Documents That Changed the World
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Documents That Changed the World
A look at documents that have had a profound effect on the world. Telling the stories of these information objects, their genesis, contexts, impacts, and fates also tells the story of human society and its never ending evolution.
Nedávné epizody
68 epizod
68. Negro Motorist Green Book, 1936
Road trip! Let's just pack up and go - but where should we go, stay, eat? Easy decisions for some, perilous for others, until a mailman lent his nam...
67. Guinness Book of Records, 1955
A compendium of fastests and highests and mosts in a book that nobody needs but millions have enjoyed - documenting the boundaries of human capability...
66. First Motion Picture Camera Patent, 1888
Edison invented the movie camera, right? Nope - and therein lies a Hollywood story that doesn't take place anywhere near Hollywood, with guest appear...
65. NCAA Transfer Portal, 2018
Just enter the portal and fame and fortune await, right? Maybe, though nothing is guaranteed - one of many misconceptions about a tool that does its...
64. "First" Social Security Number, 1936
Who's got your number? Hopefully nobody who isn't supposed to - the origins of the number we (almost) all live by, why and how it's become so necessar...
63. Incan Quipu (knotted fiber cords), by c1300
How can you know what you can't read? A writing system without a key, suspended knots and strings we can't interpret, leaving entire peoples also in s...
62. Sumerian Complaint Tablet, c1750 BCE
"How dare you treat me like this?" The cry of untold millions of consumers with a grievance to air, or type, or phone in - or bake into clay tablets,...
61. Oldest Known Galaxy, 13+ billion years ago
How is a galaxy a document? How could it change the world? Well, look out there, as far as we can see, and even farther - and then look inside, and...
60. Mètre des Archives (original standard meter), 1799
I love you, a bushel and a peck - or maybe an acre, or fathom, or hundredweight, or any of the thousands of measurements we have created, which somebo...
59. Egyptian "Book of the Dead", c1600 BCE
The road map and guide book to the afterlife, all spelled out to ensure a successful and surprisingly personalized journey
58. Emily Post's Etiquette, 1922
According to Emily Post...etiquette is meant to make people feel comfortable and at ease, and the more who know the better - and it's not about the fo...
57. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
Human rights and how they came to be recognized, agreed upon and most importantly recorded and declared, for all of us to share
56. Electoral College Documents, 2020
Papers, signatures, seals, ceremonies, rules that produce documents to let hundreds speak for millions in having their say in the most important decis...
55. World's Fair Time Capsule, 1938
The best known example of an attempt to help the future to understand the present when it's the past, even 5000 years on
54. Articles of Impeachment, 1868
The extraordinary ordinariness of articles of impeachment, then and now, and the lessons to be learned, over and over again
53. Code of Hammurabi, c1754 BCE
Whoever thought finding the law could be a challenge? Not if it's on a 7 ft tall stela for all to see - now, as then, finding the law can be almost a...
52. Eurovision/European Broadcast Union Statutes, 1950
What's the most popular television show in the world that you may never have heard of? Founding documents, politics, dancing apes, and the shared cul...
50. IRS Form 1040, 1914
Line after line, year after year, the forms that keep information organized, processes processing, and civilization working
49. "Operation Mincemeat" Faked Documents, 1943
When is a fake not a fake? A strange WWII stories, authentically fake documents on a dead fake British officer to divert German attention from an inv...
48. Voyager "Golden Records", 1977
Mixtape, love letter, time capsule, letter of introduction, message in a bottle and more, not to mention the furthest object of human construction, se...
47. Webster's Dictionary, 1828
Words define a language, and in turn languages help to define cultures and societies. And people define words, as the last man who tried to define th...
46. Liber Abaci (Arabic Numerals), 1202
800 years ago, an Italian mathematician and world traveler brought the gift of digits to Europe, from India, through Arabia, and taught the West how t...
45. Palm Beach County "Butterfly" Ballot, 2000
Vote for the person you want, somebody in charge counts ‘em up and then we find out the winner. As if. The many ways that can go wrong, and the impo...
44. Stock Market Crash Ticker Tape, 1929
When the market started to crash, the ticker, reliable source of up-to-the-second information, fell behind, and all of a sudden not knowing what you d...
43. FDR Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1939
Two Thanksgivings! Twice the turkey, twice the parades, twice the football? Nope, but for a few years the nation was split by a presidential proclam...
42. Declaration of Independence Deleted Passage, 1776
How do you read words that aren't there? The towering idea of the Declaration of Independence, the passage on slavery deleted before its adoption, an...
41. Nupedia (Wikipedia precursor), 2000
Encyclopedias have changed, due to the one you know - but actually the one you probably don't, and the ways in which we know the things we know are ch...
40. Richter Scale, 1935
The Richter Scale...isn't used any more, and the man who created it had a mind more sensitive to the movements of the earth than the subtleties of soc...
39. Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 1896
Hungry yet? The cookbook, and the woman, who standardized recipes and encouraged us all to think about food as science and art
38. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982
Name after name, row after row, the wall, and the things we bring to it, including ourselves, all of which help us remember and reconcile
37. Statistical Significance, 1925
How to know when to believe a research study, drawing the line between real and spurious, and how a "random" line in a book defines the way we underst...
36. Annals of the World, 1650
Bishop James Ussher, the search for the beginning of the universe, and the date (and time) of Creation, making the most of the tools at hand
35. Alfred Nobel's Will, 1895
One of the greatest legacies, and worst-written wills of all times, though almost completely not what the author had in mind; wills, their history and...
34. "The Star-Spangled Banner", 1814
O say do you know...the story behind the Star-Spangled Banner? It took off fast, then slowly, and has stood the test of time while still, and always,...
33. Philosophical Transactions, 1665
The first scholarly journal, at the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, and helping to give birth to the way we write and think about scholarship and i...
32. First Woman's College Diploma, 1840
It's just "a piece of paper," except it's not. The story of Catherine Elizabeth Benson Brewer, the first woman to receive a diploma, and how we recog...
31. Joseph McCarthy's "List", 1950
I have in my hand a list...of 57 Communists in the State Department. Or was it 205? Or 81? Or was there a list at all? How documents get their pow...
30. The Exaltation of Inanna, c2300 BCE
One of the oldest works of literature we know, a hymn written by Enheduanna, perhaps the first known named author, in the Sumerian city of Ur, a plea...
29. Donation of Constantine, c750
Why the Popes ruled Italy: one of the greatest gifts in history, as a result of one of the greatest forgery in history, the art of making a document...
28. Zimmerman Telegram, 1917
The secret decoding of a secret message: how Britain found out that Germany wanted Mexico to attack America to keep them out of World War I, and the...