jazeera","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"tab-soda","name":"Tab","aka":["TaB"],"category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Soft drinks","maker":"The Coca-Cola Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1963","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2020-12","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"Coca-Cola listed Tab among the underperforming brands it cut in an October 2020 portfolio purge, ending production at the end of that year.","summary":"Tab was Coca-Cola's first diet soda and eventually its own worst enemy: it opened the category in 1963, watched Diet Coke take it over in 1982, and then spent thirty-eight years shrinking. In October 2020 Coca-Cola announced it was cutting more than half of its roughly 500 brands, and Tab was on the list. The company's verdict on a drink with six decades of self-described TaBaholics was that it had done its job.","sources":[{"title":"Coca-Cola is discontinuing Tab after nearly 60 years","url":"https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/16/business/tab-soda-discontinued-coca-cola/","publisher":"CNN Business","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260421220952/https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/16/business/tab-soda-discontinued-coca-cola"},{"title":"Coca-Cola will stop selling Tab, other products at the end of 2020","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/coca-cola-will-stop-selling-tab-other-products-end-2020-n1243728","publisher":"NBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Coca-Cola discontinues TaB diet soda in the US","url":"https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2020/10/19/Coca-Cola-discontinues-TaB-diet-soda-in-the-US/","publisher":"BeverageDaily","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250613001027/https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2020/10/19/Coca-Cola-discontinues-TaB-diet-soda-in-the-US/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"bell-system","name":"The Bell System","aka":["Ma Bell"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"telephone monopoly","maker":"American Telephone and Telegraph Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1877","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1984-01-01","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"lawsuit","causeNote":"A Justice Department antitrust suit filed in 1974 ended in a consent decree forcing AT&T to divest its local operating companies.","summary":"For most of a century one company owned the telephone in America: the wires, the switches, the handset screwed to your wall, and the laboratory that invented the transistor. The Justice Department sued in 1974, and in January 1982 AT&T settled by agreeing to give up the part everybody actually used. The divestiture took effect on 1 January 1984, turning the local companies into seven Baby Bells and cutting about 70% off AT&T's own book value.","sources":[{"title":"The Breakup of \"Ma Bell\": United States v. AT&T","url":"https://www.fjc.gov/history/spotlight-judicial-history/breakup-ma-bell","publisher":"Federal Judicial Center","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260623022732/https://www.fjc.gov/history/spotlight-judicial-history/breakup-ma-bell"},{"title":"Breakup of the Bell System","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260719170810/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System"},{"title":"AT&T Monopoly History - Breakup of the Bell System in 1984","url":"https://www.historyfactory.com/insights/this-month-in-business-history-bell-system/","publisher":"History Factory","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260418200000/https://www.historyfactory.com/insights/this-month-in-business-history-bell-system/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"boy-scouts-of-america-name","name":"The Boy Scouts of America, as an organization name","aka":["BSA"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"organization name","country":"US","born":{"value":"1910","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2025-02-08","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"The organization's leadership announced in May 2024 that it would rename itself Scouting America to signal that its programs are open to every young person, effective February 8, 2025.","summary":"Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America kept the word Boy in its name for 115 years, well past the point where it was enrolling girls. The rename was announced in May 2024 and took effect on February 8, 2025, chosen because it was the organization's 115th anniversary. Chief executive Roger Krone framed it as a change of label rather than of mission. The rebrand drew backlash, and the name went anyway.","replacedByName":"Scouting America","sources":[{"title":"Boy Scouts changing name to Scouting America to be more inclusive","url":"https://abcnews.com/US/boy-scouts-changing-scouting-america-inclusive/story?id=109996961","publisher":"ABC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Boy Scouts of America Officially Changes Name After Sparking Backlash","url":"https://www.newsweek.com/boy-scouts-scouting-america-name-change-2028459","publisher":"Newsweek","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"A Bold New Chapter Begins in Scouting America","url":"https://www.scoutshop.org/blog/a_bold_new_chapter_begins_in_scouting_america.html","publisher":"Scouting America","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"le-grand-k","name":"The kilogram as a physical object","aka":["Le Grand K","International Prototype of the Kilogram","IPK"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"unit