The first (completely unintentionally) recorded sound, made in April 1860. There is nothing inherently weird about this; it should just be fascinating. But the more you think about it, even replay the recording, the stranger and creepier it is. So it goes here. (by mailman63155)
“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
On March 31, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to the nation about the situation in Vietnam and concluded with his decision not to seek re-election.
Read the entire address at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum »
Ten Historic Female Scientists You Should Know
Read: Smithsonian Magazine
He will not allow history to be re-written.
Before the world wide web, there was Teletext!
(via soupsoup)
In the 1940s, U.S. doctors led experiments that intentionally infected thousands of Guatemalans with venereal diseases. A closer look at how it happened, and who knew:
John Cutler, the young investigator who led the Guatemalan experiments, had the full backing of US health officials, including the surgeon general.
“Cutler thought that what he was doing was really important, and he wasn’t some lone gunman,” says Susan Reverby, a historian at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, whose discovery of Cutler’s unpublished reports on the experiments led to the public disclosure of the research.
“Human Experiments: First, Do Harm.” — Matthew Walter, Nature
We’ve got a fantastic MLK gallery on Framework.
Photo: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta, lead a march in Georgia. Credit: Associated Press
The first “War on Christmas” was waged almost 400 years ago by our Puritan forefathers. The Pilgrims who came to America in 1620 were outraged by Christmas, partially because it did not originate as a Christian holiday. The upper classes in ancient Rome celebrated Dec. 25 as the birthday of the sun god Mithra. Beyond that, the Puritans considered it historically inaccurate to place the Messiah’s arrival on Dec. 25. They thought Jesus had been born sometime in September. They felt so strongly about the holiday that in New England, they banned Christmas celebrations entirely. Christmas Day was only formally declared a federal holiday in 1870.
Famous first words: How these great Tumblrs got their start
Everyone starts somewhere. So, where did these bloggers start? You know, the really great ones that have such great content on Tumblr? Just for kicks, we did a little bit of investigating, and came up with this cool little bit of navel-gazing into the past of some of our favorite bloggers ever. In order, top to bottom: inothernews, kateoplis, soupsoup, brooklynmutt, pantslessprogressive, newsflick, thepoliticalnotebook, mohandasgandhi, azspot (who is like a pioneer or something) and … us. What did your first post say? Find it and link to it in a reblog.
Nice idea! And fantastic company. Thank you!
The Washington Post has a great slideshow sampling the various ways newspapers played Pearl Harbor on that fateful day in 1941. Here are two; there are a bunch of others, too. (images via the Newseum collection)
(via shortformblog)
8 P.M. (C-Span) THE CONTENDERS: THEY RAN & LOST BUT CHANGED POLITICAL HISTORY
What if Dewey had actually defeated Truman? This program ponders that possibility, along with candidates like William Jennings Bryan, Barry Goldwater, George Wallace and Ross Perot. - NY Times
Annotated Map of the British Colonies in North America with the Roads, Distances, Limits and Extent of the Settlements
On November 19, 1794, American negotiator John Jay signed a “Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation” with Great Britain. The Jay Treaty, as it is commonly known, was intended to settle lingering issues and boundary disputes following the Treaty of Paris which ended the American Revolution. Documents and maps such as this one were needed to settle the disputed northeastern boundary between the United States and Canada.
Nest Full of Baby Dinosaurs Found
A 70-million-year-old nest filled with the remains of baby Protoceratops gives clues to the dinos’ early behavior.
How a letter on Hitler’s stationery, written to a boy in Jersey, reached the CIA
At CIA headquarters in Langley, one of the newest artifacts in the agency’s private museum is a message from a father to his 3-year-old son. The gold-embossed letterhead features a swastika and the name Adolf Hitler.
“Dear Dennis,” the seven-sentence letter begins. “The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe — three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins.”
More —> The Washington Post
Betty Ford scares up the President’s chair-
Here’s a glimpse of White House Halloween antics from 1974. Betty Ford and her personal assistant, Nancy Howe, dress a skeleton in President Ford’s study.
-from the Ford Library
