Stepping off a plane at BWI this weekend, I spotted an ad for Saul Ewing, the venerable Philadelphia law firm, across from the gate. Below a headline asking “Will you have the right counsel when you need it?” the ad featured a painting of General George Custer and a quote from an imagined advisor atContinue reading “Historically Bad Advice”
History @ HP
Buried deep within the small business section of Hewlett-Packard’s website, this short history of the @ sign has been making waves among techies. A quick search of Technorati yielded more 400 references and direct links, and the article has garnered more than one thousand diggs at digg.com.
"Geek List"—History Board Games
BoardGameGeek.com users debate the question, “What are the best games that teach History?” Visit their self-styled Geek List for an expanding, annotated inventory of commercial history-themed board games. Highlights include the expected—Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage; 1776: The Game of the American Revolutionary War; The Napoleonic Wars; and Battle Cry: The Exciting Civil War Battle FieldContinue reading “"Geek List"—History Board Games”
Family History
Found on the floor of the United States Senate: James Inhofe (R-OK) explores his family history.
Profiles in Courage
In Mario Through the Years, GameDaily offers readers a several-thousand-word biography of Mario, twenty-six year veteran of Nintendo gaming, star of more than 100 games, and stalwart defender of Pauline’s virtue against Donkey Kong’s relentless advances.
Matchstick Titanic
The BBC reports on Welshman Mark Colling’s efforts to build a 19ft-long matchstick model of Titanic. The article also includes a slideshow of Mr. Colling’s earlier models, among them a Mississippi River paddlewheel steamer and a WWII-era Spitfire fighter plane. Colling’s choice of subjects provides a great example of the historical sensibilities that drive soContinue reading “Matchstick Titanic”
Building Histories
I wanted to post this before a new issue came out, but alas I didn’t make it in time. In case you missed it, the May 21st New York Times Magazine featured a series of articles on the question of why contemporary architecture, above all other art forms, inspires popular cultural debates. The editors’ briefContinue reading “Building Histories”
www.foundhistory.org
With help from Ammon, I have finally managed to give Found History the respectable URL it deserves, replacing the ponderous http://chnm.gmu.edu/staff/scheinfeldt/foundhistory/ with the elegant www.foundhistory.org Please update your bookmarks, links, and news readers.
TagLines
If you haven’t done so already, visit Yahoo’s TagLines now. A rolling timeline of the eight most popular Flickr tags for each day since 2004, TagLines is the most exciting piece of historical work—amateur or otherwise—I’ve seen a while. It is a provocative preview of what will be possible when historians manage fully to wrapContinue reading “TagLines”
FuturesWatch Timeline
Here’s another (crazy) example of how futurists (science fiction writers, etc.) look to history for process and inspiration. The FuturesWatch timeline begins in 1750 and simply carries forward to 2100 as if events from the late 18th century and events from the late 21st century qualified equally as history. Interestingly, FuturesWatch confidently documents things suchContinue reading “FuturesWatch Timeline”
