Occasionally, I’ll browse through TiVo’s massive listing of what’s coming on in the next few weeks. If something piques my interest, I’ll record it. Thus, when the History Channel was showing a program called Paving America, I recorded it.
The show ended up being part of a series called Modern Marvels. Each episode gives an hour’s summary of a massive technological advance, and includes somewhat-in-depth information about it. Paving was all about the history of the nation’s highway system. It catered more towards the roots of the system than present-day applications, but I picked up enough trivia and moderately interesting facts to keep watching.
The second episode I noticed was on the telephone. I learned that Bell wasn’t the only person developing a phone at the time, and his competitor was based in Chicago. And, there’s an upcoming episode on Household Wonders – including information on how the mixer was invented. Come on! A mixer!
The downside with the series is that the shows don’t really plunge into the topic wholeheartedly; it’s kind of a history lesson for the Behind the Music set. It even feels a little like that show, from a production standpoint. While I don’t think that Modern Marvels is the best history show I’ve ever seen, it’s a good use of a minimal amount of TV time, and it provides lots of conversation starters. -pm
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