definition","maker":"International Bureau of Weights and Measures","country":"FR","born":{"value":"1889","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2019-05-20","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"The Planck constant does not sit in a vault in Paris slowly changing mass.","summary":"For 130 years the kilogram was a specific lump of platinum-iridium in a vault outside Paris, and everything anyone weighed anywhere on Earth was ultimately compared to it. The problem was that it drifted: official copies diverged from the original by tens of micrograms, and there was no way to know which had changed. In 2019 the kilogram was redefined in terms of the Planck constant, and the last physical artefact was removed from the SI system.","replacedByName":"The Planck constant definition","sources":[{"title":"Adieu, Le Grand K: The kilogram to be redefined for the first time in 130 years","url":"https://phys.org/news/2019-05-adieu-le-grand-kilogram-redefined.html","publisher":"Phys.org","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20240912101647/https://phys.org/news/2019-05-adieu-le-grand-kilogram-redefined.html"},{"title":"It's official: We're redefining the kilogram","url":"https://www.sciencenews.org/article/official-redefining-kilogram-units-measurement","publisher":"Science News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260510152044/https://www.sciencenews.org/article/official-redefining-kilogram-units-measurement"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"sears-tower","name":"The Sears Tower","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"building name","maker":"Sears, Roebuck and Co.","country":"US","born":{"value":"1973","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2009-07-16","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"Willis Group Holdings took the naming rights as part of an office lease and the tower was rebranded.","summary":"Sears built the tallest building in the world to house itself, and the name outlived the company's reason for building it. On 16 July 2009 the mayor of Chicago pulled a black cover off a lobby sign reading Willis Tower, a London insurance broker having picked up the naming rights along with its office space. The building was 110 storeys and thirty-six years old, and Chicagoans have spent every year since declining to use the new name.","sources":[{"title":"Willis Tower","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Willis-Tower","publisher":"Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260202153834/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Willis-Tower"},{"title":"Sears Tower Gets New Name","url":"https://www.npr.org/2009/07/16/106703058/sears-tower-gets-new-name","publisher":"NPR","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251008213557/https://www.npr.org/2009/07/16/106703058/sears-tower-gets-new-name"},{"title":"About Willis Tower","url":"https://www.willistower.com/about","publisher":"Willis Tower","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260723012448/https://www.willistower.com/about"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"space-shuttle","name":"The Space Shuttle","aka":["Space Transportation System","STS"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"spacecraft","maker":"NASA","country":"US","born":{"value":"1981-04-12","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2011-07-21","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"It was sold as a cheap reusable truck and turned out to cost roughly a billion dollars a flight.","summary":"The Shuttle was meant to fly weekly and make orbit routine. It flew 135 times in thirty years, lost two crews, and cost far more per launch than the expendable rockets it was supposed to replace. It also built the International Space Station, carried Hubble, and remains the only winged orbital vehicle ever flown operationally. Atlantis landed for the last time in July 2011, and the United States could not launch its own astronauts for the next nine years.","sources":[{"title":"Space Shuttle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260718050710/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle"},{"title":"10 Years Ago: STS-135, the Space Shuttle’s Grand Finale","url":"https://www.nasa.gov/history/10-years-ago-sts-135-the-space-shuttles-grand-finale/","publisher":"NASA","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260716022357/https://www.nasa.gov/history/10-years-ago-sts-135-the-space-shuttles-grand-finale/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"washington-redskins-name","name":"The Washington Redskins, as a team name","aka":["Redskins"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"sports team name","maker":"Washington NFL franchise","country":"US","born":{"value":"1933","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2020-07-13","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"scandal","causeNote":"The franchise announced on July 13, 2020 that it was retiring the name and logo after FedEx, Nike, PepsiCo and Bank of America lined up against them.","summary":"George Preston Marshall renamed the Boston Braves the Redskins in 1933 and moved the team to Washington four years later. Native American groups called the name a slur for decades, and owner Dan Snyder had said the team would never drop it. What protest could not achieve, sponsors did in about a week. The announcement came with no replacement name ready.","sources":[{"title":"NFL's Washington Redskins to change name following years of backlash","url":"https://abcnews.com/US/washington-redskins-change-years-backlash/story?id=71744369","publisher":"ABC News","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Washington