When you write history, you’re always confronted with the question: what facts and events will make it into your historical account, and which ones will be left out? When it comes to this viral video produced by Donolinio Studio, what makes the cut? Europe. America. Men. And a long list of downers: war, depravation, natural disaster, a-bombs, social crisis, financial crisis, genocide and assassination, all set to a dramatic soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. What gets left out? Anything that seemingly makes life worth living and, with some minor exceptions, human achievement. And, yes, Africa and Latin America too — except for the first World Cup tournament played in Uruguay. (Note: we’re pretty sure that English isn’t the first language of the filmmakers. Hence the spelling errors in the captions.)
Speaking of human achievement and historical omissions, we’d like to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday by highlighting two of MLK’s memorable speeches — his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech presented in August 1963, and then fast forward to his prescient “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered just the day before he was assassinated in April 1968.
To dig deeper into the past, don’t miss the history courses (42 in total) in our collection of 400 Free Courses Online.
95% violence, 4.5% natural disasters, .3% sports achievement, and .2% edifying achievement.
Sorry to say this, but the next mass extinction cannot come quickly enough.
Why so many spelling errors on titles in the video?
Hi Sarah,
Given that the title used the German word for “minutes,” I am assuming that English isn’t the first language of whoever made the clip.
Cheers,
Dan
This is a kick in the stomach. There must be more to the last 100 years than sheer aggression and natural disaster, barely speckled with sports medals and a fallen wall…
Really? Monica Lewinski is the only woman they could think of to portray over the last hundred years? She’s such a great female represesentative and role model. Couldn’t even find a place for Margaret Thatcher? Or even Oprah? Monica Lewinski…I am insulted.
Excellent presentation. Thanks. In my mind, most of these events have epic importance individually, from the Tsunami to Oklahoma City, to each of the Wars. Only in the case of Reagan’s speech at Berlin did we see a great mission accomplished by an act other than agression. As a black man, I am struck by the omissions of King and Mandella or Chavez for that matter. It would add a minute or so, perhaps, to the footage, but what would our world be like without the achievements of each of them? As for a defining event for King and Mandella: use the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Mr. Mandella’s release from 27 years of prison. Or just give us that photo of Martin and Malcolm together.
Hi AJ,
Your point is well taken. In putting together this post, I did see that the video editor is aware of this shortcoming.
He wrote: “Some important events are missing (juri gagarin, martin luther king, and some more…) in a few weeks i will revise this video and add some events.
To not blow up the time frame, i had to leave out some more or less important events, i want to show.”
Regards,
Dan
Awful and pessimist. There are more important and relevant things that should be pointed, like computer science and internet, robots, social media, music, spreading knoledge.
¬¬ By the way, is a well maked film.
these are facts, so we can’t deny, however, we had many positive achievements, and i think it’s a shame to use only violence and wars as the reference for the century…