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Sylwia Kapuscinski, Getty Images
1 Indoor smoking (室内吸烟)
The workplace once had clouds of secondhand smoke and first-rate smokers. You could even puff away in the rear of jets. Attitudes have changed, forcing smokers outside, rain or shine.

Chris Pizzello, AP
2 Service stations
It’s easier to find chips and a hot dog than free air or somebody to clean your windshield as service has transformed into convenience shopping and self-serve fill-ups. Want fries with that?

Alexander Zemlianichenko, AP
3 The Soviet threat
The United States’ Cold War rival ended with the stroke of a pen in December 1991. The “evil empire” was undone by internal changes, the desire for independence by its satellites and economic pressures.

Handout
4 Typewriters (打字机)
The computer keyboard on your desk used to be a thundering, hulking device. The electric model sank the manual, only to be trumped by a revolution in technology that continues to this day.

Henry J. Koshollek, AP
5 Vinyl records (密纹唱片)
Music used to be big. Literally. Before palm-sized CDs took over, songs were embedded in vinyl platters the size of hubcaps. And then there were 8-tracks and cassettes. But that’s another story.

AP
6 New Coke
Introduced in 1985 as a replacement for Coca-Cola’s flagship brand, New Coke is considered one of marketing’s all-time duds. New Coke evolved into Coca-Cola II before being discontinued in 2002.
7 Carbon paper
If you worked with typewriters, you’re familiar with the flimsy, filthy filament. To make copies, you’d need a sheet of this purplish-looking stuff. Type “good riddance.” In triplicate.
8 Betamax (BETA带的录象摄象机,我们还在用)
Betamax was the most popular video format in the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, VHS was king. What happened? Some say Betamax’s limited recording time was the culprit.

D. Kevin Elliott for USA TODAY
9 Phone booths (电话亭,使用中)
Don’t tug on Superman’s cape — especially when he’s been trying to find a place to ditch his Clark Kent duds. The bulky boxes with a phone inside have gone away for the most part. Sorry, Clark.
10 Leaded gasoline
The EPA phased out leaded gas in the mid-1990s, citing threats to the environment and public health. Lead was blended into gasoline to boost octane levels and enhance engine performance.
11 Rotary dial phones (旋转拨盘电话机)
Imagine your cellphone, only stationary and way bulkier, with a numbered wheel that you had to spin seven to 10 times or more, depending on your call being local or long distance. Oy.

Handout
12 Videos on MTV (MTV里的视频)
Before reality shows and the like filled its airtime, MTV forged its identity with wall-to-wall videos and the veejays who loved them. OK, who misses 1984’s 99 Luftballoons by Nena? Anyone?

Handout
13 Baltimore Colts
One of the NFL’s cornerstones ended its stay in Baltimore with a whimper in 1984, hitting the road for Indianapolis. The Colts’ Marching Band lived on, even after the Ravens took the field, till 1998.
14 Oldsmobiles
The last Olds rolled off the assembly line in April 2004, signaling a shift in the U.S. auto marketplace and marking the end of a renowned brand. Also deceased: Plymouth (2001) and AMC (1987).

Getty Images
15 Civility (礼貌)
It can be rough out there ?whether on TV, radio, the Web or at sporting arenas. Today抯 discourse has plenty of 揹is,?and it can be pretty 揷oarse,?too. And whatever happened to thank-you notes? We could go on.

Handout
16 ‘American Bandstand’
The TV dance show, a sensation in Philadelphia in the 1950s before going national on ABC, survived countless shifts in musical tastes. Bandstand ended its run in 1989.

Michael Madrid, USA TODAY
17 Beverage pull tabs (饮料易拉罐拉环,国内还到处都是,这也是我喜欢王老吉的原因之一)
Once, to open a beverage can, you’d pull a metal ring from a can, creating a tiny blade you’d rediscover walking barefoot. Tabs that stay attached to the can did away with pull-tabs.

Chris Ocken, AP
18 West African black rhino
At 12 feet long and 3,000 pounds, the rhino might appear indestructible. Last summer, it was “tentatively declared as extinct” by the World Conservation Union. Blame illegal poaching.
19 Hand-crank car windows (手摇汽车门窗)
Before your car was controlled by electronics, you could get a brisk workout just opening the window for a little air. No fingertip controls here, thank you. Crank, two, three. Repeat.

Tim Parker, Reuters
20 Home run kings
Roger Maris got a record and an asterisk in 1961 when he passed Babe Ruth’s season record. He’s been passed by Mark McGwire (70) in 1998 and Barry Bonds (73) in 2001. More asterisks to come?

Lennox McLenden, AP
21 Hair bands
The music: bad. The hair: worse. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the mix was magical for bands such as Poison, Ratt and Cinderella. Some continue to tour, testing the endurance of leather pants.

Roberto Borea, AP
22 The afternoon newspaper (下午报纸,我们的晚报)
Remember the kid on the bike who never quite reached the porch with your afternoon daily? He moved on, as did lifestyles and the media world. City afternoons became lonelier for newspaper readers.
23 Transistor radios (晶体管收音机)
Before iPods, the handheld music-delivery system of choice was the transistor radio. The transistor tuned in to whatever your local radio station was dishing out. It’s the very definition of “quaint.”

File photo
24 Michael Jackson (大家都认识)
The Jackson 5’s lead singer evolved into, well, the “King of Pop,” selling gazillion of copies of 1982’s Thriller. Sales slowed as various accusations and trials came. Today, he is believed to reside in Bahrain.

Handout
25 Checker cabs
The iconic yellow Marathon cab — you know, like the ones in the movie Taxi Driver — stopped being produced in the early 1980s. The last Checker cab in New York City was retired in 1999. So it goes.
Reported and written by USA TODAY’s Robert Fleming. Photo research by Mike Tsukamoto.
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