Redskins to 'retire' name under pressure","url":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/13/washington-redskins-to-retire-name-under-pressure","publisher":"Al Jazeera (AP)","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Washington NFL Team Announces It Will Retire Redskins Name And Logo","url":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyiannaconi/2020/07/13/washington-nfl-team-announces-it-will-retire-redskins-name-and-logo/","publisher":"Forbes","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"toys-r-us-us","name":"Toys \"R\" Us (US stores)","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"retail chain","country":"US","born":{"value":"1957","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2018-06-29","precision":"day"},"status":"revived","cause":"cost","causeSecondary":"successor","causeNote":"A leveraged buyout left it paying enormous annual interest instead of renovating stores.","summary":"Toys \"R\" Us was not killed by Amazon so much as by the $6.6 billion of debt loaded onto it in a 2005 leveraged buyout, which consumed the money that would otherwise have gone into the stores and the website. It limped for a decade, filed for bankruptcy, and liquidated its US chain in 2018. The brand has since reappeared as concessions inside other retailers, which is a trademark surviving rather than a company.","sources":[{"title":"Toys \"R\" Us","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys_%22R%22_Us","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260712202053/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys_%22R%22_Us"},{"title":"Toys 'R' Us Announces Last Day Of Sales","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/toys-r-us-last-day-of-liquidation-sales-closing/","publisher":"CBS News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20251209011124/https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/toys-r-us-last-day-of-liquidation-sales-closing/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"trabant","name":"Trabant","aka":["Trabi"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"small car","maker":"VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau","country":"DE","born":{"value":"1957","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1991-04-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Once the inner-German border opened, East Germans abandoned the Trabant for West German cars and demand collapsed.","summary":"For 34 years the Trabant carried East Germany on a fume-belching two-stroke engine of the sort that powers a cheap lawn mower, and 3,096,099 of them were built at Zwickau. When the Berlin Wall opened, the drivers who had waited years for one switched to Western cars fast enough that thousands of Trabis were left abandoned and burned out in the countryside. The last car, painted a striking pink, rolled off the Sachsenring line on 30 April 1991 before a crowd of about 3,600, ending a century of independent vehicle manufacturing in eastern Germany.","sources":[{"title":"End of an era: Last East German Trabant rolls off assembly line","url":"https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/04/30/End-of-an-era-Last-East-German-Trabant-rolls-off-assembly-line/9826672984000/","publisher":"UPI","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Ten Years After -- The East German Trabant","url":"https://www.rferl.org/a/1092596.html","publisher":"RFE/RL","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"twa","name":"Trans World Airlines","aka":["TWA","Transcontinental & Western Air"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","country":"US","born":{"value":"1930","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2001-12-01","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeSecondary":"cost","causeNote":"American Airlines bought the assets and retired the brand within the year.","summary":"TWA was for decades the other American flag carrier, the one Howard Hughes controlled and the one with the Saarinen terminal at JFK. A leveraged buyout in the 1980s loaded it with debt it never escaped, and after three bankruptcies American Airlines acquired it in 2001. The final flight landed that December. Its terminal survives as a hotel, which is a better fate than most entries here get.","sources":[{"title":"Trans World Airlines","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_World_Airlines","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260721153906/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_World_Airlines"},{"title":"Trans World Airlines, Inc.","url":"https://www.britannica.com/money/Trans-World-Airlines-Inc","publisher":"Encyclopædia Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251002035650/https://www.britannica.com/money/Trans-World-Airlines-Inc"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"us-airways","name":"US Airways","aka":["Allegheny Airlines","All American Aviation"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","country":"US","born":{"value":"1939","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2015-10-17","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeNote":"The US Airways brand was retired when its final flight landed in Philadelphia on October 17, 2015, completing the integration into American Airlines.","summary":"It began in 1939 as All American Aviation, a Pittsburgh airmail service, and grew through Allegheny Airlines into the carrier that agreed to merge with American in 2013. The brand got a proper wake: Flight 1939, numbered for the founding year, flew a farewell loop out of Philadelphia and came back overnight from San Francisco. It landed Saturday morning after 76 years of service, and every