Watch Historic Footage of Joseph Kittinger’s 102,800 Jump from Space (1960)

in History, Random | October 25th, 2012

When I first heard that 43-year old Aus­tri­an dare­dev­il and for­mer mil­i­tary para­chutist Felix Baum­gart­ner would be jump­ing 128,000 feet from space, my imme­di­ate reac­tion was, “What? Why?!” Because why would any­one do that? And I assumed it was all some macho stunt to pro­mote Red Bull, his cor­po­rate spon­sor, which isn’t entire­ly unfound­ed. But I also had no sense of the his­toric con­text, the sci­en­tif­ic impli­ca­tions, and until I read the details, the tru­ly death-defy­ing mag­ni­tude of it all. As I watched the jump and then learned more, my won­der and admi­ra­tion grew, par­tic­u­lar­ly in read­ing Baumgartner’s own accounts of his sev­en years of prepa­ra­tion for the feat.

Baum­gart­ner best­ed Chuck Yea­ger on the same day in his­to­ry that Yea­ger broke the sound bar­ri­er (he says Yeager’s going to be “pissed”). He also broke the record set by Joseph Kit­tinger, an Air Force pilot who leapt from 102,800 feet (19.5 miles) above earth in 1960. You can watch a short doc­u­men­tary of Kittinger’s famous jump above. The tech­nol­o­gy of 1960 didn’t allow for the crys­tal-clear images Baum­gart­ner cap­tured with his two suit cam­eras, but it’s still an impres­sive lit­tle film, made more so by Kittinger’s voice over describ­ing the sen­sa­tions he expe­ri­enced dur­ing free fall. Below is a clas­sic 1960 news­reel film of the jump, with a dra­mat­ic announc­er and tri­umphal, mar­tial music.

Kit­tinger and Baum­gart­ner first met in 2008, and the elder test pilot sup­port­ed and helped plan the Red Bull Stratos project that would break his record. He also served as Baum­gart­ner’s mis­sion con­trol, guid­ing him from his tiny space cap­sule to the ground. The jump was appar­ent­ly sup­posed to take place two years ear­li­er, on the 50th anniver­sary of Kittinger’s, but was delayed. Below, you can watch Kit­tinger dis­cuss the project and his own career in a 2010 inter­view with Red Bull.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Helen Keller Pays a Visit to Martha Graham’s Dance Studio Circa 1954

in History | October 24th, 2012

Helen Keller’s sto­ry is remark­able. With the help of Anne Sul­li­van, Keller (1880–1968) escaped from a “dou­ble dun­geon of dark­ness and silence” and achieved great things. In 1904, she grad­u­at­ed from Rad­cliffe Col­lege (now Har­vard), becom­ing the first deaf blind per­son to earn a B.A. in the U.S..  She went on to write 14 books (a few more than the rest of us) and cham­pi­oned impor­tant polit­i­cal caus­es. A rad­i­cal at heart, she backed wom­en’s suf­frage and birth con­trol move­ments, helped found the ACLU, urged paci­fism, and railed against cap­i­tal­ism. She count­ed many world lead­ers and cul­tur­al lumi­nar­ies as friends, palling around with fig­ures like Char­lie Chap­lin and Mark Twain. And then there’s the time she paid a vis­it to the dance stu­dio of Martha Gra­ham and gained a tac­tile intro­duc­tion to mod­ern dance. The nar­ra­tor describes the mem­o­rable scene fair­ly well. But, if you want more back­sto­ry and pho­tos, you should head over to Brain­Pick­ings to get the big­ger pic­ture.

Relat­ed Must-See Video: Helen Keller and Anne Sul­li­van Togeth­er in 1930

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The Enduring Analog Underworld of Gramercy Typewriter

in Books, History, Technology | October 22nd, 2012

Are type­writ­ers going the way of vinyl?

Note to those cave dwellers who’ve yet to suc­cumb to Mad Men mania, it’s not that same route so trav­eled by the dodo. For a while it looked like the world’s sup­ply of Under­woods and Olivet­tis was being req­ui­si­tioned for hip­ster jew­el­ry, but their recent come­back is root­ed in their intend­ed pur­pose. These days, they’re near fetish objects for roman­tic young writ­ers con­ceived in the shad­ow of the Mac Clas­sic.

Mean­while, the likes of Cor­mac McCarthy and David McCul­lough, author of 1776, have yet to turn their backs on their beloved, quite like­ly lucky ana­log imple­ments.

All due respect to the young Turks seek­ing to dig­i­tize the dinosaur, but the real hero of the type­writer’s post mil­len­ni­al sur­vival is Paul Schweitzer, the ink fin­gered med­i­cine man at the helm of Gramer­cy Type­writer. His once-robust com­pe­ti­tion con­signed to the ash heap, Schweitzer has both the stub­born­ness and exper­tise to tough it out, in an ana­log lair that’s the antithe­sis of sleek.

