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Category: 20th century history

By The Generalist Posted on August 2, 2022August 13, 2022

The book arcade

Around the end of the 19th century, Melbourne, Australia, hosted one of the biggest – and certainly the most carnivalesque – bookstores in the world: Cole’s Book Arcade.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Economics & business, Literature, Oceania
By The Generalist Posted on July 30, 2022January 25, 2023

Wordless novels and motionless movies

Novels have words and films move. But some creators have resisted even these conventions, creating novels without writing and films without motion.

Categories: 20th century history, Art, Europe, Film & television, Literature, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on July 5, 2022July 4, 2022

Broken arrow

In 1959, the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was one of the most sophisticated aircraft prototypes in the world. When the project was cancelled, the Canadian government ordered all Arrows, parts, production equipment, and technical data destroyed.

Categories: 20th century history, Military, North & Central America, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on June 22, 2022June 21, 2022

Star Wars disco

At the 1978 Grammy Awards, in the category Best Pop Instrumental Performance, John Williams’ famous Star Wars soundtrack faced off against… a disco funk cover of the Star Wars soundtrack that had outsold and out-charted the original.

Categories: 20th century history, Film & television, Music, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on June 17, 2022June 16, 2022

Small island alliance

For the last thirty-one years, an alliance of nearly forty small island states have campaigned against global warming – because if it is not checked, some of them will be underwater.

Categories: 20th century history, 21st century history, Earth science, Oceania, Politics & law, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Fantasy revised

In the original edition of The Hobbit, Gollum was willing to give up the ring; before 1994 the American and British editions of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader were different; Madame Mim was removed from The Sword and the Stone for its 1958 reissue.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, Literature
By The Generalist Posted on June 10, 2022January 25, 2023

Almost Everest

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953. But three days earlier, two other climbers came within one hundred metres of the top.

Categories: 20th century history, South Asia
By The Generalist Posted on June 7, 2022June 11, 2022

Own-goal football

In a 1994 qualifying match for the Caribbean Cup, both Barbados and Grenada attempted to score deliberate own goals – because it was the best strategy available.

Categories: 20th century history, Games & sport, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on June 2, 2022January 25, 2023

Happiest meal

McDonald’s iconic Happy Meal came to us via a Chilean-Guatemalan restauranteur, a Missouri advertising agent, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Categories: 20th century history, Economics & business, Film & television, Food & agriculture, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on May 29, 2022January 25, 2023

Plain of jars and bombs

The Xiangkhoang Plateau in northern Laos is covered in thousands of prehistoric burial jars… and many more unexploded bombs.

Categories: 20th century history, Military, Prehistory, Southeast Asia
By The Generalist Posted on May 19, 2022May 18, 2022

The band prophecy

In the mid-20th century, Austin Wiggin’s mother predicted that her son would have daughters, and those daughters would form a famous band. He did, and they did, in the most surprising way possible.

Categories: 20th century history, Music, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on May 17, 2022May 16, 2022

Return of the space dogs

Laika, the first space dog, died in orbit. But the next two – Belka and Strelka – survived. One of Strelka’s puppies was gifted to John F. Kennedy… but not before it was fully scanned for secret listening devices.

Categories: 20th century history, Animals, Astronomy, Europe, North & Central America, North & Central Asia
By The Generalist Posted on May 15, 2022May 14, 2022

The demo

On December 9, 1968, a team led by computer scientist Douglas Engelbart ran a 90 minute tech demo at a San Francisco conference. This “mother of all demos” introduced the world to the computer mouse, windows, hypertext, and collaborative document editors.

Categories: 20th century history, Computer science, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on May 9, 2022May 8, 2022

Man-lifting war kites

A large enough kite can lift someone off the ground. So, of course, several inventors and aeronauts tried to find a military application for such man-lifting kites.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Europe, Military, North & Central America, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on May 1, 2022April 30, 2022

Indian flag monopoly

Every Indian flag in India is made in one small south Indian village.

Categories: 20th century history, Fashion & design, Politics & law, South Asia
By The Generalist Posted on April 29, 2022April 27, 2022

Peaceful nukes

In the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union explored “peaceful” applications of nuclear weapons: excavating earth for lakes and canals, geological research, and extinguishing gas well fires.

Categories: 20th century history, Military, North & Central America, North & Central Asia, Technology

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