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The First Silent Movie

Still from the 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery.

The first silent movie had all the elements of a blockbuster - trains, money, shooting, and bandits. "The Great Train Robbery," the first movie with a plot, set the foundation for the modern film industry. Learn more about this amazing film.

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Jennifer's 20th Century History Blog

Celebrity Spies in World War II

Thursday August 21, 2008
The U.S. National Archives recently opened more than 35,000 files relating to the men and women who worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) prior to 1947. Among those who worked for the OSS (the precursor to the CIA) were celebrity chef Julia Child, diplomat Ralph Bunche, actor Sterling Hayden, baseball player Moe Berg, Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Preserving Virtual Worlds

Wednesday August 20, 2008
Historians and archivists are constantly grappling with the question: What is worth preserving? We cannot save everything and yet we must decide what will be important to history in the decades to come. The most recent concept is to preserve virtual worlds - interactive online games. With millions of people playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORG) like World of Warcraft, should the history of such games be recorded? Will we someday research game history like we do Disney films or modern artists? If you want to know more about this new effort of preserving the history of virtual worlds, check out this BBC article.

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