Found History

About.com is one of the most confusing places on the web. It seems to bill itself as one-stop-shopping for reliable “how to” and other information. The fact that it’s owned by the New York Times and written by so-called “expert guides” reinforces this image. Yet when you look closely at the articles themselves, it’s immediately [...]

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This morning Automobileblog gives us the Five Greatest Rivalries in NASCAR History. No surprises in first place. It’s got to be Ford v. Chevy.

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A quick one tonight from Popular Mechanics: The Top 10 F/X Scenes in Movie History. In fact it’s not a countdown of scenes at all, but rather a list of the most important applications of digital technology to recent filmmaking. Yet it’s ordered chronologically according to the dates of the films in which the techniques [...]

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Because I completely fell off the wagon towards the end of the year, I’m going to extend the Tops of All Time series for another month. All told, I didn’t do too badly—fourteen posts in just this category in just under fifty days—but this time I’m really going to try to post something every day. [...]

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Today’s item in the Tops of All Time series shows just how widespread this brand of history really is. Why a rental car outlet at the Shannon, Ireland airport would post a list of the Top 10 Modes of Transport in Cartoon History remains unclear, but there you have it nonetheless.

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New Zealand’s MSN gives us the Weirdest Deaths in History. Among the winners: fatal hilarity and swallowing a toothpick. I’m not sure about the choices, but the accompanying anecdotes do provide a dose of history. Late Update (12/21/06): Moronland gets right to the point with its own list of The Dumbest Deaths in Recorded History.

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Complementing our earlier look at the “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” is the The 50 Worst Artists in Music History. Enjoy! Or not.

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Yesterday Sharon inadvertently reminded me that we’re coming up on Found History‘s first anniversary by sending me a link to this list of the top five movie posters of 2006. Not only is the link a good fit for the Tops of All Time series (see also All Time On-Screen Hackers and More Movie Mosts), [...]

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A couple weeks ago I recklessly hypothesized that European sports fans are more likely than their North American counterparts to conceptualize history in terms of best and worst. Not surprisingly, it turns out this is a completely bogus conjecture, and to prove I’m not afraid to admit my mistakes, I’d like to point you two [...]

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I said in the introductory post to this series that it’s difficult for a blog like this one to draw any firm conclusions. I stand by that statement, but patterns do emerge. Over the past week or so of scouring the web for “best ever” and “top N” lists, I have started to see two [...]

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