ticket sold afterward said American.","sources":[{"title":"Last flight of US Airways evokes 'golden age' of air travel","url":"https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/us-airways-last-flight-american-airlines-merger-feat/index.html","publisher":"CNN","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"End of an era: The final flight of US Airways","url":"https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/1017/End-of-an-era-The-final-flight-of-US-Airways","publisher":"The Christian Science Monitor","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"vine","name":"Vine","aka":["Vine Camera"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"social video","maker":"Twitter","country":"US","born":{"value":"2013-01-24","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2017-01-17","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"cost","causeNote":"Twitter shut it down during a cost-reduction round rather than sell it or fund it further.","summary":"Vine gave the internet the six-second looping video and, with it, an entire generation of performers who learned to build a joke around a hard cut. Twitter announced the shutdown in October 2016 and converted the app into the stripped-down Vine Camera the following January. Its cultural footprint substantially outlived its four-year run, and its format was absorbed wholesale by the platforms that followed.","sources":[{"title":"Vine (service)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260703213005/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)"},{"title":"Twitter is shutting down Vine","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/twitter-is-shutting-down-vine/","publisher":"TechCrunch","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260724022035/https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/twitter-is-shutting-down-vine/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"virgin-america","name":"Virgin America","category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"airline","maker":"Virgin America Inc.","country":"US","born":{"value":"2007-08-08","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2018-04-24","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeNote":"Alaska Airlines, which had bought the carrier in 2016, retired the Virgin brand and moved every remaining flight onto Alaska codes.","summary":"Virgin America flew its first passengers in August 2007 with purple mood lighting, seat-back food ordering and a following that behaved more like a band's than an airline's. Alaska Air Group bought it in 2016 and then spent two years deciding the brand was not worth the licence. The last flight, VX1948 from San Francisco to Los Angeles on 24 April 2018, was organised as a send-off by three strangers who met on an internet forum.","sources":[{"title":"Date Set for Last Virgin America Flights","url":"https://www.frommers.com/blogs/passportable/date-set-for-last-virgin-america-flights/","publisher":"Frommer's","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"A Virgin Farewell: What It Was Like to Go Behind-the-Scenes for Virgin America's Final Flight","url":"https://airlinegeeks.com/2018/04/26/a-virgin-farewell-what-it-was-like-to-go-behind-the-scenes-for-virgin-americas-final-flight/","publisher":"AirlineGeeks","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Virgin America","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_America","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"virtual-boy","name":"Virtual Boy","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"games console","maker":"Nintendo","country":"JP","born":{"value":"1995","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1996","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"It was monochrome red, it was not portable, and using it gave people headaches.","summary":"The Virtual Boy promised 3D gaming and delivered a tabletop visor that rendered everything in red and black, could not be used lying down, and came with a warning about eye strain and a built-in reminder to take breaks. Nintendo shipped roughly 770,000 units against a target in the millions and withdrew it within about a year. It remains the shortest-lived console Nintendo has ever released.","sources":[{"title":"Virtual Boy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723172020/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy"},{"title":"Top 10 Brands That Failed","url":"https://www.watchmojo.com/articles/top-10-brands-that-failed","publisher":"WatchMojo","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260121073409/https://www.watchmojo.com/articles/top-10-brands-that-failed"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"volkswagen-beetle-type-1","name":"Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1)","aka":["Kafer","Vocho","Bug"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"car","maker":"Volkswagen","country":"DE","born":{"value":"1945","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2003-07-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Volkswagen ended Type 1 production at Puebla on 30 July 2003 after the car's market had shrunk to a single country.","summary":"A war delayed it, the British occupation restarted it, and 21,529,464 of them were built afterwards. Japanese imports took the Beetle's customers through the late 1970s, and from 1988 the classic car was sold only in Mexico. Volkswagen closed the Puebla line on 30 July 2003 with a 3,000-unit Ultima Edicion in Aquarius Blue or Harvest Moon Beige, which is a very dignified way of admitting the run is over.","sources":[{"title":"Last classic VW Beetle rolls off the