Content tagged with “history” under “The Interesting List”

“ A pretty hilarious recounting of a bizarre Olympics and an even more bizarre event for which no one was prepared and which was ‘run’ in only the loosest sense of the word. ”

“ A vehicle was designed to move scientists around Antarctica in the 1930s. It performed poorly, was abandoned, re-discovered in the 50s, re-abandoned, and might now be floating around the South Pacific, encased in an iceberg. ”

“ There is a simplified version of English, consisting of just 850 words. After World War II, it was promoted as a universal language for the entire world. ”

“ In 1945, there was an hours-long Japanese ‘attack’ on Los Angeles that was very likely the result of wild imaginations and nervous trigger fingers. ”

“ A video showing the usage of a ‘Berlin Key,’ which is a key that unlocks a door, then is pushed through, and has to be used to lock the door on the other side before it can be removed. This ensures the door remains locked after someone passes through it. ”

“ An Iowa TV station converts from black-and-white to color, live on the air, in 1967. ”

“ Many U.S. presidents have had close brushes with death, including an actual assassination attempt on George W. Bush that hardly anyone knows about. ”

“ A photo gallery of ad hoc graves found in the American desert. ”

“ A wide-ranging look at if people used to look older for their age, and why people tend to look how we think they should, or vice-versa. ”

“ In 1913, parents were reunited with their toddler son who had disappeared eight months earlier. However, another woman claimed the child was her son. Almost 100 years later, DNA evidence proved the child was misidentified. ”

“ A groundbreaking video from 2004 which describes a fictionalized future on what the media landscape might look like in 2014. ”

“ In the 1860s, several nations went to war over bat poop. ”

“ The Jungle Gym was designed to help kids think in three dimensions. But kids just liked to climb on them. ”

“ Video of a safe made several hundred years ago in France with multiple keys and a series of sliding doors which must be opened in a specific order. ”

“ Researchers think they finally have an explanation for the chilling Dyatlov Pass Incident. ”

“ The website of the Heaven’s Gate cult who committed mass suicide when the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997 is still online and unchanged. ”

“ In San Francisco, there’s a billboard ad from 1993 that’s occasionally revealed. People have started taking pictures of it on the rare times it’s visible. ”

“ It’s not quite what the title promises, but this is a quick look at how cats have benefited humans over the years, and how little they differ from the cats of ancient times. ”

“ Maps throughout history show how a 100-million year old coastline predicts voting demographics in modern-day Alabama. ”

“ A lovely look at how art moved from realism to abstraction. Beautifully edited and narrated with 100-ish shots of abstract art. ”

“ An infographic showing the background and history behind the names of all the major candy bars and snacks. ”

“ Lovely tribute to the first CD-ROM encyclopedia that many of us owned, and the sense of wonder that it brought us. Wikipedia killed it, but Encarta was a refuge for me for many years. ”

“ A promotional video for the first version of Adobe Acrobat in 1993. It details the work processes of a fictional office that will seem familiar to a lot of who were working in the 90s. ”

“ In 1971, Iran threw itself a 2,500th year birthday party in the middle of the desert. It was undoubtedly the most expensive party in history. ”

“ Memories of a physician who was in the emergency room where JFK was brought after he was shot in 1963. ”

“ An FBI agent doggedly pursued Osama Bin Laden for most of the 90s. He retired in August 2001, and took a job as head of security for the World Trade Center. He died two weeks later on 9/11. ”

“A wonderful six-part miniseries that chronicles the rule of Nicolas II, the last Czar of Russia, and the patriarch of the infamous Romanov family that was massacred in 1918. The episodes transition between a compelling, acted story, and historians and scholars who provide context to what is…”

“ Due to several specific circumstances, up until this week, there was still a single person receiving a pension from the Civil War. ”

“ An analysis of Last Supper paintings show the depicted portion size growing, which likely parallels dietary trends of the time the painting was created. ”

“ In a sensational trial, a lawyer successfully defended his client with a shocking defense. Near death, he admitted the entire story was fabricated. ”

“ This is the first image ever posted to the web. It has been at this same web address since 1992. The image depicts a comedy musical group formed at CERN, where the web was invented. ”

“ A very niche list of science fiction stories that were originally set in ‘the future,’ but that real time has now surpassed, meaning the stories are now set in the past. ”

“ Controversy has followed this movie since it was released. Most people were unaware of the problems and are only now understanding how the movie is perceived by the black community. ”

“ There was an ethnic neighborhood underneath where Central Park now sits. It was destroyed to create the park, and NYC has finally started to acknowledge this. ”

