The recent election in Iran and the tumultuous events that have ensued inevitably remind me of 1979, a year when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country and Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after a long exile; the hostage crisis started that November. That year holds many other memories for me, including:
• Yankees catcher Thurman Munson died in a plane crash. A diehard Yankees fan, I was also a Little League catcher and had always worn Munson's number 15, so the news of his passing was devastating for me.
• One of my favorite films, Apocalypse Now, came out.
• Eleven fans of The Who were crushed to death trying to get into a concert in Cincinnati, Ohio. I had seen the same tour several weeks earlier.
• ESPN launched. How did we sports fanatics survive before this network came on the air?

When it comes to home appliances, 1979 was also a monumental year. As my colleague Sue Perry, of ShopSmart magazine, pointed out in this recent post, Black & Decker debuted the Dustbuster handheld vacuum 30 years ago. (The illustration shows sketches of the Dustbuster by B&D's design team.) Visit Black & Decker's Dustbuster page for more details on this innovative appliance, including a timeline of the Dustbuster's history and some interesting information on innovations associated with this ubiquitous household tool. (The vacuum cleaner itself celebrated its centennial last year, as covered in "A Century of Doing America's Dirty Work.")

Our latest report on and ratings of upright, canister, stick, sweeper/broom, and handheld vacuums (available to subscribers) includes two Black & Decker handheld vacuums that did well overall in our tests: the Pivot PHV1800, $60, and the Pet Series Retriever HV9010P, $30.—Steven H. Saltzman | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

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