BMX began in the early 1970s in Southern California, when children started racing bicycles on dirt tracks, inspired by motocross stars. The Schwinn Sting-Ray and other wheelie bikes were easy to customize, so they became the bike of choice. The 1971 motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday is credited with spreading the craze nationally, and by the mid-1970s manufacturers were building bikes for the sport. The American Bicycle Association was organized in 1977. Freestyle riding later grew into a staple of the X Games.

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.