line","url":"https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-30/last-classic-vw-beetle-rolls-off-the-line","publisher":"HISTORY","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260308172309/https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-30/last-classic-vw-beetle-rolls-off-the-line"},{"title":"Beetle (Kaefer) 1600/1600i (1970-2003)","url":"https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/beetle-kaefer-16001600i-19702003-19603","publisher":"Volkswagen Newsroom","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260718184811/https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/beetle-kaefer-16001600i-19702003-19603"},{"title":"Volkswagen Beetle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260724173507/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"planet-vulcan","name":"Vulcan, the planet","category":"names-designations","subcategory":"astronomical designation","born":{"value":"1859","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1915","precision":"year"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"General relativity explained Mercury's orbit without needing an extra planet to explain it.","summary":"Mercury's orbit did not behave the way Newton said it should, so Urbain Le Verrier proposed a planet between Mercury and the Sun to account for the discrepancy. This was a reasonable bet: he had found Neptune the same way. Astronomers reported sightings for decades. Then Einstein published general relativity in 1915, the anomaly dissolved into the mathematics, and a planet that many people had personally observed stopped existing.","replacedByName":"General relativity","sources":[{"title":"Vulcan (hypothetical planet)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(hypothetical_planet)","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260629230638/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(hypothetical_planet)"},{"title":"The Hunt for Vulcan, the Planet That Wasn't There","url":"https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/151104-newton-einstein-gravity-vulcan-planets-mercury-astronomy-theory-of-relativity-ngbooktalk","publisher":"National Geographic","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260115092937/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/151104-newton-einstein-gravity-vulcan-planets-mercury-astronomy-theory-of-relativity-ngbooktalk"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"cadbury-wispa","name":"Wispa","category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Confectionery","maker":"Cadbury","country":"GB","born":{"value":"1981","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2003","precision":"year"},"status":"revived","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Cadbury withdrew Wispa from UK sale in 2003 after declining sales and production problems, folding the aerated bar into the Dairy Milk range.","summary":"Wispa launched in 1981 and was withdrawn in 2003 on declining sales and production problems, absorbed into Cadbury's Dairy Milk range. Then the internet noticed. A 14,000-strong Bring Back Wispa group across MySpace and Facebook, a Bebo group and a YouTube archive of the old adverts pushed Cadbury into reissuing 23 million bars in October 2007 for a stated limited period. It came back permanently in 2008 and went on to sell GBP 92.5m a year.","sources":[{"title":"Cadbury to resurrect Wispa after social network pressure","url":"https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/cadbury-resurrect-wispa-social-network-pressure/732258","publisher":"Campaign","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Cadbury's Wispa: For the Love of Wispa","url":"https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/case-studies/cadbury-s-wispa-for-the-love-of-wispa","publisher":"Institute of Practitioners in Advertising","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Wispa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wispa","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"woolworths-us","name":"Woolworth's (US stores)","aka":["F. W. Woolworth Company","the five-and-dime"],"category":"places-institutions","subcategory":"retail chain","country":"US","born":{"value":"1879","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1997-07","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Discount chains did the same job at greater scale in bigger buildings with parking.","summary":"Woolworth's invented the fixed-price variety store, put a lunch counter in it, and became so central to American main streets that its Greensboro counter is a civil rights landmark. The format was then beaten by its own descendants: Walmart and the big-box discounters offered more of everything, cheaper, outside town. The remaining US stores closed in July 1997 after 118 years. The parent company survived by renaming itself after its own sporting goods chain, Foot Locker.","replacedByName":"The big-box discounters","sources":[{"title":"F. W. Woolworth Company","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Woolworth_Company","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260713035012/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Woolworth_Company"},{"title":"15 Once-Mighty Retailers: Where Are They Now?","url":"https://www.aarp.org/events-history/iconic-stores-closed/","publisher":"AARP","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260304190828/https://www.aarp.org/events-history/iconic-stores-closed/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"wunderlist","name":"Wunderlist","category":"software-services","subcategory":"task management","maker":"6Wunderkinder","country":"DE","born":{"value":"2010-11","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2020-05-06","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"Microsoft