Free: British Pathé Puts Over 85,000 Historical Films on YouTube by Jonathan Crow.
From the post:
British Pathé was one of the leading producers of newsreels and documentaries during the 20th Century. This week, the company, now an archive, is turning over its entire collection — over 85,000 historical films – to YouTube.
The archive — which spans from 1896 to 1976 – is a goldmine of footage, containing movies of some of the most important moments of the last 100 years. It’s a treasure trove for film buffs, culture nerds and history mavens everywhere. In Pathé’s playlist “A Day That Shook the World,” which traces an Anglo-centric history of the 20th Century, you will find clips of the Wright Brothers’ first flight, the bombing of Hiroshima and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, alongside footage of Queen Victoria’s funeral and Roger Bannister’s 4-minute mile. There’s, of course, footage of the dramatic Hindenburg crash and Lindbergh’s daring cross-Atlantic flight. And then you can see King Edward VIII abdicating the throne in 1936, Hitler’s first speech upon becoming the German Chancellor in 1933 and the eventual Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 (above).
But the really intriguing part of the archive is seeing all the ephemera from the 20th Century, the stuff that really makes the past feel like a foreign country – the weird hairstyles, the way a city street looked, the breathtakingly casual sexism and racism. There’s a rush in seeing history come alive. Case in point, this documentary from 1967 about the wonders to be found in a surprisingly monochrome Virginia.
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A treasure trove of over 85,000 historical films!
With modern face recognition technology, imagine mining these films and matching faces up against other photographic archives.
Rather than seeing George Wallace, for example, as a single nasty piece of work during the 1960’s, we may identify the followers of such “leaders.”
Those who would discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, language, etc. are empowered by those of similar views.
One use of this historical archive would be to “out” the followers of such bigots.
To protect “former” fascists supporters on the International Olympic Committee, the EU will protest any search engine that reports such results.
You should judge the IOC by their supporters as well. (Not the athletes, but the IOC.)