Hello, and welcome back to This Week in History! You know what, maybe the column should really be titled “This Blisteringly Cold Week in History,” as temperatures in Storrs plummet down into the 20s, and most of North America deals with snow, sleet, rain, or some unpleasant mix of the three.
Despite the poor forecasts, I don’t mean to start off on a dim note. This issue is the first publication of the column for the Spring 2024 semester and, more substantively, the first issue of the new year! It feels good to be back at the helm of this fun history outlet, and I’m excited to think of the many weeks ahead, all dense with historical stories to tell. So, without further ado, let’s jump into this week’s theme: “This week in history.”
You probably read that and thought, “Oh boy, this must be a typo, he just repeated the column name” — and correct you are. I did repeat the column name, but trust me, it’s not a typo.
Over winter break, it’s hard to find out what to do with yourself. Most of the day is spent penned up inside; for me, it was spent trying to leach any warmth I could out of the radiator in my room, but I digress; this winter break, I returned to what got me interested in history in the first place: long winter days watching documentaries that present history in a unique and digestible way.
So, I wish to treat this issue as an ode to those who have mastered the art of accurately presenting historical events on the anniversary of their happening — the concept of “this (day, week, month) in history” serving as a starting point.” In that regard, this week, we’re exploring two fantastic YouTube channels.
This week in history, on Jan. 22, 2015, the YouTube channel “The Great War” uploaded the video: “Zeppelins Over England – New Inventions For The Modern War I | THE GREAT WAR Week 26.”
Upon clicking play on this seemingly random video, show host and writer Indiana “Indy” Neidell greets you from behind a large rustic table. Looming behind him is a political map of Europe in 1914 — a visualization of the time the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires dominated Europe.
Neidell begins with this acute line: “When most people think of the First World War, they think most often of either the Western Front and the trenches and flying aces, and possibly the Italian or Eastern fronts, but the war was by no means confined to mainland Europe, and this week we really see that it was a world war, with battles taking place on three continents.”
Notice how Neidell says, “This week…” — kind of similar to this column, right? When that video aired, Neidell and a team of talented researchers and producers were 26 weeks into covering World War I in its entirety, week-by-week. Their efforts produced hundreds of videos, with their first arriving on July 28, 2014, and they continue with sporadic uploads even today. Some historians reading may have perked up upon seeing the date of their commencement; it just so happens that it was released exactly 100 years after the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, considered by many to be a catalyst for the outbreak of World War I.
Every week, the team uploaded a video covering monumental moments in the war. Still, they went beyond just a popularized telling of history–those revolving around assassinations of officials and the sinking of passenger ships or focusing on the widely blown-out-of-proportion Zimmerman telegram. No, this telling of history would retell events accurately, in the same time scale as they happened. Consequently, these mundane stretches of time reveal way more about the conflict than an article focused on a famous battle or one singular event.
Each week, the team produces a video that looks beyond describing solely the massive, year-spanning events. Instead, video topics could focus on more precise history, such as studying the inside of the British Mark IV tank, laying out troop deployments that are often glossed over, or like in this week’s video from 2015 — which really covers this week in 1915 — the use of Zeppelins in bombing raids on Britain and the remarkable heroism of a man who decades later would lead a nation into horror: Adolf Hitler.
The coolest thing about these videos is that while they describe an event happening — like those Zeppelin raids — it can be weeks until the impact of that event becomes clear, and as the viewer, you’re following along a telling of history that is almost portraying it as breaking news.
All of the videos “The Great War” has on YouTube are phenomenal. They show how video documentaries don’t necessarily have to be an hour long to examine a topic in-depth. Instead, the consistent exploration of the small-scale events of a grand historical event is far more useful. I encourage you to dive into their series. It’s true that consistently watching one video a week for four years may sound like a big commitment, but it will undoubtedly put history into a new perspective.
Thankfully, “The Great War” hasn’t uploaded weekly content in some time — in 1918, the war ended, and so did the course of the channel. However, following some management changes, Neidell is back with a new team of producers, including Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard. Their channel is called “World War Two,” and while not following the events exactly 100 years after the war (they would have to wait another 20 years to do that), the team still covers the war week by week, just as their former show did. This past week in history, “World War Two ” uploaded the video “Week 282 – the Red Army Overruns Poland! – WW2 – January 20, 1945” — they’re still not done with the war. It’s remarkable that although we know the wars outcome, every week leaves you wondering what sort of miracles it would take for an Allied victory. It is certainly worth a watch.
These channels and their videos greatly shape my approach to learning and appreciating history. History is as much the study of powerful and hugely world-altering events as it is the study of the mundane. Each week is history, as is each day, hour and minute. Next time you look up a historical event or browse a telling of history, think about the seconds it takes you to read about something that took years or decades to happen — human history is long, but understanding it would take even longer.
As the year begins, this column will explore more individual events unrelated to the online world or YouTube channels — but I hope this notion of time stays present as you read the column. I would estimate that you’d need just about a million words for every minute of history.
So, thank you for reading through that description of two excellent history channels. I admit I covered these two channels at the expense of other great and timely history; for instance, on Jan. 23, 1937, the infamous Trotsky plot unfolded and backfired and on Jan. 24, 1972, Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi surrendered on Guam after hiding for 28 years on the Island. Yokoi never knew World War II had ended — I guess Indy Neidell and the team have a lot more to cover…
That’s all for This Week in History; we’ll return with some interesting history next week, and we hope to see you there!