“People talk a little more of the war, but very little. As always hitherto, it is impossible to overhear any comments on it in the pubs, etc. Last night, E[ileen] and I went to the pub to hear the 9 o’c news. The barmaid was not going to have it on if we had not asked her, and to all appearances nobody listened.”
On
May 28, 1940, George
Orwell began keeping a
war time diary. Printed in “full and in chronological
order” by the
Orwell Trust, 70 years after he wrote
them, with selected historian’s notes. Pre-war entries are a little duller, focusing on topics like
recipes (
macon!), the weather, gardening and farming.
(Previously)
posted by stratastar
on Jun 18, 2010 -
21 comments
"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty:
Library -
Diner -
Church. Together with more positive ads like
Remember Freedom and
I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their freedoms and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism (
seven years previously). The campaign was the work of the
Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind
some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including
Rosie the Riveter,
Smokey the Bear,
McGruff the Crime Dog, and
the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all
effective PSAs on everything from
student invention to
global warming to
arts education to
community service.
Additional resources:
A-to-Z index of Ad Council campaigns -
Campaigns organized by category -
Award-winning campaigns -
PSA Central: A free download directory of TV, radio, and print PSAs
(registration req'd) -
An exhaustive history of the Ad Council [46-page PDF] -
YouTube channel -
Vimeo channel -
Twitter feed
posted by Rhaomi
on Sep 11, 2009 -
69 comments
Japanese Balloon Bombs — "In 1944, during World War II, Japan launched a top secret project, nearly two years in the making, to send thousands of "balloon bombs" (called Fu-Go Weapons) to the United States. The goal of the attack was to create panic, forest fires, and show the United States that it could be attacked from afar. Each of the more than 9,000 balloon bombs launched towards the United States, over the course of several months, carried a 15 kilogram bomb that would detach from the balloon and explode on impact with the ground."
On a Wind and a Prayer.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on May 2, 2009 -
39 comments
Concrete Ships Toward the end of the First World War, and during the Second World War, the United States commisioned the construction of experimental concrete ships.
posted by dhruva
on Oct 13, 2005 -
25 comments
Our Victory, Day by Day. Russian news agency RIA Novosti counts down to the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, with songs, posters, photos, and stories. Be sure not to miss the first-person accounts in English (under "Frontline Album").
posted by gimonca
on Apr 9, 2005 -
19 comments
"Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear." He is
one of
America's
great novelists, but you don't expect
Philip Roth to be barreling up the best-seller list with
a book that hasn't even been published yet. And yet "
The Plot Against America" is in the
top 3 at amazon.com.
It spins
a what-if scenario in which the isolationist and anti-Semitic hero
Charles Lindbergh runs for president as a Republican in 1940 and
defeats F.D.R.
"Keep America Out of the Jewish War", reads a button worn by Lindbergh supporters rallying at Madison Square Garden. And so he does:
he signs nonaggression pacts with Germany and Japan that will keep America at peace while the rest of the world burns. The Lindbergh administration hatches a nice plan to prod assimilation of the Jews. Innocuously called Just Folks, it's a relocation program for urban Jews, administered by an Office of American Absorption fronted by an obliging and pompous rabbi of radio celebrity. The teenage Roth character is shipped off to a Kentucky tobacco farm, to finally live among Christians.
The
book is about
American Fascism, but while Roth is no fan of President Bush ("a man unfit to run a hardware store let alone a nation like this one"), he points out that
he conceived this book (LATimes registration: sparklebottom/sparklebottom) in December 2000, and that it would be "a mistake" to read it "as a roman à clef to the present moment in America."
(more inside)
posted by matteo
on Sep 28, 2004 -
10 comments
Almost sixty years after the end of the Second World War, the battlefields of
Western Europe,
Scandanavia,
Russia and the
Pacific continue to reveal poignant relics of the men who fought and died. These links may be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in military history.
posted by Doozer
on Oct 25, 2002 -
7 comments
And you thought Microsoft was evil. There appears to be pretty significant evidence that
IBM was involved in automating the persecution of Jews by the Nazis. Read more about it
here,
here and
here.
And since we haven't even settled the question of when a nation has atoned for its sins, what exactly
is the statute of limitations for a company's sins?
posted by anildash
on Feb 11, 2001 -
20 comments
