Animated Map Lets You Watch the Unfolding of Every Day of the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865)

The bor­der-obsessed map ani­ma­tor known as Emper­or Tiger­star views war from a dis­tance. The Emper­or leaves such details as jour­nal entries, let­ters home, and tales of val­or and cow­ardice for oth­er his­to­ry buffs.

His niche is metic­u­lous­ly clock­ing the defeat and tri­umph in terms of shift­ing ter­ri­to­ries, by year, by fort­night, and, in the case of World War I and World War II, by day.

His five minute take on the Amer­i­can Civ­il War, above, leaves out most of the hair-rais­ing small scale skir­mish­es famil­iar from the pages of The Red Badge of Courage.

Trans-Mis­sis­sip­pi The­ater aside, it also makes plain how lit­tle ground the Con­fed­er­ates gained after 1861.

The Blue and the Gray are here rep­re­sent­ed by blue and red, with the mus­tard-col­ored dis­put­ed bor­der states pick­ing sides before the first minute is out. (The Union’s Naval Block­ade is in for­ma­tion with­in sec­onds.)

Leg­end:

Maroon = Con­fed­er­ate States of Amer­i­ca and ter­ri­to­ries

Red = Areas occu­pied by Con­fed­er­ate forces

Pink = Gains for that Day

Dark Blue = Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and ter­ri­to­ries

Blue = Areas occu­pied by Union forces.

Light blue = Gains for that day

Yel­low = Bor­der states / dis­put­ed areas.

The mag­ni­tude is mov­ing, espe­cial­ly when paired with ground-lev­el obser­va­tions, be they fic­tion­al, his­tor­i­cal or eye­wit­ness.

Even the place-names on the map, which now were mere­ly quaint, would take on the sound of crack­ling flame and dis­tant thun­der, the Bib­li­cal, Indi­an and Anglo-Sax­on names of ham­lets and creeks and cross­roads, for the most part unim­por­tant in them­selves until the day when the armies came togeth­er, as often by acci­dent as on pur­pose, to give the scat­tered names a per­ma­nence and set­tle what man­ner of life future gen­er­a­tions were to lead.  

His­to­ri­an Shel­by Foote, The Civ­il War: A Nar­ra­tive

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch World War I Unfold in a 6 Minute Time-Lapse Film: Every Day From 1914 to 1918

Watch World War II Rage Across Europe in a 7 Minute Time-Lapse Film: Every Day From 1939 to 1945

“The Civ­il War and Recon­struc­tion,” a New MOOC by Pulitzer-Prize Win­ning His­to­ri­an Eric Fon­er

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Her play, Fawn­book, opens in New York City lat­er this fall. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Innovative Film Visualizes the Destruction of World War II: Now Available in 7 Languages

Back in June we high­light­ed Neil Hal­lo­ran’s 15 minute film, The Fall­en of World War II, which used “inno­v­a­tive data visu­al­iza­tion tech­niques to put the human cost of WW II into per­spec­tive, show­ing how some 70 mil­lion lives were lost with­in civil­ian and mil­i­tary pop­u­la­tions across Europe and Asia, from 1939 to 1945.” It’s a pret­ty stag­ger­ing illus­tra­tion of the dead­liest war. As the film went viral, Hal­lo­ran raised mon­ey that would enable him to devel­op new films explor­ing “oth­er trends of war and peace — from drones and ter­ror­ism to democ­ra­cy and peace­keep­ing.” He has also trans­lat­ed the film into six dif­fer­ent lan­guages. They all went online in the last few weeks. Here they are: Russ­ian, Japan­ese, Pol­ish, FrenchGer­man, and Ser­bian.

Above, you can watch the orig­i­nal in Eng­lish (cer­tain­ly worth doing if you were vaca­tion­ing in June), and you might also explore the accom­pa­ny­ing inter­ac­tive web site here.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es

Watch World War II Rage Across Europe in a 7 Minute Time-Lapse Film: Every Day From 1939 to 1945

31 Rolls of Film Tak­en by a World War II Sol­dier Get Dis­cov­ered & Devel­oped Before Your Eyes

Dra­mat­ic Col­or Footage Shows a Bombed-Out Berlin a Month After Germany’s WWII Defeat (1945)

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A Short, Powerful Animation on Addiction: Watch Andreas Hykade’s Nuggets

