In 1767 the English chemist Joseph Priestley was working near a brewery in Leeds, Yorkshire. He suspended a bowl of water above a beer vat, and the water absorbed carbon dioxide released by the fermenting beer. The result was carbonated water, discovered by accident and independently of other work. Priestley wrote of the peculiar satisfaction he found in drinking it. In 1772 he published a paper titled Impregnating Water with Fixed Air, describing the method. The discovery laid the groundwork for the fizzy drinks that followed.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.