c. 11,000 BC: an unknown early human in East Africa’s Rift Valley realizes that, no matter how good it might taste, eating the scum on the floor of his cave is totally gross. Anthropologists term this moment “the dawn of floor-cleaning consciousness”.

2560 BC: an estimated 15,000 Hebrew slaves die cleaning the floors of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

44 BC: in the first major conflict of the nascent Roman Empire, Mark Antony and Octavian fall out over who is responsible for cleaning Julius Caesar’s blood from the floor of the Roman Forum. “Not it, called it,” Octavian famously declares.

c. 400-800 AD: as the Dark Ages fall across Europe, an order of monks in Ireland preserve the remaining storehouse of ancient floor-cleaning knowledge.

1868 AD: Chicago inventor Ives W. McGaffey devises the first cleaner using vacuum principles. The “Whirlwind” is a modest success, but McGaffey abandons the idea to work on another invention: an electric-powered milk bucket that can read cows’ minds.

2008 AD: Woot.com offers the Roomba 510 at the unprecedented low price of $149.99, bringing its improved side brush/beater brush design, increased charge time, larger dustbin, and sturdier construction to thousands of previously Roomba-free Americans. Yet for many, life remains a hollow, dispiriting charade.

2157 AD: the final living human is sucked into the four-acre dustbin of the Roomba 9100, completing the robots’ conquest of Earth.

Back to top