Friday, August 28, 2026 — National Bow Tie Day

A pharmacist’s soda gets a better name, two teenagers turn $100 into a delivery empire, and a loom company begins building cars.

Today we explore Caleb Bradham’s transformation of Brad’s Drink into Pepsi-Cola, follow UPS from a Seattle basement, and discover how Toyota grew from an automatic-loom business.

Along the way, we celebrate the birthday of Satoshi Tajiri, the Pokémon creator who transformed his childhood fascination with collecting insects into a digital world of collecting and trading.

Sometimes reinvention works because it carries the best part of an old idea into a completely new form.