1001 Days That Shaped the World
by Peter Furtado, General Editor
Published by Barron’s Educational Series
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Reviewed by Connie Anderson
What a GREAT GIFT!
Are you the kind of person who says: Do you remember when … ?
This hardcover book measures over 2 inches thick—and every inch is used wisely. General Editor Peter Furtado has been editor of “History Today” magazine and holds a degree in history and art history from Oxford University.
Imagine deciding how to break the world’s event down to just 1001 – staring from The Big Bang. The first 380 some pages cover very ancient history.
Sampling of the next section: 1700-1899. Learn about the first bicycle, Civil War, Homestead Act, the Impressionist painters, Gettysburg Address, War & Peace (1785), Golden Spike, Suez Canal; telephone (1876), light bulb (1879), motorcar (1886), Statue of Liberty (1886), Eiffel Tower (1889), X-ray (1895), moving pictures (1895), modern Olympics (1896), gold strike (1898), among others.
The 1990-1949 section sampling: Radio message (1901), Tour de France (1903), Wright Brothers flight (1903), San Francisco Earthquake (1906), various explorers, Titanic sunk (1912), WWI (1914), Prohibition/speakeasies (1920s), first television (1926), Lindbergh’s solo flight (1927), first talking movie (1927), St. Valentine’s Day massacre (1929), first Academy Awards (1929) Wall Street crash (10/24/29), Empire State Building (1931) Hitler is Germany’s chancellor (1933), Governments —Mao, Stalin, kings/queens, Churchill, War of the Worlds broadcast (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), atom bomb (1945), UN created (1945), first bikini modeled (1946), State of Israel formed (1948). WWII dominated 1939 to 1946.
The 1950-present is an era most of us can answer, “Do you remember where you were when you heard that ….”
This section is again filled with war and warring in Korea (1950) Cuba (Bay of Pigs, 1961 and missile crisis, 1962), Vietnam, and other countries. Bombings and assassinations (President Kennedy 1963, and in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy), Russia’s Sputnik (1957) and first man in space in 1961. Berlin Wall went up in 1961 and down in 1989. America’s successful moon landing in 1969—while others failed, like the Challenger (1986), Elvis has No.1 song (1956 and died 1977), the Beatles on TV (1964), Jonestown massacre (1978). Many famous people died. Disneyland opened in 1955, Baghdad fell, Hurricane Katrina in 2004 and the tsunami in Indiana Ocean.
Armchair Interviews says: Read a page at a time, or inhale the world’s history in chunks—this is an amazing resource and time machine.