Rejected by the toy industry at first, Barbie is now one of America’s most trusted brands. “She” – the 11.5 inch blonde doll, but also her brand persona – generated worldwide sales of around US$1.5 billion (£1.3 billion) in 2022, and has a brand value of US$590 million.
The technological solutions devised by Hollerith involved a suite of mechanical and electrical devices. The first crucial innovation was to translate data on handwritten census tally sheets to patterns of holes punched in cards.
The first mobile phone service, for 80-pound telephones installed in cars, was demonstrated on June 17, 1946, 75 years ago. The service was only available in major cities and highway corridors and was aimed at companies rather than individuals.
The Nazi party knew that German hams had a history of illegal transmission and were likely to have unsupervised radio contacts with foreigners,
The world’s oldest surviving mechanical calculator is the Antikythera Mechanism. The amazing device was discovered in an ancient shipwreck.
“Sandy Macpherson’s quiet (BBC) voice is very reassuring at a time when our ears are on the alert for warning sirens” one family wrote in 1939. An image of the popular Sandy Macpherson from circa
It took 34 years, 10,000 interviews and 134 murder confessions, but the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme has now been solved.
Fifty years ago, when Paul McCartney announced he had left the Beatles, the news dashed the hopes of millions of fans, while fueling false reunion rumors.
Are we all trapped in a live-action version of Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary”?
The Jan. 3 assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was followed by a torrent of contradictory narratives.
While the entire collection was digitized in the early 2000s, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive is only allowed to stream NBC and CNN to researchers.
Before the balloon, philosophers speculated that the skies went on forever. Then came the aeronauts who changed our view of the world.
A newspaper exposé written by British journalist W.T. Stead, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” sounds just like the sordid sex ring of Jeffrey Epstein.
A project to investigate ancient Greek music has generated stunning insights into how ancient Greeks made music; the songs of Homer, Sappho, and others.
Elvis Presley recorded the song “If I Can Dream” just two months after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. Both were born and raised in the Deep South.
When the Sex Pistols came out with “God Save the Queen” 40 years ago, on May 27, 1977, it was instantly greeted with widespread, visceral condemnation.
Surveillance occurred through the collection of documents, audio, video, human odors – and around two million photographs now held in the Stasi archive.
When Neil Armstrong stepped on to the Moon, Australians saw the images first. They used a second Aussie dish to bring the historic images to the world.
In 1962, NBC and CBS were at work on two separate, secret documentaries on escape tunnels being dug under the Berlin Wall.
Research reveals evidence of a copper-mining bonanza in Wales 3,600 years ago that reached France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
The oldest surviving animated feature was not made by Walt Disney, but by a German puppeteer named Lotte Reiniger: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).
Mainland Europe has always been essential to Britain’s prosperity. When the relationship with Europe is poor, the lot of ordinary Briton is poorer for it.
The debate over the place of cars in cities may seem like a recent one, but in fact was raging well before the first automobile even saw the light of day. To better understand, let
The Russian scholar, Andrei Fursov, explains in this video the reason why the British authorities insist to keep Rudolf Hess’s files classified until 2050.
Thomas Cook’s enormous 178-years heritage is about to be lost and a number of business historians are fighting to save it.
Clay vessels that have been found in Germany could have been used to supplement breast milk and wean children more than 5,000 years ago.