History of the World Through Film

The other day I was watching the new Spartacus series on cable and that got me to read the article about Spartacus on Wikipedia, which in turn got me reading the article about the Third Servile War. After learning how closely this followed into the realm of Julius Caesar, I immediately thought of the HBO series Rome. The two shows fit together so well historically that I began to wonder. Could I construct a history of the world using feature films and television shows? Sure it's going to be silly and ahistoric, and given the constraint that the movies had to be in the library collection, made it even more of a challenge. So here's my go at it. I'll give you the timeline, the movie title, a brief description and a link to the item in the collection. Enjoy!

• 10,000 B.C. - 10,000 B.C.E. - a silly account of cave people
• 300 - 480 B.C.E. - Battle of Thermopylae
• Hero - 221 B.C.E. - The unification of China under the Qin Dynasty
• Spartacus - 73 B.C.E. - Spartacus leads the third servile war (and obviously this is too soon to be in the collection)
• Rome - 44 B.C.E. - Julius Caesar and the rise of Augustus
• Cleopatra - 30 B.C.E. - Romances and tragedy of Cleopatra
• Jesus Christ Superstar - 33 C.E. - Teachings and Passion of Jesus of Nazareth in a catchy Andrew Lloyd Weber musical way.
• I, Claudius - 54 C.E. - The Julio-Claudian Empire of Rome
• Beowulf - ca. 450 C.E. - The mythic adventure of Beowulf vs. the monster Grendel
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail - ca. 516 C.E. - The end of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, again, quite silly.
• The Lion in Winter - 1183 C.E. - Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in the wittiest argument you will ever see
• Mongol - 1186 C.E. - The life and times of Ghengis Khan
• Brother Sun, Sister Moon - ca. 1209 C.E. - The life of Francis of Assisi and the founding of the Franciscan monastic order with a soundtrack by Donovan.
• Braveheart - 1297- 1305 C.E. - The life of William Wallace and the First Scottish War of Independence against Edward I of England.
• The Tudors - 1520-1540 C.E. - Henry VIII and his many wives in glorious and gory detail. Seasons 1-3 cover wives from Katherine of Aragon through Anne of Cleves.
• Elizabeth - 1558-1572 C.E. - The beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I and the declaration of the Golden Age of England.
• Shakespeare in Love - ca. 1590 C.E. - William Shakespeare finds inspiration for his plays through his love affair with Viola de Lesseps.
• Pocahontas - 1607 C.E. - The Disney-fied version of Pocahontas and John Smith complete with singing animals.
• Girl With a Pearl Earring - 1665 C.E. - Johannes Vermeer through the eyes of a servant girl.
• The Libertine - ca. 1670 C.E.- The downfall of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, hard drinking, bawdy playwright and poet.
• The Crucible - 1692 C.E. - Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder in Arthur Miller's scathing portrayal of the Salem Witch Trials.
• Roots - 1750-1870 C.E. - The story of Alex Haley's family from the enslavement of Kunta Kinte in Gambia, West Africa through to the family's move to Tennessee after the American Civil War.
• 1776 - 1776 C.E. - The founding fathers sing their way to Revolution.
• John Adams - 1770-1826 C.E. - John Adams's life from the Boston Massacre through his presidency to his death in 1826.
• Amadeus - 1783-1825 C.E. - Herr Salieri, Court Composer to Joseph II of Austria recounts his rivalry with Mozart.
• Jefferson in Paris - 1784-1789 C.E. - Thomas Jefferson's tenure as the Ambassador to France prior to the revolution and his relationships with Maria Cosway and Sally Hemings.
