Buildings are history

Today in 1966, the National Historic Preservation Act became law, and it launched a massive effort to save historic buildings around the country that were in danger of encroaching urban sprawl and demolition. (You can read the act here. It is a well written defense of history.) In thinking about the effects of this momentous…

Dig some digital archaeology

The Andy Warhol Museum recently announced that it had recovered some digital files of Warhol’s art, originally created on an Amiga console in 1985. (Here’s the press release, and a blog post about the find.) Warhol Museum press release Washington Post blog about Warhol find While the Warhol archaeology was most likely conducted in an…

Museum: War birds brought to life

In Addison, Texas, north of Dallas, you can find a gem of a museum. The Cavanaugh Flight Museum specializes in air-worthy historical planes, and is the home of the Commemorative Air Force’s heavy bombers. I last visited the Cavanaugh in December, 2013. Quality of research The Cavanaugh museum has well-researched narrative, especially from a technical…

Letters from the past

What if we could hear, first-hand, what it was like to be on a ship in Pearl Harbor during the Japanese raid on December 7th, 1941? What if one of your family-members had an eye-witness story about the November, 2004 Battle of Fallujah in their email? Are you a U.S. veteran with a stack of…