"Because ignorance of your culture is considered uncool"
News on this December 17th in 1999 that, on the surface like another in a series of promised mayhem for the turn of the Century coming up. But we didn’t know at the time just how sinister this thing was going to go. The latest was the arrest of Ahmed...
BBC World Service News + From Our Own Correspondent – December 16, 2001 – BBC World Service Seems like another lifetime ago, but on this December 16th in 2001 we were just getting our feet wet in what was to become the mess, the gift that keeps on giving, the...
A world of unease, this December 15th in 1981. Starting with news of a purported calm descending over Poland in wake of the latest and growing set of strikes sweeping the country. The State News agency also took steps to cut off all communications between Warsaw and the rest of...
December 14, 2012 – Eight years ago this day, the unthinkable happened. In a year of school shootings, reported with sickening regularity, the most horrific episode was unfolding at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton Connecticut. A gunman, later identified as 20-year old Adam Lanza, walked into Sandy Hook Elementary...
There was a time when radio had a habit of mixing things up – going from serious news or conversation to festive holiday music didn’t seem that much of a jarring stretch at the time. The assumption was, the audience would adjust accordingly. Case in point – here is a...
When U.S. Army Air Corps Captains Albert W. Stevens and Orville A. Anderson landed their Explorer II High-altitude balloon on the ground near White Lake South Dakota, they were the first Scientific Observers to reach a distance of some 72,395 feet above the earth, the highest anyone had gone before....
December 10, 1941 – the war had entered its 2nd official day, the 3rd since the attack on Pearl Harbor. In that short amount of time, America became fixated with regular, almost constant news reports, the constant need to be informed what was happening. Since December 8th, networks instituted a...
Not very much means a whole lot: Become a Patron! December 9th in 1947 – Post-War discontent, Cold War jitters and the slow, painful process of getting a war torn Europe back on its feet. Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King addressed the Canadian House of Commons, saying the European situation...
Stunned incomprehensible silence. That was a reaction many people had when they first heard the news that John Lennon was dead, gunned down as he stepped out of a car, on his way home from a recording session. And as the news reports came in – and as word repeated...
René Amengual – Preludio – NBC Studio Orchestra – Joseph Stulpak, cond. June 24, 1943 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection Chipping in really helps: Become a Patron! Mid-twentieth century music from Chile this week, via composer, pianist and educator René Amengual in a rare performance of his Preludio for Orchestra,...
Gordon Skene, two-time Grammy Nominee and archivist runs The Gordon Skene Sound Archive and this website, which is dedicated to preserving and encouraging an interest in history and historic news, events, and cultural aspects of our society. Past Daily is the only place on the Internet where you can hear a Nixon speech, listen to an interview with John Cassavettes or play a broadcast of Charles Munch rehearsing the Boston Symphony in 1950, all in the same place. It's living history and it's timeless.
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