# What was the first thing people stood in line for days for? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 9, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608 "2019-12-09T19:11:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/21 "2019-12-10T00:25:33Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > They didn’t have lines in Og’s day. One of his grandkids invented them. Og wonder why kids stand in line to hear Music with Rocks in it. Og not do that when kid. Og go out and kill mammoth. Uphill both ways. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/22 "2019-12-10T02:49:10Z")
^ Get off Og lawn! ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/23 "2019-12-10T03:39:10Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Nitpick, but you had a couple of choices back then. You could have a [500-series phone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone) of course, but there was also the Princess phone and the Trimline phone. And there were wall-mount models too, and, after 1954, you could get your phone in colors other than black. Plus the Princess & Trimline versions were mostly non-black. ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/24 "2019-12-10T07:11:50Z")
I remember news reports in the early 70s of people camping outside London department stores before the January Sales, and it seemed a well established thing by then. I well remember a woman who was after a particular fur coat and was greeted by management with champagne for a photo op. She then went outside the store and promptly burned the coat as a protest against the fur trade. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/25 "2019-12-10T08:14:53Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Hmm. I don’t have the resources to look it up, but would food count back during the building of the pyramids? They had [massive catering systems](https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2013/04/25/feeding-the-pyramid-builders/), I doubt there was much more queuing than in a modern high school cafeteria ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/26 "2019-12-10T09:33:08Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Most historians now say “let them eat cake” was never said by Marie Antoinette. An early example of _fake news_ apparently. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/27 "2019-12-11T19:04:44Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > An early example of _fake news_ apparently. Ben Franklin worked that trick a few decades earlier. In Aztec times, captured prisoners were probably queued for days, awaiting their turn to climb the pyramid for sacrifice, heads rolling down to the adoring crowds, bodies rolling back to the butchers because animal protein shortage (no livestock). A queue is also a Manchurian pigtail but so what? [Queue area - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queue_area) says _“The first written description of people standing in line is found in an 1837 book, The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle described what he thought was a strange sight: people standing in an orderly line to buy bread from bakers around Paris.”_ Prior queueing was thus either undocumented or nonexistent because shoving greedyguts. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/28 "2019-12-11T22:57:16Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > If you’re talking about mania manufactured by modern advertising, the closest historical analogy is probably in the realm of religion. With a little digging, I’m sure we could find ancient accounts of people lined up for days for an audience/blessing/healing/prophecy or some other hokum from a “holy person”. I’m sure those people of yore would disagree with me that what they were waiting for was nonessential, but so too would many people waiting in line for an iPhone. I think you’re probably right. There are plenty of historical examples of supplicants waiting in the court of a patron for days, going back to the Roman forums and probably earlier. But they most likely weren’t lined up. Instead, they were somewhere within the court trying to work their way through the system established by the courtiers to be seen by the patron. Pilgrims on the other hand had limited options for accelerating their access to a shrine, and unless they were part of the elite, would have had to queue. ---
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/29 "2019-12-12T14:02:32Z")
A toilet? (Or outhouse?) it’s “non-essential” cuz there’s probably a tree or shrubbery nearby that’d do the trick! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/30 "2019-12-12T14:51:11Z")
> [@2Bits](#): > > A toilet? (Or outhouse?) it’s “non-essential” cuz there’s probably a tree or shrubbery nearby that’d do the trick! For days?:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/31 "2019-12-13T15:31:46Z")
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889. While not the earliest example, it certainly was one of the largest. Granted, many of the settlers were on horseback or in wagons, but they were effectively standing around waiting for the land to be opened. And most of them were waiting for several days (or weeks). ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/32 "2019-12-13T21:12:45Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > For days?:dubious: Yeah, when you remember this condition of the OP it makes some posts weird or, in this case, humorous. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/33 "2019-12-13T21:33:44Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > In a big family, they stood in line to USE the phone. And the bathroom. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2019, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/34 "2019-12-14T21:31:45Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > And the bathroom. That’s what 2+ holers were for. ---
**Author:** ![bubba001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@bubba001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba001)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/35 "2019-12-15T04:31:13Z")
If you hadn’t thrown in the qualifier “documented “ I’d say sex. But whatever… ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2019, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/36 "2019-12-15T10:40:43Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Nitpick, but you had a couple of choices back then. You could have a [500-series phone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone) of course, but there was also the Princess phone and the Trimline phone. But even then, you didn’t go to the phone company to get one. You went to a payphone and called the phone company business office and scheduled an appointment to have an installer come out and install a new phone (or remove your old phone). The current modular jack that you can simply plug and unplug a cord to/from began to be deployed in the Bell System starting in the 1970s. Before then, they had to send an installer with a screwdriver, wire strippers, and wires out to attach or detach a phone. Before what is commonly called the “RJ11” jack came into use, there was a brief period when a 4-prong connector that looked like a wall wart was available, but it didn’t get much use in residential installations. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/37 "2019-12-17T06:11:37Z")
Our family bought a newly-built house in 1959, and it had 2 sockets for those large plugs in 2 spots, our recreation room and the basement. Only one of our phones had the plug. The idea was we could move the phone from the recreation room to the basement if someone was in the basement and wanted to answer the phone (remember, no answering machines in those days). That way we only paid for the one physical phone instead of two. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/38 "2019-12-17T23:28:22Z")
> [@Bumbershoot](#): > > I wonder how long Romans waited in line to see events at the Colosseum? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information available\* but I doubt they waited for days. > \*According to my exhaustive research, which consisted of skimming the wikipedia article. The Colosseum was a marvel of efficiency. The entire building could be filled or emptied of up to 80,000 people in 15 minutes. There were 76 entrances, and circular passages around the perimeter called ‘vomitoria’ which helped uh, vomit the spectators into their seats or out of the building. It helped that the Colosseum was free to attend, so no need for ticket lines. People just flooded in, and vomited out. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/39 "2019-12-17T23:33:31Z")
I remember some pretty big lines for _Star Wars_ back in the day. I just googled around and found lots of pictures of very long lines, along with the claim from one contemporary news story that people in that region waited in line for as long as 36 hours to see ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. So multi-day lines for non-essentials were happening in the 1970’s at least. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608/40 "2019-12-18T17:33:52Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I remember some pretty big lines for _Star Wars_ back in the day. I just googled around and found lots of pictures of very long lines, along with the claim from one contemporary news story that people in that region waited in line for as long as 36 hours to see ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. > > So multi-day lines for non-essentials were happening in the 1970’s at least. I could imagine that already before Star Wars, people had been standing in lines for concert tickets for very popular bands for days. Sorry, no cite, just a hunch. ETA: I dimly remember a scene from a documentary of David Bowies “Ziggy Stardust” tour with fans camping out in sleeping backs in front the ticket office. That must have been in 1972. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-thing-people-stood-in-line-for-days-for/844608.md?page=3)