1981 report on internet newspapers

What? Newspapers on my home computer? That's the stuff of science fiction:

"[T]he new telepaper won't be much competition for the twenty-cent street edition."

Whew! Looks like you dodged a bullet there, mainstream press!

(via LifeBuzz)

Shakespeare's plays reduced to three-panel cartoons

Mya Gosling has done a great service for those of us who find reading Shakespeare a little tedious. She has reduced the Bard's plays to simple, three-panel cartoons. Here's a sampling:

Check the rest out here. Be sure to check back often, as she plans to give all of Shakespeare's plays the three-panel treatment.

Full 1938 broadcast of 'The War of the Worlds'

On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles treated America to what would become one of the most infamous radio broadcasts in history. The War of the Worlds, a dramatized adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel, was created for the CBS radio anthology The Mercury Theatre on the Air, yet it convinced many listeners that Earth was actually being invaded by creatures from Mars.

Here it is, in its entirety, for your Halloween enjoyment:

Inforgraphic: A brief history of publishing

(From Finvy.com)

Government finally admits what everyone already knew: Area 51 exists

George Washington University has obtained recently declassified government documents for its National Security Archive that, for the first time, acknowledge the existence of the infamous Area 51. The documents describe the creation of the top-secret site and the government's spy plane program. No, there isn't any mention of aliens.

The Atlantic Wire has the story.

"Bring out your dead!" Suspected Black Death burial pit found in London

I'm not sure how routine it is to have a team of archaeologists working alongside a construction crew, but in a historically rich city like London, it may be rather common. Last month, during the excavation of a new railway station, archaeologists uncovered what is believed to be a mass grave for victims of bubonic plague, known during medieval times as the Black Death.


Here's something I didn't know. Each year, the U.S. sees about 10 to 20 cases of the plague from flea or rodent bites, and most of those are from infected prairie dogs in rural southwestern areas. The death rate is around one in seven.

Free, 22 million-page searchable archive of historical newspapers

The Library of Congress, working with $22 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, has created an online digital archive of five million newspaper pages. Tom Tryniski of Fulton, New York, has created a database of 22 million newspaper pages with only a few computers and a microfilm scanner.


You can peruse Tryniski's newspaper collection here.

(via The Tea Party Economist)

19th-century inspiration for Star Wars?

These firefighter rescue masks, dating between the late 1800s and World War I, were steampunk a century before steampunk came into existence. And they bear a striking resemblance to a couple of familiar Star Wars faces.

It is interesting to note that a popular 19th-century manufacturer of smoke helmets was Vajen-Bader. Vajen-Bader? Vader? Hmmmm?

A history of New York in 50 objects

The New York Times called upon historians and museum curators to come up with 50 objects that could be used to tell the history of New York. Among the items collected: a mastodon tusk, a bagel, an audio track from the Tonight Show, and a jar of dust from 9/11.

See the entire collection here.

(via Kottke)

Famous scenes recreated using Star Wars action figures

David Eger uses Star Wars action figures to recreate film posters, movie scenes, album covers, paintings, and famous moments from history.

View more here.

1962 blurb for The Rolling Stones' first gig

I can't say "I knew them when..." because, well, I wasn't even born yet.

Mick Jagger, R&B vocalist, is taking a rhythm and blues group into the Marquee tomorrow night (Thurs) while Blues Inc. is doing its Jazz Club gig.

Called 'The Rolling Stones' ("I hope they don't think we're a rock 'n' roll outfit", says Mick) the lineup is Jagger, (voc), Keith Richards, Elmo Lewis (gtrs), Dick Taylor (bass), 'Sut' (pno), Mike Avery (drs).

A second group under Long John Baldry will also be there.

(from UPI.com)

1917 photo of an ice resurfacer (a.k.a. Zamboni)

(from Shorpy.com)

Star Wars: The first 35 years

Star Wars was released 35 years ago today. Yes, you're that old.

Here's the original movie trailer (before it was known as "Episode IV: A New Hope"):


And here's a clever and informative graphic detailing 35 years of Star Wars history:



(via Digg.com)

Mark Twain's letter to would-be burglars

Mark Twain's house was robbed one September night in 1908. One of the burglars recalled the incident:

It was getting well on toward midnight when one by one the lights were extinguished and the house was enshrouded in complete darkness except for one dim light upstairs. Experience told us that this was nothing unusual. My partner went on a tour of inspection around the house. He returned presently with the word that the coast was clear and that one of the kitchen windows had been left partly open. I helped my partner to climb in through it; and he then went and opened the big French double doors leading out from the dining room on the great veranda. I entered by the front door, like a gentleman.

By the rays of our flashlights, we first made a careful inspection of the dining room. The heavy, old-fashioned, oak sideboard near the door leading into the hall commanded our attention. We knew that it contained the family silver, which it was our object to secure first, as usual. We tried to open the drawers of the sideboard, but found them locked. To break them open would make a noise, of course, and disturb the family if done inside the house. We did not wish to be guilty of such carelessness, so we took hold of the sideboard and carried it out of the house and some five hundred feet down the road. There we broke the locks of the drawers and emptied their contents into a black bag which we had brought for the purpose. Then we went back into the house to see what else we could find.