From Andreas Hykade, the Direc­tor of the Ani­ma­tion and Visu­al Effects pro­gram at Germany’s Fil­makademie Baden-WĂĽrt­tem­berg, comes a short ani­mat­ed film called Nuggets. Things start off innocu­ous­ly, with a kiwi tak­ing a casu­al stroll down a road, even­tu­al­ly encoun­ter­ing and tast­ing some gold­en nuggets. The nuggets are deli­cious, it turns out, too deli­cious to resist. Then [spoil­er alert!] things take a dark turn, as we watch our friend­ly kiwi sink into addic­tion and despair. In an inter­view con­duct­ed by the Ani­ma­tion World Net­work, Hykade says that he cre­at­ed the film for young teenagers who might be tempt­ed one day (pre­sum­ably by drugs). And when that day comes, he hopes they’ll think about Nuggets and its strik­ing, stripped-down mes­sage about addic­tion and the life it brings.

You can watch more ani­ma­tions by Hykade on his web site. And find more thought-pro­vok­ing Ani­ma­tions in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via io9

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Cof­fee Pot That Fueled Hon­oré de Balzac’s Cof­fee Addic­tion

Bela Lugosi Dis­cuss­es His Drug Habit as He Leaves the Hos­pi­tal in 1955

How a Young Sig­mund Freud Researched & Got Addict­ed to Cocaine, the New “Mir­a­cle Drug,” in 1894

Free Online Psy­chol­o­gy Cours­es

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Fantastic Mr. Fox Meets The Shining in an Animated, Cautionary Tale About Consumerism

In this short stop-motion film, Alexan­dra Lemay draws some cre­ative inspi­ra­tion from Wes Ander­son and Stan­ley Kubrick and leaves us with a “cau­tion­ary tale of what hap­pens when we don’t think enough about what we buy.” Pro­duced as part of the Nation­al Film Board of Canada’s Hot­house appren­tice­ship pro­gram, All the Rage fol­lows a mink’s expe­ri­ence shop­ping in a lux­u­ry fur store. It’s per­haps not too much of a spoil­er to say, it does­n’t end well. Lemay tells you more about the mak­ing of the film here. And don’t miss the many great films in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

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Queenie: A Handmade Paper Animation About a Lovesick Professor and His Strange Academic Project

From direc­tor Paul Nea­son comes Quee­nie, an ani­mat­ed short film hand­made with paper and card­board. This tragi­com­ic short fol­lows Dan­ny, a uni­ver­si­ty Geog­ra­phy tutor/professor, as he and his stu­dents embark on a cut­ting-edge aca­d­e­m­ic project, which has noth­ing to do with his recent divorce from his wife.

Cre­at­ed by  in New Zealand, Quee­nie pre­miered at SXSW 2014, and, after gath­er­ing a few awards, it’s now mak­ing its debut online. It will be housed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

An Animated Introduction to Virginia Woolf

It’s a pity writer Vir­ginia Woolf (1882–1941) drowned her­self before the advent of the Inter­net.

Indus­tri­al­iza­tion did not faze her.

It’s less clear how the great observ­er of “the Mod­ern Age” would’ve respond­ed to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of Mom­my blog­gers.

Their sheer num­bers sug­gest that per­haps female writ­ers do not need a “room of one’s own” (though pre­sum­ably all of them would be in favor of such a devel­op­ment.)

Woolf’s name is an endur­ing one, inspir­ing both the title of a clas­sic Amer­i­can play and a dog­gy day care facil­i­ty. Its own­er passed away near­ly 75 years ago, yet she remains a peren­ni­al on Women’s Stud­ies’ syl­labi.

Ergo, it’s pos­si­ble for the gen­er­al pub­lic to know of her, with­out know­ing much of any­thing about her and her work. (Find her major works on our lists of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books).

The lat­est ani­mat­ed install­ment in The School of Life human­i­ties series seeks to rem­e­dy that sit­u­a­tion in ten min­utes with the video above, which offers insight into her place in both the West­ern canon and the ever-glam­orous Blooms­bury Group, and cel­e­brates her as a keen observ­er of life’s dai­ly rou­tine. And that by-now-famil­iar cut-out ani­ma­tion style takes full advan­tage of the author’s best known head shots.

Arrange what­ev­er pieces come your way.

