An animated version of the Bayeux Tapestry,
An animated version of the Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Wikipedia has more info on the tapestry and VSL has more on the video.
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kottke.org posts about history
Short interview by James Surowiecki of Nassim
Short interview by James Surowiecki of Nassim Taleb about his new book, The Black Swan. “History is dominated not by the predictable but by the highly improbable — disruptive, unforeseeable events that Taleb calls Black Swans. The effects of wars, market crashes, and radical technological innovations are magnified precisely because they confound our expectations of the universe as an orderly place.” Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article on Taleb for the New Yorker in 2002, which Taleb said “put too much emphasis on the far less interesting, more limited — and rather boring — applications of my ideas to finance/economic, & less on the dynamics of historical events/philosophy of history, artistic success, and general uncertainty in society”. See also an interview in New Scientist, a NY Times op-ed, and a long piece on the Edge site about the black swan idea.
A list of the earliest printed books
A list of the earliest printed books in select languages. Movable metal type printing in Korea predates that of Gutenberg by a couple hundred years. See also the Wikipedia entry for movable type.
Recency of history
Thoughtful post on the extreme recency of recorded human history. We know very little about the people who lived before the invention of writing and collections of stories like the Bible, save for what we can glean from speechless skeletons, footprints, and other remains.
And look at how much is lost. Between the time of the couple fleeing across a field of volcanic ash and poor dead Lucy lies 400,000 years. If a Bible is a record of the struggle of a people for 2,000 years, we’d need 200 Bibles to tell us the tale of just this one obscure, remote branch of our lineage.
(thx, alexander)
How to think about the scale of
How to think about the scale of human history: “Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States’ great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the United States did not exist. Through Mr. Schlesinger, you’re no more than three away yourself. That’s how short the history of our nation really is. Not impressed? It’s only two more life spans to William Shakespeare. Two more beyond that, and the only Europeans to see America are those who sailed from Greenland. You’re ten lifetimes from the occupation of Damietta during the fifth crusade. Twenty from the founding of Great Zimbabwe and the Visigoth sack of Rome. Make it forty, and Theseus, king of Athens, is held captive on Crete by King Minos, the Olmecs are building the first cities in Mexico, and the New Kingdom collapses in Egypt.”
Wikipedia has a series of maps showing
Wikipedia has a series of maps showing the political and social boundries of the world in 2000 BC, 1000 BC, 500 BC, 323 BC and so on.
Clovis theory in doubt
Some recent rigorous radiocarbon dating has thrown into doubt the theory that the Americas were first settled 11,000 years ago by the so-called Clovis peoples.
Writer’s Dreamtools has a timeline of events,
Writer’s Dreamtools has a timeline of events, people, entertainment, fashion, money, etc. for every decade since 1650. This allows the writer to put herself in that time period and as a jumping off point for further historical research. Favorite categories: “who’s in” and “what’s in”. What a great resource for writers. (via youngna)
Historiography is the study of the practice
Historiography is the study of the practice of history. “When you study ‘historiography’ you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians.”
Bound for Glory
The Library of Congress has an online photography exhibit called Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943 (thx, shay). The photos were a little low contrast, so I color corrected a few of them in Photoshop:
My goal was not to blow out the contrast or unnecessarily accentuate colors, but attempt to duplicate what these photos would look like had they been taken with a contemporary camera and processed using contemporary techniques and materials.
Since he was 12, Gilles Trehin has been
Since he was 12, Gilles Trehin has been drawing and writing about the imaginary city of Urville, which is situated on the Mediterranean coast of France, was founded by the Phoenicians in the 12th century BC, and currently houses over 17 million inhabitants. Don’t miss the drawings. (via godammit)
Social, political, economic, cultural, historical, and technological
Social, political, economic, cultural, historical, and technological timelines of the world from 1750 to 2100. Having all the timelines in one view is nice, but the zoomable interface is clunky.
The CIA World Factbook maintains a page
The CIA World Factbook maintains a page about the entire world, which seems like it was meant to be read by aliens about to visit Earth for the first time. (thx jake)
This Onion story is right on the
This Onion story is right on the edge between humor and tasteless: Kent State Basketball Team Massacred By Ohio National Guard In Repeat Of Classic 1970 Matchup. I laughed, but I felt bad about it.
The story of the Hindenburg disaster. Amazingly, 2/3
The story of the Hindenburg disaster. Amazingly, 2/3 of the zeppelin’s passengers survived the crash. Here’s an audio recording of the famous Herbert Morrison radio broadcast (“oh, the humanity”) of the disaster.
This Day in Apple History offers a
This Day in Apple History offers a daily story about what happened on a given day in Apple’s history.
A Brief Economic History of the World, 10,000
A Brief Economic History of the World, 10,000 BC-2000 AD, consisting of several PDFs. I only read the intro, but it seems pretty interesting if you’re interested in such things.
Right around 1985 is when American cuisine took
Right around 1985 is when American cuisine took hold in NYC…and with it came other changes. “It can be argued that fine dining finally lost its haughty attitude then, that cloches became less important than customer comment cards. A fascination with classic French cooking was forevermore trumped by an insistence on something lighter, more flexible and less hidebound. The trickle of a simpler sensibility from California became a tide. The glories of the Greenmarket took ineradicable root.”
Timeline of video games, mostly business-related. But
Timeline of video games, mostly business-related. But holy crap, Hunt the Wumpus (a game I had for the TI-99) was invented in 1973? Cool.
History of the hamburger
Who knew the history of the hambuger was so convoluted? Here’s what we know: somewhere between Kublai Khan and the Big Mac, someone somewhere invented it.
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses, a “social life of beverages”. Standage is one of my favorite technology/culture writers; he wrote about the telegraph in The Victorian Internet.
Slideshow of historic photography from the archives
Slideshow of historic photography from the archives of ICP and the George Eastman Collection. Lots of photos from both collections are set to be available online in 2006 at photomuse.org.
The Harry Potter book series as allegory for 1930s Europe
The Harry Potter book series as allegory for 1930s Europe. Voldemort as Hitler, Dumbledore as Churchill, and Potter as FDR’s America?
Animated geographic history of the United States
Animated geographic history of the United States. This is pretty cool.
Humans’ worst mistake
Jared Diamond calls agriculture “the worst mistake in the history of the human race”. “With the advent of agriculture [the] elite became better off, but most people became worse off”.
David McCullough’s 1776 and the tension between academic historians and popularizers
David McCullough’s 1776 and the tension between academic historians and popularizers. Also apropos to the scientists vs. pop science writers argument I’ve been hearing lately re: Blink and Everything Bad is Good for You.
A condensed history of the world, from
A condensed history of the world, from the Big Bang to the present (and a little of the future).
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