No one will fault you if your heart lies with your var­i­ous screens. But let’s not for­get where you came from.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Mak­ing Paper in L.A., Pianos in Paris: Old Crafts­men Hang­ing on in a Chang­ing World

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of a half dozen some books includ­ing the decid­ed­ly ana­log Zinester’s Guide to NYC.

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Muhammad Ali Plans to Fight on Mars in Lost 1966 Interview

in Comedy, History, Random | October 19th, 2012

Per­haps you remem­ber the short ani­mat­ed film, I Met the Wal­rus. It revis­its the moment when Jer­ry Lev­i­tan, a 14-year-old kid, slipped into John Lennon’s Toron­to hotel room in 1969 and asked the Bea­t­le for an inter­view. And he got one. The film pro­vides all the proof you need.

Now here’s a nice com­pan­ion sto­ry. It’s the sum­mer of 1966, and 17-year-old Michael Ais­ner approach­es Muham­mad Ali, then the heavy­weight cham­pi­on of the world, and asks him to appear on his high school radio show. The kid per­sists and even­tu­al­ly lands the inter­view. The audio seg­ment, rarely heard until now, reminds us what makes Ali so charis­mat­ic and endear­ing. The champ answers some of Ais­ner’s ques­tions seri­ous­ly. But he also launch­es into a hilar­i­ous riff about how he plans to take a space­ship to Mars, bat­tle the Mar­t­ian champ (named some­thing like Win­nekawana­ka) and there­by win the “Uni­ver­sal Title.” Pret­ty price­less. The com­plete audio seg­ment appears here.

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and share the cul­tur­al good­ness with your friends!

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Clouds Over Cuba: Interactive Documentary Revisits the Cuban Missile Crisis on Its 50th Anniversary

in History | October 18th, 2012

50 years ago, the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis put the US and the USSR on a seem­ing­ly cat­a­stroph­ic col­li­sion course. As the cri­sis played out, both sides feared the worst — that the long-sim­mer­ing Cold War might sud­den­ly turn hot, nuclear hot. Mer­ci­ful­ly, after 13 days, cool­er heads pre­vailed.

Now, on the 50th anniver­sary of the cri­sis, the John F. Kennedy Pres­i­den­tial Library & Muse­um has released an inter­ac­tive doc­u­men­tary called Clouds Over Cuba. Nar­rat­ed by actor Matthew Modine, the film vivid­ly explains the events before, dur­ing and after the his­toric cri­sis. As the sto­ry unfolds, the doc­u­men­tary prompts view­ers to access an impres­sive amount of his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments (pho­tos, doc­u­ments, audio record­ings, etc.) that add real tex­ture to the sto­ry. Clouds Over Cuba is edu­ca­tion­al. It’s impres­sive­ly put togeth­er. You can watch the trail­er above, or start watch­ing the com­plete film right here.

via Kot­tke & Kirstin But­ler

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and share the cul­tur­al good­ness with your friends!

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Behold Charles Laughton Delivering the Gettysburg Address in its Entirety in Ruggles of Red Gap

in Comedy, Film, History, Video - Arts & Culture | October 13th, 2012

The Get­tys­burg Address is the sort of elo­quent speech school­child­ren were once expect­ed to com­mit to mem­o­ry, much as they were required to bring apples for the teacher and dip each oth­ers’ pig­tails in ink. Nowa­days, with ever more his­tor­i­cal ground clam­or­ing to be cov­ered, it’s real­ly only those cel­e­brat­ed open­ing lines that tend to stick. No doubt they’ll show up in the Stephen Spiel­berg-direct­ed Lin­coln bio-pic slat­ed to open lat­er this fall.

Stray back in time for a real refresh­er course, cour­tesy of erst­while Hunch­back of Notre Dame and Shake­speare­an wun­derkind, Charles Laughton. His soup-to-nuts recita­tion of the cel­e­brat­ed speech is the unex­pect­ed high­light of Rug­gles of Red Gap, a 1935 screw­ball West­ern that time has rel­e­gat­ed to the semi-shad­ows. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly under­stat­ed per­for­mance that man­ages to illu­mi­nate the mean­ing of each and every word. (It also makes me more for­giv­ing of the film’s ear­ly min­utes, when Laughton’s por­tray­al of a very prop­er Eng­lish but­ler suc­cumbs to a sil­ver-can­de­labra-up-the-hein­er lev­el of broad­ness.)

Just as impres­sive is direc­tor Leo McCarey’s deci­sion to set the scene atop a gid­dy vaude­ville rou­tine fea­tur­ing a saloon full of clue­less cow­boys and bar­keeps. It’s a ton of fun.