- Vir­ginia Woolf

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 55 Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es: From Dante and Mil­ton to Ker­ouac and Tolkien

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

Vir­ginia Woolf and Friends Dress Up as “Abyssin­ian Princes” and Fool the British Roy­al Navy (1910)

Vir­ginia Woolf’s Hand­writ­ten Sui­cide Note: A Painful and Poignant Farewell (1941)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

An Animated Margaret Atwood Explains How Stories Change with Technology

From the  video series comes an ani­ma­tion fea­tur­ing Mar­garet Atwood med­i­tat­ing on how tech­nol­o­gy shapes the way we tell sto­ries. Just like the Guten­berg Press did almost 600 years ago, the recent advent of dig­i­tal plat­forms (the inter­net, ebooks, etc.) has cre­at­ed new ways for us to tell, dis­trib­ute and share sto­ries. And Atwood has­n’t been afraid to explore it all, writ­ing sto­ries on Wattpad and Twit­ter. Atwood will appear at The Future of Sto­ry­telling Sum­mit on Octo­ber 7 and 8.

via Matthias Rasch­er

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

Kurt Von­negut Dia­grams the Shape of All Sto­ries in a Master’s The­sis Reject­ed by U. Chica­go

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

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48 Animated Videos Explain the History of Ideas: From Aristotle to Sartre

This year we’ve been fea­tur­ing short ani­mat­ed videos from BBC Radio 4, all cov­er­ing the big ques­tions: How did every­thing begin? What makes us human? What is love? How can I know any­thing at all? They’ve all come script­ed by philoso­pher Nigel War­bur­ton (he of Phi­los­o­phy Bites pod­cast fame) and nar­rat­ed by a host of nota­bles from both sides of the pond like Stephen Fry, Gillian Ander­son, Aidan Turn­er, and Har­ry Shear­er. They’ve illus­trat­ed the philo­soph­i­cal con­cepts at hand not just with elab­o­rate and joke-filled draw­ings that come to life before your eyes, but with direct ref­er­ence to the ideas of his­to­ry’s best-known thinkers: Aris­to­tle, Descartes, Hume, Wittgen­stein, de Beau­voirSartre, Freud, Chom­sky — the list goes on.

Now you can expe­ri­ence all of them in the one big playlist embed­ded just above, which pro­vides a grand his­to­ry of ideas with a suc­ces­sion of bite-size videos. The intel­lec­tu­al jour­ney begins with Dio­ti­ma’s con­cept of desire as a form of beau­ty and ends, 47 one- to two-minute celebri­ty-nar­rat­ed and philo­soph­i­cal­ly scin­til­lat­ing pro­duc­tions lat­er, with Karl Pop­per’s con­cept of fal­si­fi­ca­tion, under which an idea only attains the des­ig­na­tion sci­en­tif­ic if it could, in prin­ci­ple, be proven false.

Once you’ve gone through all these videos, despite how much they them­selves will have taught you, you’ll sure­ly want to go even deep­er into all these big ideas. In the ser­vice of that goal, why not have a look through some of the oth­er philo­soph­i­cal resources we’ve fea­tured, includ­ing our archive of Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, our col­lec­tion of Free Phi­los­o­phy eBooks, pod­casts like Oxford’s phi­los­o­phy lec­tures and The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps, Bryan Magee’s tele­vi­sion inter­views with philoso­phers, and of course, phi­los­o­phy explained with donuts.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Can I Know Any­thing at All? BBC Ani­ma­tions Fea­ture the Phi­los­o­phy of Wittgen­stein, Hume, Pop­per & More

What is Love? BBC Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Fea­ture Sartre, Freud, Aristo­phanes, Dawkins & More

What is the Self? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry on Sartre, Descartes & More

How Did Every­thing Begin?: Ani­ma­tions on the Ori­gins of the Uni­verse Nar­rat­ed by X‑Files Star Gillian Ander­son

What Makes Us Human?: Chom­sky, Locke & Marx Intro­duced by New Ani­mat­ed Videos from the BBC

How to Live a Good Life? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry on Aris­to­tle, Ayn Rand, Max Weber & More

How Can I Know Right From Wrong? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions on Ethics Nar­rat­ed by Har­ry Shear­er

Phi­los­o­phy Bites: Pod­cast­ing Ideas From Pla­to to Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Since 2007

Col­in Mar­shall writes else­where on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­maand the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future? Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.