Posted on 04/13/2012 9:56:24 PM PDT by grundle
The social news-sharing site Reddit has a knack for exposing people and situations. The latest topic of discussion to generate controversy is a series of tweets from people who did not know that the sinking of the Titanic was a real historical event.
Apparently, an entire generation of people associate "Titanic" with the Hollywood blockbuster starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Here is the disambiguation for you. The RMS Titanic sank April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg. The tragedy is considered one of the deadliest of peacetime maritime disasters. More than 1,500 people died.
"Titanic" the film was released December 19, 1997, and was an instant success. It became the highest-grossing film of all time for 12 years, until "Avatar" debuted in 2009.
For all the history buffs reading this, the next couple of sentences may be too painful to contemplate. A couple of the tweets from the uninformed read, "Nobody told me titanic was real? How am I just finding this out?" Another tweet read, "Guys, the Titanic was real! #mindblown."
Most people aware of the existence of the RMS Titanic are in disbelief. One such person tweeted, "The ignorance is astounding." Another person said he was "weeping for the future" at finding out that so many young people are unfamiliar with such a well-known fact.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I did, but shipwrecks in history are an old hobby of mine.
Perhaps twenty years ago, I read a lengthy, scholarly article on the difference between geography as we perceive it and geography as it exists, and how perceived geography affects us.
The article started off with perhaps a fifty-question quiz, starting with the easier questions such as "which is further north, London or Seattle?", then going into more difficult comparative questions, or questions about distances within a hundred miles, or whether A was further from B than C, or if A was closer to B than C was to D. If you cheated and checked your answers after the first few, you realized that the gut-instinct answer was almost never right.
There's geography as it exists and geography as we perceive it.
LOL! Tactics II, Panzer Blitz, Panzer Leader, Squad Leader and a bunch of add-ons, 1776 (still have it), Campaign for North Africa (nope, never made it through that one), and a bunch of others that I traded or sold. Then it was Micro Armor and modern naval.
Never got into coins, but as long as there was a library or a bookstore in walking distance, there was *always* something to do.
Folks who read Gamow, at least know the difference between a million and a billion, but folks who read Morrison's "Powers of Ten" can't be fooled by eco-freakos quaking in their boots about the minuscule amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere...
Both Gamow and Morrison are very helpful in helping one gain a sense of proportion and perspective.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.