[release]
[IMG]http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/84/df/c308efd243a98c60e8773b2ea6d7.jpeg[/IMG]
On Aug. 31, 1939, Nazi troops disguised as Poles stormed German radio stationSender Gleiwitzand filled the airwaves with anti-German messages in Polish — a move the Nazis used to justify the invasion of Poland and begin World War II.
Exactly 72 years later, the[URL="https://twitter.com/#!/RealTimeWWII"] @RealTimeWWII [/URL]Twitter account went live.
“SS Troops dressed as Poles are attacking radio transmitter in Gleiwitz, to provide pretext for Germany to attack Poland,” the tweet said.
Since then, @RealTimeWWII has sent dozens of messages into the Twitterverse most days, tracking Nazi forces in “real time” as they forge across Europe in the fall of 1939 — all in 140 characters or less.
The idea is to connect people to the past, said Alwyn Collinson, the 24-year-old Oxford University history grad behind the account.
“When you read a tweet and it’s breaking news, like the whole Occupy movement or the Arab Spring, you get a feeling of being on the breaking wave of events that are incredibly important . . . . I wanted to give that feeling to history,” he said.
Collinson, who now works full time for an Oxford magazine, said he spends two or three hours a day collecting facts and photos to fill the Twitter feed with time-accurate political and military developments from the war.
And he plans to continue daily Twitter war coverage for six years, until the Axis powers surrender and the war ends, Collinson said.
The account, now followed by more than 73,000 people, also includes tweets of photos and eyewitness accounts from Europe’s war zones in 1939. Three volunteers also translate those tweets into Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
It’s not the first time the Twittersphere has seen historical events re-enacted in real time.
In early 2010, the UK’s National Archives launched its[URL="https://twitter.com/#!/ukwarcabinet"] @ukwarcabinet [/URL]account, telling the story of WWII through tweets about 1940 cabinet papers.
The [I]Washington Post[/I] launched a Civil War[URL="https://twitter.com/#!/civilwarwp/tweeting-the-civil-war"] Twitter list [/URL]in 2010 — using letters, newspapers, journals and records to tweet the U.S. Civil War.
Twitter has also become an educational tool for students.
TwHistory is a non-profit project founded in 2009 that helps people — many of them students — collect information about a historical event from different sources and play them out in real time on Twitter.
It helps breathe life into lacklustre history lessons, said founder Marion Jensen, who came up with the idea after he re-enacted the Battle of Gettysburg in real-time on Twitter as part of his PhD research.
“Twitter has a storytelling power that helps you understand peoples’ lives,” he said. “(Students and I have) sunk the Titanic like 20 times . . . over those 14 hours, you understand what was going on ... the panic moments, the historic moments.”
But not all “tweeting history” endeavours have garnered the same enthusiasm.
Earlier this year, the [I]Guardian[/I] launched a[URL="https://twitter.com/#!/911tenyearsago"] @911tenyearsago [/URL]account to re-enact 9/11. The account was shut down after three hours and only 16 tweets after public criticism online.
“I think people don’t need to be reminded of 9/11, losing touch or forgetting what it was like . . . I don’t think that’s the case for the Second World War,” said Collinson of @RealTimeWWII’s months-long success.
He said the Twitter account’s growing popularity has been exciting — but added that he will not shy away from uncomfortable, controversial topics as the war progresses in the coming years.
“With Auschwitz, I don’t know what will happen,” he said. “I might get lots of people unfollowing me, I might get people calling me insensitive, but I think that’s a story you have to tell.”[/release]
[URL]http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1084850--reliving-wwii-140-characters-at-a-time[/URL]
[url]https://twitter.com/#!/RealTimeWWII[/url]
this is pretty sweet.
BRB, getting a Twitter account to subscribe :v:
Followed.
AHitler: Racing with the @IronJStal to get most of Poland. Nazi repPRESENT #blitz
This is incredible. I need to get myself a twitter account for this.
Interesting concept. Too bad I am too lazy to follow that.
I was expecting [url=http://www.collegehumor.com/article/5971108/omg-wwii-on-facebook]this[/url].
It's weird thinking about this being so long ago, yet they are still talking about Queen Elizabeth and whatnot. Sometimes World War 2 seems so distant, despite people who participated still living.
#OccupyPoland
This reminds me of something similar they did a while back. A WW1 soldier had written a letter home each week about how life was in the trenches.
The people who rediscovered these letters in their storage did a bit of a blog, each week posting a new letter, giving more of a feel of what it would be like be written to in such a time. I believe it was attracted quite the following as more was revealed each week.
[QUOTE=Twitter;33253861]SS today deported 78 mentally ill children from Owinska Mental Hospital, Poland. They're being taken to nearby Poznan to be gassed.[/QUOTE]
Oh my
Really a great idea
[code]Luftwaffe today bombed the Shetland Isles- 1st German bombs on British soil. Missed naval targets, killed [b]2 rabbits[/b][/code]
R.I.P
[QUOTE=Black;33261449][code]Luftwaffe today bombed the Shetland Isles- 1st German bombs on British soil. Missed naval targets, killed [b]2 rabbits[/b][/code]
R.I.P[/QUOTE]
Music provided by @RealTimeWWII (quoted since the video is just a picture)
[QUOTE][video=youtube;SXmk8dbFv_o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmk8dbFv_o&feature=related[/video][/QUOTE]
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