replaced Wunderlist with its own To Do app and switched the original off once the feature migration was finished.","summary":"Berlin startup 6Wunderkinder launched Wunderlist in November 2010 and sold it to Microsoft in June 2015. Microsoft announced its own replacement two years later, then took another three years to actually pull the plug, migrating features into To Do rather than forcing anyone across. The original finally stopped syncing on 6 May 2020, nine and a half years after launch, having outlived the company that made it by half a decade.","replacedByName":"Microsoft To Do","sources":[{"title":"Wunderlist officially shuts down on May 6, 2020","url":"https://www.windowscentral.com/wunderlist-will-official-shut-down-may-6-2020","publisher":"Windows Central","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Microsoft will shut down Wunderlist on May 6, 2020","url":"https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-will-shut-down-wunderlist-on-may-6-2020","publisher":"The Next Web","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"How we shifted 6Wunderkinder to Wunderlist, again","url":"https://medium.com/@christianreber/how-we-shifted-6wunderkinder-to-wunderlist-again-380b48a2c791","publisher":"Christian Reber (6Wunderkinder founder), Medium","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"yahoo-answers","name":"Yahoo Answers","aka":["Yahoo! Answers"],"category":"software-services","subcategory":"Web platform","maker":"Yahoo","country":"US","born":{"value":"2005-12","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2021-05-04","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Yahoo closed the site on 4 May 2021, citing declining popularity.","summary":"Yahoo Answers ran for sixteen years as the internet's most dependable source of undependable information. Yahoo announced the closure on 5 April 2021, switched the site to read-only two weeks later, and shut it for good on 4 May, with users given until 30 June to download their own content. Yahoo confirmed it had no plans to archive any of it, so sixteen years of questions went out with the site.","sources":[{"title":"Yahoo Answers will be shut down forever on May 4th","url":"https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/5/22368488/yahoo-answers-shutdown-may-4-internet-era-over-rip","publisher":"The Verge","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260606172341/https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/5/22368488/yahoo-answers-shutdown-may-4-internet-era-over-rip"},{"title":"Yahoo Answers Shutting Down May 4, Content Will Not Be Archived","url":"https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-answers-shutting-down-may-4-content-will-not-be-archived/401553/","publisher":"Search Engine Journal","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Yahoo Answers will cease to exist on May 4th, 2021","url":"https://www.ghacks.net/2021/04/06/yahoo-answers-will-cease-to-exist-on-may-4th-2021/","publisher":"gHacks Tech News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250214231807/https://www.ghacks.net/2021/04/06/yahoo-answers-will-cease-to-exist-on-may-4th-2021/"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"yahoo-pipes","name":"Yahoo Pipes","category":"software-services","subcategory":"web mashup tool","maker":"Yahoo","country":"US","born":{"value":"2007-02","precision":"month"},"died":{"value":"2015-09-30","precision":"day"},"status":"dead","cause":"indifference","causeNote":"Yahoo killed Pipes in a 2015 cull of products it had stopped investing in, announced alongside the shutdown of Yahoo Maps and several regional services.","summary":"Pipes let anyone wire feeds, web pages and APIs together into new data mashups by dragging boxes around a canvas, years before IFTTT and Zapier turned that idea into businesses. Its mission statement was to help users 'rewire the web', and for a while it was the closest thing to a programmable internet that required no code. Yahoo swept it up in a 2015 clearance of neglected products alongside Yahoo Maps: new pipes could not be created after 30 August 2015, and the service went off entirely on 30 September, more than eight years after its February 2007 beta.","sources":[{"title":"Yahoo Shuts Down Pipes, The First Service To Make APIs For Everyone","url":"https://readwrite.com/yahoo-shuts-down-pipes/","publisher":"ReadWrite","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"6 reasons killing off Yahoo Pipes was a bad idea","url":"https://venturebeat.com/dev/6-reasons-killing-off-yahoo-pipes-was-a-bad-idea/","publisher":"VentureBeat","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Yahoo shuts down Pipes, Maps and other services","url":"https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/05/yahoo-shuts-down-pipes-maps-and-other-services/","publisher":"gHacks Technology News","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"yugo","name":"Yugo","aka":["Zastava Koral","Yugo GV"],"category":"vehicles","subcategory":"subcompact car","maker":"Zastava Automobili","country":"RS","born":{"value":"1980","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2008-11","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"merger","causeNote":"Fiat took over the Kragujevac plant and the Yugo line was cleared to make room for Punto production.","summary":"Built on a Fiat 128 platform and landed in America for under $5,000, the Yugo was cheap enough to sell 147,000 units there and bad enough to be voted worst car of the millennium by Car Talk. Zastava built roughly 794,000 across 28 years, making it Serbia's largest automotive export. The last one, a red Koral numbered 794,428, left Kragujevac in November 2008 with a