Before proceeding, it is necessary to mention a brass bowl which had stood as an ornament on top of the sideboard, and which played such an important and fatal part on that night. Since a brass bowl was of no value to us I took it and placed it noiselessly on the dining-room floor - without my partner's knowledge, however. This was my second mistake on that night. When we entered the dining room the second time, my partner, walking rather carelessly, stumbled and fell heavily over that brass bowl.

In the stillness of the night it seemed to me as if an earthquake had suddenly struck the house. Such a noise that rolling brass thing made! With every nerve tense, we silently watched and waited for the result.

Presently a woman, dressed in bathrobe and slippers, appeared at the head of the stairs. Then a soft clear voice called: "Hello!" It was Miss Lyons, Mark Twain's social secretary, as we afterwards learned, who, awakened by the noise, had courageously come to investigate. A moment we hesitated. Then we turned and silently and swiftly left the house.

Running down the road, we picked up our bag with the silver, and continued running till we arrived at the foot of the hill. There we slackened speed and started to walk back in the direction of Bethel, some seven miles from "Stormfield."

Naturally, the discovery of our presence created a sensation in the Mark Twain household. It is said that the butler, who had been aroused, fired several shots after us, "to hasten our departure," as Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine puts it in his biography of Mark Twain. For this, however, I cannot vouch, as we must have been considerably out of pistol shot by the time the gun went off. The shots, however, did awaken the aged author of "Huckleberry Finn" who, says Mr. Paine in his account, imagining that a champagne party was in progress below, rolled over and went to sleep again.

The thieves were eventually caught.

Twain, hoping to avoid more property damage in the future, attached the following letter to his front door:

NOTICE.

To the next Burglar.

There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise — it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola, or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away!

Very truly yours,

S.L. Clemens

(via Letters of Note)

The Nazi origins of the Olympic torch

The Olympic flame may have originated in ancient Greece, where the fire was kept burning for the duration of the games, but the modern torch relay is a product of Nazi propaganda. Those Nazis sure did love their ceremonies. From The Atlantic:

Though Goebbels and Hitler both seemed to have loved the idea of the torch relay, it wasn't their idea. A man named Carl Diem, the secretary general of the organizing committee of the Berlin games, proposed it, inspired by the torch that had burned over the 1928 games in Amsterdam. Though an official in the Nazi government, Diem was a sport administrator first. After his years-long campaign to hold the Olympics in Germany had finally trickled up to the top of the government, he had lobbied, though unsuccessfully, to more freely allow German Jews to participate in the Olympics. So it's tough to blame Diem entirely for the Nazi propaganda piece that his torch relay became.

Whether or not Diem meant it to, a torch relay fit neatly within Nazi propaganda. Beginning the relay in Greece and ending it roughly 1,500 miles away in Berlin reinforced the idea of a shared Aryan heritage between the ancient power and the new one. It also hinted at Hitler's idea of a natural, civilizational progression from the Greek Empire to the Roman to the German. And the route happened to go through Czechoslovakia, where the stream of Nazi propaganda that surrounded it inspired some members of the ethnic German minority to clash with member of the Czech majority. Two years later, Hitler would invade and occupy part of Czechoslovakia, where he claimed the German minority was at risk.

Hitler found yet more ways to engineer the torch relay as Nazi propaganda. The head of the Reich sports office, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, convinced him to sponsor excavations of the original Olympic game sites in Olympia, further reinforcing the image of Germany as heir and caretaker of the ancient powers. Official Nazi anthem Die Fahne Hoch was played at the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece.

So...yeah.

1903 film footage of Princeton-Yale football game

No forward passes, no instant replays, no skycams, no two-way radio in the quarterback's helmet...Is this even football?


(via Kottke)

Construction of the Superdome in 1973

2011

(via NOLA.com)

The REAL history of Thanksgiving: A lesson in economics

Everyone knows the official story of Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims, who had come here in search of a better life, found themselves starving. The local Indians took pity on them and taught the hapless newcomers how to farm the land. Then, following their first bountiful harvest, the Pilgrims invited the Indians over for lunch to say "thanks." And thus was born a beloved American tradition.

But those early years of the Pilgrims were really more of a lesson in economics. Investment writer Richard J. Maybury explains:

In his History of Plymouth Plantation, the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.

But in subsequent years something changes. The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

What happened?

After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.

This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.

This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.

To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

You can read the rest here.

The War of 1812: The Movie

If your junior high history notes were turned into a movie...

Authors: Van Gogh died in a shooting accident

Vincent van Gogh died in an shooting accident and not as the result of suicide. That is the claim made by Pulitzer-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith in an upcoming biography of the artist.

The book, Van Gogh: The Life, is the result of 10 years of research. Relying on previously untranslated letters belonging to Van Gogh's family, it also features dozens of new photographs. It is set to be published in Britain today.

There is nothing noble or virtuous in suicide, so this is good news for Van Gogh fans.