As we prepare to close the book on another year, YouTube user derDon1234 threw together a quick look back at the last 100 years of history — conveniently compacted into 10 minutes. While interesting it’s, uh, not exactly uplifting. In fact, it’s nearly all wars and explosions, with a few sporting events thrown in for good measure. Also, only one woman was apparently noteworthy enough to make the cut — and it’s Lewinksy. So, while deeply flawed, its a sobering reminder of how far we’ve come. See the video after the break, but be forewarned that it does contain some graphic images, so watch at your own discretion.

Given the ubiquity of Google, it’s hard to imagine a time when users couldn’t just mosey over to the minimalist search engine and find everything they need. Or, for that matter, rely on any of the dozens of products — like Google Maps — that seem to make everyday life possible. This retrospective released today by Google recounts the humble origins of the search engine, and the process by which it became the pillar of the modern Internet. All that, in only six minutes.

Despite their (entirely deserved) hero status, astronauts are just everyday people like you and me. They put their pants space suits on one leg at a time, and have to fill out U.S. Customs and Immigration forms when returning from the moon. In what is perhaps the best application of bureaucracy to date, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins declared all their moon rocks and moon dust when they arrived in Hawaii after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. It was a joke, though the astronauts did spend three weeks in isolation after their return over fears they might have brought lunar germs back with them.

However, Reddit tells us that this wouldn’t be the only tongue-in-cheek moment for the space program. After the dramatic events during the Apollo 13 mission, Rockwell received an invoice from Northrop Grumman. It seems that since the Grumman-made lunar module was responsible for bringing the crippled, Rockwell-built command module back to Earth, it was only fair that Rockwell pay for the tow. Great moments in American history, folks.

Read on below, for a closer look at the Apollo 11 immigration form.

What do an iconic peace-loving protester and easily the most hated man in all of human history have to do with each other? The answer is simple: a plea that was never heard. Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Adolf Hitler on July 23, 1939 to ask him to keep World War II from happening. At the time, Hitler was already progressing through Europe, having invaded Czechoslovakia earlier that spring. The letter never reached Hitler, (for unknown reasons) and it is hard to image that it would have had much impact if it did.

Gandhi wrote two letters to Hitler, which are on display at Mani Bhavan, where Gandhi lived in Mumbai from 1917-1934. These letters are a known, but still shocking, part of the history of WWII. Certainly, they make you wonder what could have been, and even spark speculation about what the world leaders of our time really think about the current state of the world.

(via World of Wonder, History Today)

The next time you terminate a program, or restart your computer using the CTRL+ALT+DEL shortcut, think of David Bradley; the IBM engineer that invented the command. During a gathering in 2004 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, the veteran engineer revealed that he’d created the shortcut to save time, since his work required him to frequently power down and restart his computer. He says never intended to make the combination public but was prevailed upon by IBM who found it extremely useful.

Read on below to see a video of Bradley recounting the creation of this now-iconic shortcut, and watch as Bill Gates does not take a jab at Microsoft with the best of graces.

In 1969, while NASA was landing on the moon, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was busy trying to link up the then rare computers that were scattered across various U.S. corporations and college campuses. The idea was that by networking these computers together, they could improve research and also develop a networked computing system that would be less vulnerable to a nuclear attack. By 1969 the idea was up and running, with the first node of the ARPA network (ARPANET) operational at the UCLA campus. On October 29, the research team sent the first message from the UCLA node to another node at Stanford.

The Internet was born, and it was good.

But time passed, and  technology progressed: ARPANET grew to become the background of the international digital communication network we know today, the ARPA organization became the DARPA we’re so familiar with, and the room that birthed the internet was forgotten. It wasn’t until Brad Fidler, a doctoral candidate at the UCLA history program used first-hand accounts and photos to track down the cradle of the net: 3420 Boelter Hall.

Gareth Lloyd and Tom Martin won an award at this year’s History Hack Day for this Wikipedia-fueled data visualization, which localizes Wikipedia articles from a given year to a world map location. Spoiler alert: The history is pretty Eurocentric, with an added dose of North America-centrism come 1700 or so.

Previously in data-viz: A time-lapse map of every nuclear explosion since 1945.

(via FlowingData)

Andrew Tait is back with his wonderful voice and his computer history roundup videos, this time honoring the release of Internet Explorer 9 with a look at every version of the popular web browser. In the video, Tait installs and attempts to run the benchmark web-standards compliance acid tests to demonstrate how IE evolved over the years.

For longtime users, it’s a look back to the heady gray-and-blue days of yore; a simpler time for the Internet. For new users and nonusers, it’s a quick refresher on some of the biggest events in the history of the web. Everything from the destruction of Netscape, Microsoft’s anti-trust lawsuits, and the rise of serious competitors like Firefox is contained in this brisk review. While Tait’s rundown highlights many of the shortcomings of the IE browsers, it does make IE9 look positively desirable compared with decades-old technology.

If you’ve never wondered about how you view the web, take a look.

(Andrew Tait)

The above is a picture of the dining area at Vetutius Placidus‘ thermopolium (or snack bar). The ancient eating establishment was buried under a massive wave of scalding ash during the eruption of Pompeii in the year 79. The Independent says:

The thermopolium, one of the best preserved sites in Pompeii, has been closed to the public for years in order to protect it from further damage. But following months of detailed excavation and preservation work, all visitors will soon be able to go inside and get an idea of a typical ancient Roman lunch establishment.

Is anyone else really hungry?

Kids educational website BrainPOP have a great animated short celebrating the life of a historical figure who was English nobility, a child of Lord Byron, a friend of Charles Babbage, a mathematician, the first programmer, and a woman.

Pay attention, Computer Engineer Barbie. This is Ada Lovelace. Programmer of the old school. Yeah, back when it took a room of clockwork to add and subtract. Back when using punch cards was the next big innovation. Respect.

Sock it to ‘em, Ada!