In the early days of the film industry, it was hard to find a good scream. Before the invention of sound bites, directors who needed a blood-curdling shriek from actors often got rather paltry sounding yelps. That is, until Private Wilhelm entered the scene. In the 1951 war classic Distant Drums, a soldier is dragged under water by an alligator as he wades through a treacherous Florida swamp. After the filming was completed, sound engineers recorded a series of screams that were added during post-production. Two years later, in The Charge at Feather River, a soldier named Private Wilhelm (played by Ralph Brooke) takes an arrow in the leg. Similar…
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Great Moments in Digital History Why didn't Pheidippides just send a tweet?
If you’ve ever run a marathon, then you’re probably familiar with how the grueling 26.2 mile event originated. According to myth, the race was originated by the Greek messenger, Pheidippides, the early version of FedEx. Dispatched from the front lines at the Battle of Marathon, Pheidippides ran non-stop to Athens, bursting into the assembly exclaiming, “Nenikékamen,” or, “We have won” before collapsing and dying. Why didn’t he just send a digital message… or better yet, a tweet? The answer, of course, is that while he could have faxed or emailed the message to Athens, Twitter wasn’t invented until hundreds of years later. If he had tweeted the message and skipped…