#history

100 Objects #20: AA Sobriety Chip

Comedian, writer, and podcaster Jamie Loftus has always known about Alcoholics Anonymous. As a kid, she loved the album where her dad kept all his AA chips — that little piece of plastic that marks a day, a month, a year of sobriety. Now as an adult, Jamie wanted to understand where that little chip

99% Invisible · EN

100 Objects #21: Window from the House of D

In 1932, the Women’s House of Detention—New York City’s first women’s prison—opened in the heart of Greenwich Village. It was opened to make “wayward” women quiet, private, and properly feminine. And the building had one unique feature originally meant to be a sort of kindness—a special kind of window that the women inside could open.

99% Invisible · EN

100 Objects #22: AOL Disc

In 1998, the recording industry was thriving. But the company pressing more compact discs than anyone else in America wasn’t a record label…it was an internet company: America Online. The AOL Disc was a marketing coup—hugely successful. It’s not an overstatement to say that it’s the campaign that introduced America to the internet. Because of

99% Invisible · EN

Samia Halaby and the Amiga 1000

The unique features of the Motorola 68000 that facilitated an enchanting Golden Age for pixel art Continue reading on UX Collective »

UX Collective · EN

Google Doodle Pac-Man’s siren call

Marcin Wichary, writing on his blog Unsung, tells the story of the bug he shipped to Google’s homepage in 2010. He wrote the playable Pac-Man doodle for the game’s 30th anniversary, building the whole thing in HTML and CSS, with Flash handling the sound. The playfield spelled out Google’s logo, and a Ms. Pac-Man mode […]

Adafruit Blog · EN

How Alan Turing and His Fellow Codebreakers Broke the Nazis’ “Unbreakable” Enigma Code

There was a time when you could just go out and buy an Enigma machine. In the early nineteen-twenties, any organization with a need to keep its communications secret could order a few of those brand-new devices from Germany and rest assured that any messages encoded using them would be safe from prying eyes. It […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

The Cable that Changed the World: How Instant Global Communication Began in 1858

The word wireless is going the way of computerized and portable, and for much the same reasons. We no longer regard wireless devices that require no physical connections to anything else as marvels, but as something close to necessities. But our age, with its increasingly common assumptions that information just travels through the air, owes its existence […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

300 Years Before ChatGPT, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Imagined Machines Writing Books and Producing Knowledge (1726)

The printing press was invented in the middle of the fifteenth century, and it’s been downhill for the written word ever since. Even before then, arguments that the volume of writing being done far outstripped the value of that writing surely weren’t unheard of. Whatever the era, the most incisive remarks on the apparent victory […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

The Strange and Brilliant Inventions of Nikola Tesla

Even before the success of the electric car company that now bears his name, Nikola Tesla was a widely respected historical figure. Often, that respect could be based on surprisingly scant knowledge of the man’s life and accomplishments. Didn’t he do something with electricity? Wasn’t he involved in some kind of rivalry with Thomas Edison? […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

David Byrne’s New Book Explores the Strange Afterlife of Good Ideas: From Vermeer’s Paintings to Roman Concrete & Dark Matter

David Byrne will always be most widely known as the co-founder and frontman of Talking Heads. That may count among the greatest possible achievements for any artist — to the minds of many an Open Culture reader, at least — but it must occasionally frustrate the man himself. Talking Heads broke up 35 years ago, […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

In 1897, London’s Lampposts Dispensed Hot Coffee, Tea, and “Fluid Beef”

Any reader of Victorian literature will wonder how much a ha’penny was actually worth in those days. For a little more than a year at the very end of that period, it could buy you a cup of coffee, cocoa, milk, tea, or “fluid beef” — which would pour out of a lamppost on the […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

The Early Years of Electronic Pop: The Moog Craze, Psychedelic Experiments, and More

There’s a decent chance you’ve heard at least a couple of tracks from Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach. But when was the last time you put on Switched-On Rock, Switched-On Country, Switched-On Santa, or Switched-On Bacharach? More likely than not, you’ve never even heard of those other albums, which have nothing to do with Carlos and […]

Open Culture Tech · EN

Iron gall ink lasts for centuries. Here's how to make it

What is iron gall ink? Only one of the "most important substances in the history of civilization," says Joel Klein , the curator of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences at the Huntington in San Marino, California. That's because the ink, which is dark blue-gray, sinks into the surface of the paper or parchment and won't fade centuries after it's applied. — Read the rest The post Iron gall ink lasts for centuries. Here's how to make it appeared first on Boing Boing .

Boing Boing · EN

Amelia Schoolhouse Inn in Fernandina Beach, Florida

Built in 1886, this charming brick property was the very first school on Amelia Island , with locals calling it “Schoolhouse No. 1.” The original four-room structure was designed by architect Robert Sands Schuyler, whose distinct style can be found throughout Downtown Fernandina Beach, from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to the Tabby House to the Fairbanks House . As the population of Amelia Island grew, the schoolhouse was expanded multiple times; however, it ultimately ceased functioning as a school in the 1930s due to overcrowding. Since then, the schoolhouse has led many lives, from a librar

Atlas Obscura · EN

Amelia Island Pirate Voyages in Fernandina Beach, Florida

Through an unassuming gray shack in the Fernandina Harbor Marina, visitors board a 53-foot-long ship, The Flying Dutchman, for a high seas adventure like no other. The 90-minute to 2-hour voyage offers guests an immersive, family-friendly tour of Amelia Island’s nautical history and natural wonders. The boat itself is decked out with pirate fanfare, from “Wanted” posters to tattered flags atop the mast to a skeleton or two. With a ragtag crew of boisterous pirates, you’ll sail past such landmarks as Fort Clinch, the famous 19th-century coastal fortification; Cumberland Island, where wild horse

Atlas Obscura · EN