technology — Bunk History

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The Jet Engine Is a Futuristic Technology Stuck in the Past

Rockets and turbofans have promised to realize dreams of transportation progress—for decades.

by Christopher Schaberg via The Atlantic on February 11, 2018

Mourning John Perry Barlow, Bard of the Internet

Barlow was a poet, a cowboy, a philosopher, and the internet's staunchest ally.

by Steven Levy via Wired on February 7, 2018

The Strange History of One of the Internet's First Viral Videos

Back when video of Vinny Licciardi smashing a computer zigzagged all over the internet, "viral" wan't even a thing yet.

by Joe Veix via Wired on January 12, 2018

How Douglas Engelbart Invented the Future

Two decades before the personal computer, a shy engineer unveiled the tools that would drive the tech revolution.

by Valerie Landau via Smithsonian on January 3, 2018

The Story of an Unrealized Domed City for Minnesota

The Experimental City revisits the plan for a futuristic Minnesota city that would solve urban problems.

by Allison C. Meier via Hyperallergic on January 2, 2018

Telephone from 1896

Want to Guess When the First Telephone Appeared in Literature?

It's probably further back than you think.

by Mark Lasswell via Weekly Standard on December 21, 2017

The Flavour Revolutionary

Henry Theophilus Finck sought to transform the modern United States, by appealing to Americans' tastebuds.

by Nadia Berenstein via Aeon on December 19, 2017

The Last of the Iron Lungs

A visit with three of the last polio survivors in the U.S. who still depend on iron lungs.

by Jennings Brown via Gizmodo on November 20, 2017

Rediscovering History’s Lost First Female Video Game Designer

In 1976, Joyce Weisbecker programmed games for an RCA PC and console based on technology created at home by her dad.

by Harry McCracken via Fast Company on October 27, 2017

We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in GIFs

Are you part of the problem?

by Lauren Michele Jackson via Teen Vogue on August 2, 2017

Cinematic Airs

A pair of 1959 films brought "Smell-o-vision" into movies.

by Christopher Turner via Cabinet on July 1, 2017

The Secret Origin Story of the iPhone

An exclusive excerpt from "The One Device" about the engineering fight that created the iPhone as you know it.

by Brian Merchant via The Verge on June 13, 2017

The Invasion of Musical Robots, 1929

The rise of recorded music left many musicians fearful of a takeover by "canned music."

by John F. Ptak via JF Ptak Science Books on June 1, 2017

Edison vs. Scott

The complicated story behind the invention of sound recording.

by Emma Jacobs via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 31, 2017

Screen shot from the Oregon Trail computer game.

The Oregon Trail, MECC, and the Rise of Computer Learning

Perhaps the oldest continuously available video game ever made; its history in documents and objects.

via The Strong National Museum of Play on May 25, 2017

The Internet Should Be a Public Good

The Internet was built by public institutions — so why is it controlled by private corporations?

by Ben Tarnoff via Jacobin on August 31, 2016

A Brief History of the Assault Rifle

The genealogy of a killing machine.

by Michael Shurkin via The Atlantic on June 30, 2016

Aerial view of Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Why Are America’s Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia?

Suburban corporate campuses have isolated themselves by design from the communities their products were supposed to impact.

by Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on April 8, 2016

Data-Mined Photos Document 100 Years of (Forced) Smiling

A high-school yearbook database dating to the 1900s shows how hairstyles, clothing and smiles have changed.

by Steve Dent via Engadget on November 27, 2015

By Which Melancholy Occurrence: The Disaster Prints of Nathaniel Currier, 1835–1840

Why Americans living in uncertain times bought so many sensational images of shipwrecks and fires.

by Genoa Shepley via Panorama on October 14, 2015

The Tragic History of Early Weather Forecasting

Read an excerpt from Al Roker's book about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

by Al Roker via TIME on August 4, 2015

Roof spotter looking at New York City skyline

Route Cause

On the 1870s skirmish between John D. Rockefeller and the upstart competitors who built the country’s first long-distance oil pipeline.

via BackStory on June 5, 2015

A Brief History of the ATM

How automation changed retail banking.

by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo via The Atlantic on March 26, 2015

Scientists attend to banks of monitors at NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston in 1965.

Mission Control: A History of the Urban Dashboard

Futuristic control rooms with endless screens of blinking data are proliferating in cities across the globe. Welcome to the age of Dashboard Governance.

by Shannon Mattern via Places Journal on March 1, 2015

A Little Bit Softer Now, a Little Bit Softer Now…

The gradual decline of the fade-out in popular music.

by William Weir via Slate on September 15, 2014

Visa as the Mark of the Beast, as imagined by a 1960s Christian tract.

Technology and Apocalypse in America

Some sects of Christian belief have long held that various forms of technology were signs of an approaching apocalypse.

by Daniel Salas via The Appendix on August 27, 2014

Picture of William B. Shockley (1910-1989)

Indigenous Circuits

While researching the history of racism in Silicon Valley, Lisa Nakamura is surprised to discover the Navajo Nation's role in the creation of the tech industry.

by Lisa Nakamura via Computer History Museum on January 2, 2014

The Huge Chill: Why Are American Refrigerators So Big?

From iceboxes to stainless steel behemoths: An Object Lesson.

by Jonathan Rees via The Atlantic on October 4, 2013

The Origins of Cybex Space

Cybex fitness equipment fills gyms around the world. Where did it come from?

by Carolyn Thomas de la PeÃ±a via Cabinet on March 21, 2008

Binary information.

A Brief History of Character Codes

Character codes have been evolving through multiple systems over multiple centuries, this is the story.

by Steven J. Searle via TRON Web on August 6, 2004

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