Oops may be the only American cultural history to ever include flaming elephants, government-funded psychics, and a cutting-edge cinematic technology known as "Smell-O-Vision." This chronicle of often overlooked snafus will delight fans of popular culture who appreciate that Americans' failures are as spectacular as their successes: bridges that collapse; flying cars that crash; sports promotions run amok; deodorant that nearly destroyed the earth; even failures that failed to happen! Veteran journalists Smith and Kiger select twenty miscues, goofs, complications, and failures that shaped modern America and reveal the life lessons these gaffes teach, including: Accentuate the Positive: How Thomas Edison Invented Trash Talk Understand the Market: The 1967 Monkees-Jimi Hendrix Concert Tour Desperation Is the Cradle of Bad Ideas: Cleveland Indians' Ten-Cent Beer Night Sweat the Details: The Sixty-Story John Hancock Guillotine Enriched by handy clip-'n'-save "Recipes for Disaster" (Marinated Myopia, Cooked Goose, False-Alarm Chili), Oops proves that when it comes to failure, truth is stranger than fiction.