Looking back

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most fateful years in the history of the world. There are going to be a lot of events and commemorations as the months pass. For those interested in what was going on back then, one way to get a glimpse of that long vanished world is to read the newspapers of the time.

Starting today, Britain's Daily Telegraph will be posting online each day's paper from exactly 100 years ago. (Note: In those days British newspapers put the advertisements on the front page. The adverts can be amusing by themselves.) For those wanting an American view, we have the full run of the New York Tribune from 1866-1924, courtesy of the Library of Congress website. They seem to have done a pretty good job with the digitizing as most of the pages are perfectly readable when enlarged.

I have to say that on balance the papers of 100 years ago put most of the current ones to shame in the depth of their news coverage. Of course papers today are being killed by the TV news networks. Still, it's fascinating to see not just what was happening, but also get an idea of what was deemed important to people back then. And there is a great deal of very open bias in some of the political coverage that will be familiar to viewers of MSNBC and FOX News. The Tribune was a Republican newspaper. So for instance, if you glance at some of the issues from the 90's you will see their coverage promoting the GOP issues of that era such as the Tariff and Free Silver (bi-metalism). For the record, the GOP was wrong on both of those issues.

Try looking to see what was happening on your birthday 100 or even 110 or 120 years ago.