Submitted by capsaicinintheeyes t3_yfs4ef in todayilearned
Reply to comment by bolanrox in TIL Al Capone was only 33 when he was locked away for tax evasion and developed neurosyphilis, leading to his death at 48. Eliot Ness was 27 when he formed the Untouchables--he died in a state of financial ruin in his 50s, likely hastened by his heavy drinking in his later life by capsaicinintheeyes
It’s always so wild to be reminded how many people bridged the pre-modern and modern era. 1880 and 1920 seem like entire universes apart, far more than 1980 and 2020.
Like it seems perfectly reasonable to imagine someone seeing Star Wars in the theater and also using Twitter. But the idea of riding a train to the Wild West, and later taking a commercial airline flight?
WW2 feels a lot closer to us than WW1 despite only 20 years between them. WW2 feels modern while WW1 feels archaic. It’s weird how we perceive things
Its not just perception thing, its been like that for last couple hundred years. Insane pace of technological improvements have changed this world time and time again is short span.
It's crazy to think that some people who grew up thinking radio was cutting edge watched the moon landing.
Now we have mumble rap and TikTok. What a time to be alive Sigh
I had a teacher in high school complain that there wasn't a way to have both instant news (like on television) with the ability to read different sections (like a newspaper).
It's the colour photography.
I think because WW2 was a truly modern conflict of combined arms and most of the technologies we know today existed back then in rudimentary form.
Mass tank formations, strategic bombing, radar, missiles, jet fighters, effective combined arms strategies, aircraft carriers, etc.
Even though it was only 20 odd years prior WW1 had more in common with warfare of the past and unlike WW2, had no resemblance to a modern conflict really.
WW1 saw absolutely massive leaps in military technology and strategy that paved the way for how "modern" WW2 felt by comparison.
The war of 1918 had no resemblance to that of 1914. Everything had changed dramatically, from the basic uniforms to the appearance of massed tanks, and the strategies employed by both sides.
1914 was closer to the war of 1871 really in how it played out initially.
One woman saw the wagon trains, and the Moon landing.
another guy saw Lincoln get shot and talked about it on a TV show.
Biden was born closer to Lincolns inauguration than his own.
> Biden was born closer to Lincolns inauguration than his own.
Only if you use Lincoln's second inauguration. Lincoln's first was in 1861, 81 years before Biden was born in 1942, and Biden was inaugurated at 78 in 2021.
Yep. We talk about how the Internet has changed life and society, but it’s peanuts compared to the changes that occurred the prior turn of the century.
I've got a picture somewhere of one of the last Confederate Army veterans posing with a 1950's era jet fighter.
for sure
Peter Capaldi saw Doctor Who when it first aired in 63 and in 2013(?) he was the Doctor.
Speaking of Elliott Ness and Al Capone...the original TV show The Untouchables (with Robert Stack as Eliott Ness) aired in the early 1960s, only roughly 30 years after the events it was based on.
But the 1960s and 1930s feel so incredibly far apart to us today, even though to the audience watching The Untouchables on ABC in 1960, it would be like us watching Stranger Things.
Well if you think about it though, 1990 and 2020 are a lot further apart than you think. In 1990 most people did not have a personal computer, and there certainly wasn't widespread adoption of the Internet, those came in the late 90s like 1995 onward with Windows 95 adding support for networking via the Internet. In 1990 you wouldn't even have a cellular telephone let alone anything resembling a smartphone. Video calling, driverless cars, GPS, drones, etc were all the stuff of science fiction. We take for granted how much technology we have access to now that the public simply did not 30 years ago.
> 1880 and 1920 seem like entire universes apart
That's because of the huge changes brought by the invention of processes to mass produce steel in the 1860s. Henry Bessemer created the modern age. When cheap steel became available there was a whole new way of manufacturing everything.
Besides that, there were many important scientific discoveries. For instance, the concept of sanitation started by Florence Nightingale increased life expectation by twenty years during that period.
1903: Wright Bros. first flight.
1966 69: First moon landing.
I still have trouble wrapping my mind around this.
Wasn't the first moon landing in 1969?
I think they mean unmanned landing
Oh.
Stupid fingers.
what? To me, 1880 and 1920 seems like "basically the same time" while 1980 and 2020 seems completely different.
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