Hacker News with Generative AI: History

Swedish Exports of Ball Bearings (reddit.com)
"Swedish exports of ball bearings" are commonly brought up in historical discussions of World War II. Why were other countries so reliant on Swedish ball bearings and unable to produce enough themselves?
History, Manufacturing, Sweden
34 points by zeristor 4 hours ago | 5 comments
How do playing cards work? No one knows (polygon.com)
Some of humanity’s oldest toys are our most complex
Playing Cards, History, Mystery, Games
15 points by ColinWright 5 hours ago | 6 comments
French modernists were alarmed, inspired by newspaper's voracious dynamism (aeon.co)
In the 1860s, Charles Baudelaire bemoaned what we might now call doomscrolling:
Art, History, Media, Modernism
94 points by crescit_eundo 10 hours ago | 27 comments
The Derelict (2015) (damninteresting.com)
Under ordinary circumstances, the final evening of a cruise aboard the luxury turbo-electric ocean liner SS Morro Castle was a splendid event.
History, Maritime, Accidents
33 points by EndXA 13 hours ago | 3 comments
'Once-in-a-century' discovery reveals luxury of Pompeii (bbc.com)
After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for 2,000 years, a "once-in-a-century" find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy.
Archaeology, History, Pompeii, Italy, Ancient Rome
13 points by pseudolus 15 hours ago | 8 comments
'Once-in-a-century' discovery reveals luxury of Pompeii (bbc.co.uk)
After lying hidden beneath metres of volcanic rock and ash for 2,000 years, a "once-in-a-century" find has been unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in Italy.
Archaeology, History, Ancient Rome, Italy
11 points by gadders 17 hours ago | 0 comments
Ancient Phoenician Shipwreck Recovered, Sank 2.6k Years Ago Off Coast of Spain (smithsonianmag.com)
Archaeologists have raised a 2,600-year-old shipwreck from the waters near southeastern Spain.
Archaeology, History, Shipwrecks, Phoenicians
5 points by bookofjoe 1 day ago | 0 comments
The Visible Zorker (eblong.com)
The Visible Zorker
Games, Text Adventures, History
5 points by chromy 1 day ago | 0 comments
Potoooooooo (wikipedia.org)
Wikipedia, Culture, History
103 points by samclemens 1 day ago | 42 comments
Driving blind: NYC subways steered by 1930s tech, paper maps and a lot of hope (gothamist.com)
Transportation, Technology, History
3 points by _zie 1 day ago | 2 comments
The Curious History of Venn Diagrams (scientificamerican.com)
In his book The Mathematical Universe, mathematician William Dunham wrote of John Venn’s namesake legacy, the Venn diagram, “No one in the long history of mathematics ever became better known for less.”
Mathematics, History, Science, Data Visualization
3 points by Brajeshwar 1 day ago | 0 comments
Coincidence between the start spacecraft scene in Prometheus and 60s phreaking (ycombinator.com)
Is there any coincidence between the scene in "Alien Prometheus" where the engineer pilot ignites the spacecraft by a piccolo and 1960s phreaking(2600 Hz whistles)?
Science Fiction, Film, History, Technology
4 points by damiaozi 2 days ago | 2 comments
Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf] (tiiny.site)
Evaluating Apple's iPhone and its implications for Nokia.
Mobile Phones, Nokia, Apple, History, Business
486 points by late 2 days ago | 504 comments
What Roman Coins Reveal About the People Who Made Them (lithub.com)
“In a way the coin is our superior. The hardness of its metal secures for it ‘eternal’ existence. A coin does not grow, it issues ready-made from the mint and should remain as it then is; it should never change.” –Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power
History, Archaeology, Numismatics, Ancient Rome
3 points by bookofjoe 2 days ago | 0 comments
2k-year-old wine and the uncanny immediacy of the past (resobscura.substack.com)
In 2019, construction workers in Carmona, Spain uncovered something remarkable underneath a very old house: an access shaft that led them to a Roman tomb which had remained perfectly sealed for two thousand years.
History, Archaeology, Ancient Rome
236 points by benbreen 2 days ago | 86 comments
Show HN: GeoGuessr but for Historical Events (eggnog.ai)
Geography, History, Games, Web Development
11 points by samplank2 2 days ago | 2 comments
WTF Happened in 1971? (2019) (wtfhappenedin1971.com)
“I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.” – F.A. Hayek 1984
Economics, History, Politics
273 points by lr0 2 days ago | 266 comments
Henrietta Lacks Seems Like a Nice Person, but Not a Scientific Hero (astralcodexten.com)
Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who died of cancer in 1951. During her treatment, doctors took a sample of the cancer. The sample ended up with a researcher who noticed the cells were much more resilient than any other cell type then known, cancerous or otherwise. This made them extremely useful for biology experiments, and now a substantial portion of world bio research is done on cells descended from Lacks’ cancer.