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A Short History of Romanian Computing: From 1961 to 1989

in History, Technology | October 9th, 2012

The “Politehni­ca” Uni­ver­si­ty of Timisoara, Roma­nia, an engi­neer­ing school estab­lished in 1920, takes its mot­to from Fer­di­nand I: “It’s not the walls that make a school, but the spir­it liv­ing inside.” While the walls of “Politehni­ca” are as state­ly as any­one could ask for, what’s inside, accord­ing to the short doc­u­men­tary above, is also pret­ty spiffy—the spir­it of com­put­ing his­to­ry, Roman­ian style. With a score that sounds a lit­tle like an out­take from Logan’s Run, this video gives us a tour of the university’s Muse­um of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, opened Novem­ber 16, 2001.

We meet a num­ber of ancient machines, many of which were respon­si­ble for design­ing build­ings and hydro­elec­tric dams and some of which still func­tion. There’s the Mecipt 1, a mas­sive 1961 main­frame sys­tem cov­ered in dials, switch­es, and rout­ing sys­tems and look­ing some­what more indus­tri­al than the machines built by Fairchild and IBM at the same time. Next comes Mecipt 2 in 1963, which was in oper­a­tion for six­teen years and did much of the build­ing design. The micro­com­put­ers TIMS and MS-100 resem­ble the orig­i­nal busi­ness machines made in the six­ties by com­pa­nies like Hewlett-Packard and Data Gen­er­al Corp. Over­all, the short doc takes us through the exper­i­men­tal course of Roman­ian com­put­ing from 1961 to 1989. The read­er who brought this to our atten­tion points out that there’s lit­tle mate­r­i­al out there on Roman­ian com­put­er engi­neer­ing. This short doc offers a rare look at a very lit­tle-known and fas­ci­nat­ing his­to­ry.

h/t Alin

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“They Were There” — Errol Mor­ris Final­ly Directs a Film for IBM

How Film Was Made: A Kodak Nos­tal­gia Moment

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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The History of Byzantium Podcast Picks Up Where The History of Rome Left Off

in History, Podcasts | October 4th, 2012

In May we post­ed about Mike Dun­can’s The His­to­ry of Rome pod­cast, which, upon reach­ing episode 179, had con­clud­ed the tale of the Roman Empire’s hey­day. Over its five-year run, Dun­can’s show amassed a large, enthu­si­as­tic audi­ence, most of whom have no doubt con­tin­ued their explo­ration of Roman his­to­ry else­where. It has even inspired some to launch his­to­ry pod­casts of their own, one of which presents itself as The His­to­ry of Rome’s direct suc­ces­sor in sub­ject, style, and tone. The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium (RSS — iTunes), which debuted in May, aims to recount the sto­ry of Roman Empire of Late Antiq­ui­ty and the Mid­dle Ages, now bet­ter known as the Byzan­tine Empire, from the years 476 through 1453. Though per­haps less often dis­cussed by the aver­age his­to­ry buff, the Byzan­tine Empire nonethe­less offers a wealth of his­tor­i­cal inter­est, espe­cial­ly, it seems, to pod­cast­ers; you may already have heard Lars Brown­worth’s show 12 Byzan­tine Rulers, which even­tu­al­ly land­ed him a book deal. And many more Byzan­tine sto­ries remain to tell.

Pier­son, by day a tele­vi­son crit­ic, explic­it­ly describes his project as both an unof­fi­cial sequel and an homage to The His­to­ry of Rome. “I liked the sim­pli­fi­ca­tion and expla­na­tion of the Roman sto­ry,” he writes in his intro­duc­to­ry post. “I liked the half an hour length. I liked Mike’s sense of humour and tim­ing. I liked his neu­tral tone which nev­er felt like it was pro­vid­ing an over­bear­ing opin­ion on the nar­ra­tive. When Mike announced he would be stop­ping with the fall of the West in 476 I con­sid­ered whether I could pos­si­bly take on the task of con­tin­u­ing the sto­ry. [ … ] Ini­tial­ly at least I hope to emu­late Mike’s style. I want to keep the rough struc­ture and neu­tral tone estab­lished on The His­to­ry of Rome because I think so high­ly of it. I hope you won’t see it as sim­ply an imi­ta­tion and doubt­less over time my own style will emerge.” This seems as hon­est an account as any of the way cre­ators work off of their inspi­ra­tions, and His­to­ry of Rome fans will no doubt lis­ten with inter­est to The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium for both the devel­op­ments in the tale and in Pier­son­’s way of telling it.

You can sub­scribe to The His­to­ry of Byzan­tium via RSS or iTunes.

And, all of you his­to­ry buffs, remem­ber that you can find free cours­es in the His­to­ry sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Rome in 179 Pod­casts

The Dig­i­tal Tip­ping Point: The Wild Ride from Pod­cast to Book Deal

The Decline and Fall of the Roman (and Amer­i­can?) Empire: A Free Audio­book

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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