handwritten note taped to the tailgate reading 'cao, nema vise', goodbye, no more, and the workers who built it were sent to prepare the floor for Fiat.","sources":[{"title":"Last Yugo Will Roll Off The Assembly Line This Month","url":"https://www.jalopnik.com/last-yugo-will-roll-off-the-assembly-line-this-month-5087174/","publisher":"Jalopnik","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"End of the Road for the Yugo","url":"https://balkaninsight.com/2008/11/17/end-of-the-road-for-the-yugo/","publisher":"Balkan Insight","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"End Of An Era As Last Yugo Car Rolls Off Production Line","url":"https://www.rferl.org/a/End_Of_An_Era_As_Last_Yugo_Car_Rolls_Off_Production_Line/1351313.html","publisher":"RFE/RL","accessed":"2026-07-24"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"zaire","name":"Zaire","aka":["Republic of Zaire"],"category":"names-designations","subcategory":"country name","maker":"Mobutu Sese Seko","country":"CD","born":{"value":"1971","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"1997-05","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"executive","causeNote":"Laurent-Desire Kabila restored the country's former name on deposing Mobutu Sese Seko in May 1997.","summary":"Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 as part of a campaign of authenticity that also required citizens to drop their Christian names, and changed his own to Mobutu Sese Seko the following year. The name lasted twenty-six years and did not outlive him in power by much: when rebels took the capital in May 1997 and Mobutu fled to Morocco, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was restored almost immediately. Mobutu died four months later.","sources":[{"title":"Democratic Republic of the Congo","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo","publisher":"Britannica","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260723194037/https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo"},{"title":"Zaire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaire","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260719165505/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaire"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"zima","name":"Zima","aka":["Zima Clearmalt"],"category":"food-drink","subcategory":"Malt beverages","maker":"Coors Brewing Company","country":"US","born":{"value":"1993","precision":"year"},"died":{"value":"2021-12","precision":"month"},"status":"revived","cause":"disaster","causeNote":"COVID-19 lockdowns collapsed Japan's bar and restaurant alcohol sales, and Zima's last remaining production ended there in December 2021.","summary":"Zima launched in 1993 into America's clear-product craze and was a David Letterman punchline by the end of 1994. MillerCoors stopped US production in October 2008, but Japan never got the joke: Zima sold there continuously for twenty-five years, across genders and age groups, often alongside dinner. COVID-19 lockdowns ended Japanese production in December 2021. It returned to Japanese shelves in 2023.","sources":[{"title":"MillerCoors, citing sales, stops making Zima","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna27282131","publisher":"NBC News","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250717184815/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna27282131"},{"title":"The long, slow, torturous death of Zima","url":"https://slate.com/human-interest/2008/11/the-long-slow-torturous-death-of-zima.html","publisher":"Slate","accessed":"2026-07-24"},{"title":"Japan's beloved Zima discontinued after sales hurt by COVID-19","url":"https://soranews24.com/2022/01/06/japans-beloved-zima-discontinued-after-sales-hurt-by-covid-19/","publisher":"SoraNews24","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260416114631/https://soranews24.com/2022/01/06/japans-beloved-zima-discontinued-after-sales-hurt-by-covid-19/"},{"title":"Zima (drink)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zima_(drink)","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260710140301/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zima_(drink)"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"},{"slug":"zune","name":"Zune","category":"consumer-hardware","subcategory":"media player","maker":"Microsoft","country":"US","born":{"value":"2006-11-14","precision":"day"},"died":{"value":"2011-10","precision":"month"},"status":"dead","cause":"successor","causeNote":"The iPod had already won, and then the iPhone made winning the iPod contest irrelevant.","summary":"The Zune arrived five years after the iPod into a market that had finished deciding. The hardware was competent and the later Zune HD was genuinely well designed, but Microsoft was fighting for second place in a category the iPhone was about to dissolve entirely. Hardware was discontinued in 2011. Its software ideas survived into Windows Phone, which then died too.","replacedByName":"The iPhone","sources":[{"title":"Zune HD","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune_HD","publisher":"Wikipedia","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260611175655/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune_HD"},{"title":"Microsoft discontinues hard drives, \"squircle\" from Zune lineup","url":"https://appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/02/microsoft_discontinues_hard_drives_squircle_from_zune_lineup","publisher":"AppleInsider","accessed":"2026-07-24","archiveUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260510075700/https://appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/02/microsoft_discontinues_hard_drives_squircle_from_zune_lineup"}],"lastReviewed":"2026-07-24"}]}