Science, Ethics, History, Bioethics
16 points by NavinF 3 days ago | 17 comments
Antarctic bases went from wooden huts to sci-fi chic(2017) (bbc.com)
How do you build in the most isolated place on Earth? For decades Antarctica - the only continent with no indigenous population - hosted only the simplest huts as human shelters. But, as Matthew Teller finds out, architecture in the coldest, driest, windiest reaches of our planet is getting snazzier.
Antarctica, Architecture, History, Climate, Design
20 points by Willingham 3 days ago | 1 comments
Introduction to Buddhism (fsi.stanford.edu)
Buddhism, one of the major world religions, began in India around the sixth century, B.C.E. The teachings of Buddhism spread throughout Central and Southeast Asia, through China, Korea, and Japan. Today, there are Buddhists all over the world.
Buddhism, Religion, History, Asia
5 points by wslh 3 days ago | 0 comments
Grand Harbour of Malta Tornado (wikipedia.org)
The Grand Harbour of Malta tornado was one of the deadliest tornadoes on record worldwide, killing at least 600 people.
Tornadoes, Malta, History, Disasters
7 points by arbuge 3 days ago | 0 comments
The Openstreetmap.org Codebase, Circa 2024 (medium.com)
By tugging on the thread of a seemingly minor change on osm.org, we’ve unraveled a story that casts 2024 in OpenStreetMap in an intriguing light.
OpenStreetMap, Mapping, Codebase, History
13 points by altilunium 3 days ago | 0 comments
Lunase moon phase watch mechanism (genuineideas.com)
Before there were clocks there were the heavens. The sun to mark the day and the moon to light the night- their shadows counting down the hours. Overhead, celestial bodies arced across the sky, charting a map to the seasons and subtly precessing across the centuries.
Watches, Timekeeping, Astronomy, History
3 points by huhtenberg 3 days ago | 0 comments
MI5 files suggest queen not briefed on spy Blunt in royal household for 9 years (theguardian.com)
The late Queen Elizabeth II was not told for almost 10 years that Anthony Blunt, a surveyor of the queen’s pictures and a member of the royal household, had confessed to being a Soviet double agent, previously secret security files suggest.
History, Royal Family, Espionage, Intelligence, United Kingdom
6 points by bookofjoe 3 days ago | 0 comments
The rise and fall of the English sentence (2017) (nautil.us)
The surprising forces influencing the complexity of the language we speak and write.
Language, Linguistics, History, Writing
97 points by cal85 4 days ago | 50 comments
An 836-pound 'cursed' emerald traveled the Americas, ruining lives (latimes.com)
It was an ordinary day at his Los Angeles law office when John Nadolenco opened a letter from Brazil enlisting his help in a mission to retrieve a stolen, and quite possibly cursed, 836-pound emerald.
History, Travel, Crime, Curiosities, Gems
5 points by PaulHoule 4 days ago | 1 comments
Schoenberg scores destroyed in Los Angeles fires (nytimes.com)
An estimated 100,000 scores and parts by the groundbreaking 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg were destroyed last week when the wildfires in Southern California burned down the music publishing company founded by his heirs.
Music, Fires, California, Loss, History
7 points by carlspeaking 4 days ago | 1 comments
A UC Santa Cruz professor unearthed the oldest alphabet yet (universityofcalifornia.edu)
In 2004, while she was still a meticulous young graduate student, Elaine Sullivan made a discovery that would deepen the history of human writing.
Archaeology, History, Language, Writing Systems
141 points by diodorus 4 days ago | 46 comments
How corn syrup took over America (thehustle.co)
Corporate welfare has propped up high fructose corn syrup for decades. It’s unlikely to end anytime soon.
Food Industry, Politics, History, Corporate Influence
167 points by paulpauper 4 days ago | 228 comments
The Curious Gems of the River Thames (atlasobscura.com)
On the banks of the River Thames, when the tide is low, a person walking along the shore can see all kinds of things. With a keen eye, you can spot blue-and-white shards of 19th-century pottery, delicate stems of 18th-century clay pipes, brass buttons from coats, and coins dating back to the Romans.
History, Archaeology, London, River Thames
73 points by alt227 4 days ago | 24 comments