History Notes

On December 18, 1898, the Jeantaud electric vehicle set the world’s first automotive land speed record of 63.13 km/hr (39.2 mph) over the course of a single kilometer. Although the only electric vehicle at the competition, the Jeantaud handily beat its gasoline-powered competition at the Parc Agricole d’Achères outside Paris. The Jeantaud electric car of 1898 reminds us that electric vehicles once were superior to gasoline cars. If they beat the gasoline competition before, perhaps one day they’ll dominate again.

Written by Jennifer Eaglin. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Audio production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger. Video and textual versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/jeantaud-electric-car-land-speed-record.

Learn more:

Massimo Guarinieri, “When Cars Went Electric, Part 1” IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine (March 2011), 62.

Massimo Guarinieri, “When Cars Went Electric, pt2” IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine Vol. 5 Issue 2 (Jun2011), p46.

Gijs Mom, The Electric Vehicle: Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age translated by Jenny Wormer (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

“December 18, 1898- The first automobile land speed record is set;” https://automotivehistory.org/first-automobile-land-speed-record/

Ernest H. Wakefield, History of the Electric Automobile (SAE International, 1994).

Carl Sulzberger, “Early road warrior, part 2, competing electric and gasoline vehicles,” IEEE power & energy magazine (September/October 2004).

Paul Ingrassia, Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013).

IEA, Top 5 barriers to EV adoption reported by EV100 member companies, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/top-5-barriers-to-ev-adoption-reported-by-ev100-member-companies, IEA. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

David Roberts, “The Road to Mass EV Adoption: Three Barriers To a Sustainable Future” Forbes Technology Council (August 30, 2023) https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/08/30/the-road-to-mass-ev-adoption-three-barriers-to-a-sustainable-future/?sh=3aaaef712293 As accessed 27 November 2023.

After World War II, canned foods became more and more common, along with a smorgasbord of other pre-prepared, processed foods: Jellos, TV dinners, frozen peas, dehydrated juices, and eventually Tangs. On May 12th, 1965, Donald Goerke invented SpaghettiOs, the round, canned cousins of spaghetti. By 2010, over 150 million cans of SpaghettiOs were sold each year; put another way, on average, 720 million Os are consumed every day.

Written by Aaron George. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Textual and video versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/may-2015-spaghetti-age-mechanical-reproduction. Audio and video production by Laura Seeger, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Katherine Weiss.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

The Soviet-German front that opened with Operation Barbarossa proved to be the decisive theater of the Second World War.

Written by Ian Johnson. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video and textual versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/operation-barbarossa. Video production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

When we think about Martian explorers today, we mostly hear about two rovers that trawl small zones of the planet: the Opportunity rover that exceeded a marathon's distance in 2015, and the Curiosity rover that is trying to track down habitability in the planet's ancient past. Neither of these rovers would have been possible, however, without the Marnier 9 mission, that began in 1971.

Written by Elizabeth Howell. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in

On April 6, 1896, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games filled a refurbished Panathenaic stadium to its 50,000 capacity, with similar numbers of spectators thronging the adjacent streets and surrounding hillsides.

Written by John R. and Margaret M. Gold. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video and textual versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/revival-and-reinvention-olympic-games-athens-1896. Video production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

President Harry Truman signed the European Recovery Act into law on April 3, 1948. The Marshall Plan, as it’s more commonly known, was intended to revive the economies of war-torn Western Europe. Extending nearly $13 billion to primarily France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and West Germany, the program was an ambitious foreign aid effort and an unprecedented display of U.S. global power.

Written by Ryan Metz. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video and podcast is available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/marshall-plan. Video production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

On April 20th, 1914, Colorado state militiamen attacked a massive tent colony erected by striking miners and their families who had been evicted from their company homes, killing eighteen of them, including women and children. The attack sparked a pitched battle. Between September 1913 and the end of April 1914, 75-100 people were killed and dozens more injured and jailed.

Written by Scott Ward. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video and textual versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/april-2014-which-side-are-you-ludlow-massacre-and-class-struggle-1914. Podcast production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

Espionage has become more complex and increasingly valuable. The times change, but spies remain. Here are ten of history’s top spies.

Written by Robert J. Kodosky. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video and textual versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/top-ten-origins-spies-lies-and-moles-oh-my. Video production by Laura Seeger, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Katherine Weiss.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

On March 12, 2004, South Korea’s then President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached, a historic first for the Republic.

Written by David Fields and Jinwan Park. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video and textual versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/impeachment-roh-moo-hyun-and-patterns-south-korean-politics. Production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a monk and professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, circulated his 95 Theses—95 statements critiquing what he saw as papal abuses of power.

Written by Karen Spierling. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Textual and video versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/october-2017-martin-luther-and-reformation. Video production by Katherine Weiss, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Laura Seeger.

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.