History Dispatches

On a blustery, wet day in May of 1954, British runner Roger Bannister - an Oxford medical student - accomplished a long distance running feat that many had said would never be achieved. It would make Bannister the sportsperson of the year - and his achievement is hailed as one of the greatest sports moments of 20th century. This is the story of Roger Bannister and the 4-minute mile.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb5AtK08gPM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roger_Bannister_1953.jpg

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Sliced bread is a simple yet ingenious invention with a surprisingly short history. Almost as soon as it came onto the market, it took over American bakeries and became a staple in every household. Except, for a brief few months in 1943 when the United States government banned this incredible product. This is the story of sliced bread and the time it was banned.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliced_bread

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-ridiculous-reason-why-the-us-enacted-a-wartime-ban-on-sliced-bread-salesand-why-it-didnt-last-long-180985834/

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/america-banned-sliced-bread

Image: By Fran Hogan - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fresh_made_bread_05.jpg

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From 2008-10, the Lower Merion School District - in suburban Philadelphia - issued laptops to more than 2,300 high school students for school and home use. What they didn’t tell the kids or their parents was that the district loaded the laptops with secret software that gave officials the ability to remotely take photos from those laptops. What followed was WebcamGate - one of the biggest invasion of privacy incidents in the nation’s history.

Sources

https://time.com/7275031/spy-high-true-story-prime-video/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District

https://time.com/7275031/spy-high-true-story-prime-video/

Image: by Matheus Bertelli - https://www.pexels.com/photo/modern-video-camera-hanging-on-display-of-laptop-7172701/"

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Defenestrate is a highly specific word. It means to throw someone out of a window. And it comes from the city of Prague where several people were tossed out of a window and helped ignite a brutal religious war. And then it happened again 200 years later. This is the story of the Defenestrations of Prague.

Sources

https://english.radio.cz/blood-bohemia-second-defenestration-prague-and-window-changed-europe-8889193

https://english.radio.cz/first-defenestration-prague-what-was-it-and-why-did-it-happen-8124688

"The Thirty Years War: a documentary history" by Tryntje Helfferich

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V%C3%A1clavBRO%C5%BD%C3%8DK-Defenestrace.jpg#Summary

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By the 1940s, government officials were looking to re-introduce the beaver to a region of Idaho to help improve the health of the area’s wetlands. But hauling live beavers through forests and over mountains was not easy - or cheap. And thus someone came up with the idea of parachuting beavers into these remote areas. This is the story of Idaho’s Parachuting Beavers - or parabeavers.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_drop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APLz2bTprMA

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a71613267/parachute-beavers/

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beaver_drop_box_sprung_open_on_landing_Idaho_1950.png

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