Word: stretch
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Western military attachés (three American, one British) to ride the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way from Moscow to Khabarovsk, headquarters of the Soviet Far East military command. It was the first time in two years that any foreigners had been allowed on the 2,300-mile stretch from Irkutsk to Khabarovsk, which runs straight through what is presumed to be Russia's new belt of atomic plants and missile sites. Presumably, by taking careful note of such clues as power lines, spur tracks and freight-car types, a trained military observer could get an excellent idea...
...first stretch fabric, of course, was skin. It fit fairly well, withstood wear and tear (scuff marks, lipstick traces, even wine stains vanished in a jiffy), but wrinkled like crazy: a knee bend, for example, caused the stuff to stretch 45%, a shoulder shrug, 16%. After as little as 30 bending, shrugging years, shape was sure to go. Fortunately, skilled technicians got to work on the problem, finally turned up with an ANo. 1 solution called polyurethane elastomeric yarn (spandex) that stretches like skin, leaves no telltale bags or sags, and springs back into good-as-new condition without benefit...
...Giant Step. In theory, stretch fabrics have been around since 1947, when the discovery of vertically stretchable textured yarn hit the slopes, making ski pants a stylish as well as a sturdy business. Chemical processes like slack mercerizing (by which the fabric, not the raw fiber, is made resilient after it is woven) left cottons and wools horizontally stretchable, did wonders for men's oxford shirts. Spandex, a wholly elastic fiber produced by Du Pont in 1958, revitalized bathing suits, hosiery and undergarments. But the big breakthrough came only last spring, when Du Pont went one giant step farther...
...result: a versatile, sure-fire way to convert every conventionally rigid fabric in the world into stuff that stretched up and down, back and forth, to and fro, and never once ran out of breadth. Accordingly, a whole new galaxy of stretch fabric appeared, all developed around a spandex core, ranging from brocade to burlap, taffeta to twill. Not all of them cling to the skin, but the stretch qualities let them give when and where they have...
Then Marx started to fade--and with him Harvard's hopes, until the Crimson's Bob Stempson made his stretch move. In the last 150 yards Stempson swept by Bowman and Ennis, crossing the line 10 yards behind Busick, and Harvard was back in the race...