Documents That Changed the World

Joe Janes
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A look at documents that have had a profound effect on the world. Telling the stories of these information objects, their genesis, contexts, impacts, and fates also tells the story of human society and its never ending evolution.

  1. 11/08/2025

    68. Negro Motorist Green Book, 1936

    Road trip! Let's just pack up and go - but where should we go, stay, eat? Easy decisions for some, perilous for others, until a mailman lent his name to a little book that made the journey a whole lot safer, less humiliating and more enjoyable to generations of travelers setting out on the open road to a better future

  2. 28/07/2025

    67. Guinness Book of Records, 1955

    A compendium of fastests and highests and mosts in a book that nobody needs but millions have enjoyed - documenting the boundaries of human capability; just don't call it trivial, and please, stop eating the bicycles. Golden plover for the win! (or not) (researched by Brooks Scheibler)

  3. 06/07/2025

    66. First Motion Picture Camera Patent, 1888

    Edison invented the movie camera, right? Nope - and therein lies a Hollywood story that doesn't take place anywhere near Hollywood, with guest appearances by Greer Garson, Spencer Tracy, Jack the Ripper, and Louis Le Prince, the real inventor, and his real life mystery (researched/written by Ellianna Thayne)

  4. 31/12/2024

    65. NCAA Transfer Portal, 2018

    Just enter the portal and fame and fortune await, right? Maybe, though nothing is guaranteed - one of many misconceptions about a tool that does its job and makes things work, no wormholes required

  5. 23/12/2024

    64. "First" Social Security Number, 1936

    Who's got your number? Hopefully nobody who isn't supposed to - the origins of the number we (almost) all live by, why and how it's become so necessary, and what happens when you die - or somebody thinks you have

  6. 22/12/2024

    63. Incan Quipu (knotted fiber cords), by c1300

    How can you know what you can't read? A writing system without a key, suspended knots and strings we can't interpret, leaving entire peoples also in suspense to understand their past and stories (researched/written by Diego Licea)

  7. 11/08/2024

    62. Sumerian Complaint Tablet, c1750 BCE

    "How dare you treat me like this?" The cry of untold millions of consumers with a grievance to air, or type, or phone in - or bake into clay tablets, in the faint but eternal hope of being heard (researched/written by Ellianna Thayne)

  8. 19/07/2024

    61. Oldest Known Galaxy, 13+ billion years ago

    How is a galaxy a document? How could it change the world? Well, look out there, as far as we can see, and even farther - and then look inside, and maybe you'll find out.

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A look at documents that have had a profound effect on the world. Telling the stories of these information objects, their genesis, contexts, impacts, and fates also tells the story of human society and its never ending evolution.

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