• The Civil War - 1861-1865 C.E. - Ken Burns's exhaustive documentary of the American Civil War told through the photographs of the era and the voices from journals and letters of the time period.
• Glory - 1863 C.E. - The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first military troop in the United States to openly enlist African-American soldiers, led by Col. Robert Gould Shaw.
• Lawrence of Arabia - ca. 1916-1935 C.E. - T.E. Lawrence leads rebellion against the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
• Gandhi - 1915-1948 C.E. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi leads the non-violent revolution against British colonial rule.
• Schindler's List - 1939-1945 C.E. - German soldier Oskar Schindler creates a list of "skilled" inmates who are saved from extermination in the Auschwitz concentration camps.
• From Here to Eternity - 1941 C.E. - The attack on Pearl Harbor by way of a love triangle.
• Au Revoir, Les Enfants - 1943-1944 C.E. - The effects of World War II on a French boarding school, and the death of Jewish school children in Auschwitz and their teacher's emprisonment in Mauthausen.
• The Great Escape - 1944 C.E. - 50 Allied prisoners of war escape from a German POW camp, and there's Steve McQueen on a motorcycle.
• Seven Years in Tibet - 1944-1950 C.E. - A former Nazi soldier encounters the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, and the experience changes both their lives.
• Evita - 1936-1952 C.E. - Madonna belts out the famous "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" while pretending to be Eva Peron.
• M*A*S*H - 1950-1953 C.E. - The kooky surgeons of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital get up to pranks to make it through the trauma of the Korean War.
• The Motorcycle Diaries - 1952 C.E. - Based on the diaries of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and his encounters with the desperate poverty in South America that led to his Marxist rebellion in Argentina.
• Battle of Algiers - 1954-1960 C.E. - Recounts events surrounding the war for Algerian independence from the French.
• Capote - 1959-1966 C.E. - Truman Capote becomes obsessed with the murder of the Kansas Clutter family and pens his magnum opus "In Cold Blood."
• Mad Men - 1961-1963 C.E. - Madison Avenue advertising executives with hard drinking habits relive the peak moments of the era from the inauguration of JFK through the assasination of Lee Harvey Oswald.
• Malcolm X - 1965 C.E. - Denzel Washington's magnificent portrayal of African-American activist Malcolm X.
• A Beautiful Mind - 1950-1994 C.E. - The life of John Forbes Nash, Jr., game theorist and mathematician who suffered from paranoid schizophrenic episodes.
• Frost/Nixon - 1977 C.E. - British talk show host David Frost interviews former president Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal and the abuses of his presidency.
• And the Band Played On - 1981 C.E. - Epidemiologists discover a strange virus spreading rampantly through gay men in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, what would come to be known as HIV/AIDS.
• Good bye Lenin! - 1989 C.E. - The fall of the Berlin Wall, the arrival of capitalism to East Germany, and the reunification of Germany.
• Hotel Rwanda - 1994 C.E. - Hotelier Paul Rusesabagina saves the lives of his family and over 1,000 refugees at the Hotel des Mille Collines during the Rwandan genocide.
• Blood Diamond - 1996 C.E. - Takes place during the Sierra Leone Civil War and the people forced into slave labor in diamond mines, and terrible cost of the diamond trade.
• Black Hawk Down - 1996 C.E. - Americn Black Hawk helicopter loaded with Delta Force soldiers is shot down over Mogadishu, Somalia.
• Breach - 2001 C.E. - Robert Philip Hanssen former American FBI agent and spy for Russian and Soviet intelligence gets busted for being a double agent.