“ It turns out that ‘macaroni’ was a state of mind. ”

“ Throughout the 20th century, leaded gasoline additives likely have caused more deaths, crime, and intellectual disabilities than almost any other invention. ”

“ Julia Roberts’s parents ran a theater school in Georgia and became friends with Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. ”

“ This is the first video ever posted to YouTube. It’s 18 seconds of one of the founders talking about elephants at the zoo, ”

“ A much-hyped martial arts bout in the 80s was won almost entirely on the strength of an unexpected and underestimated movement. ”

“ There are places where the original wagon wheel ruts from covered wagons in the late 1800s have remained undisturbed and are still visible. ”

“ A father never knew for sure what happened to his firefighter son on 9/11. In 2010, they stumbled on the last picture ever taken of him, running towards the towers. ”

“ A woman was troubled by the subtle tone of Wikipedia articles about certain aspects of Nazi history. She embarked on an epic and controversial editing spree. ”

“ In 1976, a young Bill Gates wrote a open letter to a computing newsletter imploring people not to make bootleg copies of his software. This letter is the source of much of the antipathy against Gates in the programming community. ”

“ A ‘full orchestral’ music box from the late 1800s that plays all instruments for a piece of music from an interchangeable cylinder. ”

“ A ‘building ghost’ is when a demolished building leaves the marks of its floors and walls on the adjacent buildings. ”

“ A 17-minute history of racism in America, from the period immediately following emancipation through today. ”

“ The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has a mustache that reminds Koreans of Imperial Japanese leaders. This has upset some Koreans. ”

“ The BBC obtained recordings of several phone calls made by Tunisia’s deposed dictator while he was on the run and trying to determine if he should, or even could, return home. ”

“ A record temperature that stood for 90 years was probably just human error. ”

“ Barbie’s Dreamhouse is 60 years old. Its style has changed to match the evolving architecture styles of the times. ”

“ In the 1920s, people kept smashing a traffic light in an Irish neighborhood because they objected to green being the bottom color. As a result, it is now the only ‘upside-down traffic light’ in America. ”

“ Wonderful documentary about the history and heyday of Studio 54, a disco in late 70s NYC that took the genre to new heights, before it all came crashing down. Told by Ian Schaeger, one of the two men behind the club. ”

“ Someone found a weirdly rare car abandoned in a parking garage. The article explains the history of the EV1 and why GM tried to kill them all. ”

“ A detailed history of the NC-17 movie rating. ”

“ In the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains sits a train that’s not technically abandoned, but will likely never move again. ”

“ Over a hundred years ago, Chinese immigrants settled in the Mississippi Delta. Their descendants still live in the Deep South. ”

“ When the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the Moon, they completed a customs declaration form in Hawaii and declared moon rocks as cargo entering the country. ”

“ A history of the credit card industry and the two biggest players, which were both named something else when they started. ”

“ A small town in West Virginia was tired of being ignored for funding by their state, so, in the middle of the Cold War, they appealed to the Soviet Union for funding. A representative from the USSR actually visited to vet the request before the state finally relented. ”

“ A 1994 clip from the Today show where the hosts discuss the ‘@’ sign, and try to explain what ‘internet’ is. ”

“ Not many people know about the 1973 Swedish bank robbery that coined the term used when hostages begin to sympathize and identify with their captors. ”

“ An homage to the vanishing days when the big, black cars floated through the streets of NYC. ”

“ A journalist finds some strange circles on Google Maps. He goes down a research rabbit hole which culminates with adventurers driving out into the middle of nowhere, digging up dynamite, and bringing home sardine cans. ”

“ Early PC computers – before the advent of secure software – often had physical keys to lock the case or the keyboard. ”

“ A summary of the work of J.D. Unwin, who found a correlation between the sexual restraint of a culture and its productivity and ultimate survival. ”

“ There was once an attempt to make a commercially viable autogyro. ”

“ For 15 years, there was a Wikipedia page about a fake concentration camp. The page is gone, but information taken from it is littered all around the internet. ”

“ There’s been an Easter Egg hidden in Windows 95 for 25 years. (The video is long, but you don’t need to watch the entire thing.) ”

“ The story of the E.T. video game for the Atari 2600 which, along with Pac-Man, destroyed then-mighty Atari. ”

“ The first ‘ethical hacker’ might have been a Frenchman who sabotaged the Nazi punch card system for storing data on citizens, thus preventing them from querying for Jews. ”

“ In 1980, an un-defuseable bomb appeared in a Lake Tahoe casino, setting off an elaborate extortion attempt and creating a legend inside the FBI. ”