What if you could capture the entire history of recorded human existence into one epic infographic for the ages? Crazy, right? Back in the 1930s, a man named John B. Sparks tried—and The Vault recently dug up his attempt. It’s called the Histomap, and it’s still incredible nearly 100 years later, if just slightly out of date.
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Newsroom,
the HBO hit series created and written by Aaron Sorkin predicates its
storylines on actual news that’s taken place in the real world, about 18
month prior. Having cut his social networking teeth on his
award-winning movie, "The Social Network," Sorkin takes full advantage of weaving social media references into his yarns, whenever he can.
Spitbank Fort is one of those spots you read about in an Alexander Dumas novel. It’s a gritty, grey, Victorian-era fortress with a dark past and nothing but miles of water on all sides. And it’s the perfect place for a romantic weekend the next time you’re on the coast of England.
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For kids, field trips are one of the biggest highlights in school. They offer a temporary escape from the dreary confines of the classroom once every few months (or weeks, if they’re lucky.)
Just because you’re all grown up now doesn’t mean you can’t go on field trips anymore.
You might not be in school anymore, but if you’ve got a smartphone, then a whole new world of possibilities and new discoveries is open to you, right here, right now. Just download the Field Trip app and you’re good to go. It’s an interactive app by Google internal startup NianticLab that shows you cool, unusual, and sometimes historically-rich stuff that can be found around your neighborhood, or wherever you happen to be at the moment.
The app can be customized based on your personal interests, and gathers data from a variety of data sources, including Arcadia, Historvius, TimeOut, Thrillist, Food Network, Zagat, Eater, Atlas Obscura, Dezeen, Daily Secret, Cool Hunting, Freshome, Inhabitat, Songkick and more. It can also be set to automatically notify you when there’s something interesting nearby.
If you’re traveling somewhere, just fire up and the app and get ready to take yourself (and whoever else is with you) on a field trip.
You can download the Field Trip app at Google Play and the iTunes store.
[via Laughing Squid]
The discovery of a near 10,000-year-old lunar calendar in Scotland has archaeologists scrambling to rethink the beginnings of history. The implications are huge, too. It turns out that the men of the Stone Age weren’t as primitive as we’d previously thought.
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The history of baseball equipment—just like the game itself—beats a meandering path, full of eccentric characters and bizarre details. That’s partially because many parts of the game—from gloves to bats—were left up to the design of the players themselves.
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Sunday night marked closure of India’s telegram service after 163 years STOP
Service had lost money for several years, only 75 offices had remained open STOP
Email and smartphone use had replaced antiquated system STOP
End of an era STOP
[Image Credit: Indian Stamp Ghar]
Source: Yahoo/AP
As you kick back under a glittering shower of high-production-value pyrotechnics on Independence Day this year, take a second to remember how the modern firework started out: As a tiny, but startling, accident.
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Nobody wants to spend their vacation day studying history, but if you’re feeling particularly patriotic tomorrow, you can head on over to Google Maps where Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello residence is now available to explore using Google Street View.
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American culture unapologetically romanticizes the lives of the first pioneers. Through rose-colored glasses, we see Manifest Destiny as fate, leading our heroic ancestors across a perfectly manicured landscape. In reality, the frontier was a terrifying, dangerous wilderness. And you were only as good as the tools you carried.
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