I Am A Historian

Over the last year we've had the wonderful opportunity to work in partnership with some of the brilliant students at Seaton Elementary School. One of the most amazing projects that we did was build a local history page on Wikipedia for the Shiloh Baptist Church. After the students built the page we had them sit down for a Skype teleconference to talk about their experience on the project with teachers around the country.

Take a minute to meet Katherine, Norma, Jackson and Ibrahim, and learn about the work they did for this project. We're all so incredibly proud of them.

Mad Men at DC Public Library

If you haven't been watching Mad Men on AMC you are missing out on one of the best written, best acted shows on television today. You can get up to speed with Don, Betty, Joan, Peggy, Pete and the crew by checking out seasons 1 and 2 from your local DC Public Library.

But we've got way more than just the videos. Being an avid fan of the show I've compiled a list of books that are mentioned throughout the course of the show that we have here in the collection, along with some other period pieces and contextual works that I'm sure you'll find enjoyable, if not amusing.

Check it out.


Books Mentioned in Mad Men

Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Exodus by Leon Uris

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O’Hara
Call Number: 811 O36M

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Call Number: 937 G439H


The 1960s

The 1960s: Examining Pop Culture ed. by David M. Haugen and Matthew J. Box
Call Number: 973.923 N714A

The 1960's: American Popular Culture Through History by Edward J. Rielly
Call Number: 973.923 R555

One minute to midnight : Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war by Michael Dobbs. Call Number: 973.922 D632

We Shall Overcome by Herb Boyd, Narrated by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.
Call Number: 323.1196 B7896

I Have A Dream: writings and speeches that changed the world. by Martin Luther King, Jr. ed. by James M. Washington
Call Number: 332.092 K53I

On the Road to Freedom: a guided tour of the civil rights trail. by Charles E. Cobb, Jr.
Call Number: 323.1196 C653


Kennedy v. Nixon

The making of a Catholic president : Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 by Shaun A. Casey.
Call Number: 322.1097 C338

1960 : LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon : the epic campaign that forged three presidencies by David Pietrusza.
Call Number: 324.973 P626N


Camelot

John F. Kennedy: A Biography by Michael O'Brien
Call Number: 92 K348OB

Brothers: the hidden history of the Kennedy years by David Talbot
Call Number: 973.922 T138

The Kennedys : portrait of a family by Richard Avedon ; Shannon Thomas Perich ; foreword by Robert Dallek.
Call Number: 973.922 A961

The secret life of Marilyn Monroe by J. Randy Taraborrelli.
Call Number: 92 M7534T


Advertising

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Copywriter's Words and Phrases by Kathy Kleidermacher.
Call Number: 659.132 K63

Brand Failures: the truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time by Matt Haig
Call Number: 658.827 H149

Don't Think Pink: What really makes women buy--and how to increase your share of this crucial market by Lisa Johnson
Call Number: 658.834 J67

Adland: Searching for the meaning of life on a branded planet by James P. Othmer
Call Number: 659.1 O87

Consuming Kids: Protecting our children from the onslaught of marketing and advertising by Susan Linn
Call Number: 658.8342 L758


Socializing

Mr. Boston official bartender's guide by edited by Anthony Giglio with Jim Meehan ; photography by Ben Fink.
Call Number: 641.874 M679A

The Perfect Buzz: the essential guide to boozing, bars and bad behavior by David Bramwell.
Call Number: 394.13 P438

The appetizers and canapés cookbook by Lillian Langseth-Christensen and Carol Sturm Smith. Illus. by Lillian Langseth-Christensen. (1968)
Call Number: 641.81 L285

Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Judith Martin.
Call Number: 395 M381A

The Importance of Being Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt, the well known First Lady and wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, was one of the main American delegates to the UN who helped compile the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration was put forward by the United Nations in 1948, three years after the end of World War Two. It was also Eleanor Roosevelt who was one of the leaders of the United States Delegation for the committee on human rights and she was the one who prodded the committee to put forward a new formulation of the idea of human rights to the world, one that reflected the challenges of a world recently united by the struggle of a World War.

In a relatively new book entitled " A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Mary Ann Glendon shows how it was the enthusiasm and commitment of Ms Roosevelt that helped to bring the early UN to a focus on human rights as the basis for a new world order. She helped to direct the human rights commission to agree upon a common formulation of human rights for all nations. She also encouraged the United States’ State Department to stand behind our principles of democracy and human dignity when those principles were questioned by some new nations. According to Ms Glendon, it was her good sense and idealism that made the committee work and it was her fame that helped to sucessfully publicized the Declaration of as a new Magna Carta for the twentieth century.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a world figure at the time, one of the few American women of stature who helped direct the political work of the New Deal, served the causes of civil rights, sought to improve conditions of the poor, and brought about agricultural reform. She worked both within and outside of government. She became a symbol after her husband’s death of the American ideals of democracy, human rights, and social welfare for the masses of people. She became most famous for advancing the cause of universal human rights within the United Nations and bringing a greater idealism to the purposes behind the world organization as it came upon the world stage to become the major player that it remains today.

Emancipation Day

Tomorrow, April 16th, is Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia. In honor of this holiday DC Government agencies, including the DC Public Libraries will be closed. Watha T. Daniel will reopen to the public on Thursday April 17th at 9:30 a.m.

In the spirit of the holiday, take a look at these original pages of the Emancipation Proclamation hosted at the National Archives.