nm, the board acted up
“For days” kind of limits things. I don’t recall hearing stories of people camping out for things before the Star Wars sequels.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that fans of the Greek Olympics would get there fairly early to get the best seats.
Here’s an article about the line for season hockey tickets at my alma mater. In 1972, people lined up about 12 hours in advance, while the following year, people lined up a few days in advance. (The record, by the way, is 170 days.)
IIRC the town was Kings Landing NB. The St John’s river was dammed around there and historic buildings from the vicinity rescued from rising waters. A house belonging to a provincial chief justice featured a 7-holer out back. The entire Supreme Court could adjudicate cases whilst pooping in comradeship. No waiting on judicial delays, hey?
Ben Franklin’s funeral was America’s first big public mourning. 20,000 people showed up. I’m guessing there had to be a line at some point.
Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train made stops in multiple cities, where the coffin was put on public display. There were reports of lines as long as five hours in some cities.
The qualifying clause “for days” makes this a modern phenomena. The first case may have occurred less than 100 years ago. Before that there was no one to enforce the rules of waiting in line for that long.
In a similar vein and near identical time, the Klondike Gold Rush 1897-1899 featured people queuing for all manner of things to get there, get licenced, get provisions etc
When bread is in short supply, people can skip the step in the baking process where they add yeast and wait for it to kick in until the bread rises. That shortens the time required to bake the bread so people can bake more of it in a given amount of time. Unfortunately, the bread winds up tasting crummy that way.
P.S. By “crummy” I don’t mean it makes a lot of crumbs. I mean it is less appetizing.
And let me add that the princess phone didn’t debut until 1959, and the slim-line phone after that. I don’t know how old the OP is, but my parents didn’t have either choice for quite awhile after they set up housekeeping.
There was a classic wirephoto (that I have never been able to find online) of a box office full of people buying tickets for a Grand Funk Railroad concert. They were packed in so tight that after people bought their tickets, they were passed out of the box office over the heads of the people who were waiting.