Monday, July 25, 2005

Germany will rise again

Germans are being reassured that they invented the world as part of a new government- and industry-backed campaign intended to restore their self-esteem.

Thought John Logie Baird invented the television? Wrong, it was a German, Manfred von Ardenne, in 1930. Light bulbs, the work of Thomas Edison? Apparently not true. The German Heinrich Göbel invented them in 1854. Tea bags? The telephone? The computer? Not the work of Thomas Sullivan, Alexander Graham Bell and George Stibitz, but all flashes of Teutonic brilliance.

   article

UK Independent

Hmm....Stibitz sounds rather Teutonic to me.

And for all I know, the Germans could very well have invented all those things. If it didn't make it to American capital marketing, however, well....too bad.

Still, my thoughts on this whole thing tend toward being wary of nationalism. And I'm not sure the Germans actually have a problem with self-esteem.

I could be wrong.

Like I was about thinking Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, apparently.
"Outrageous nonsense," wrote Der Spiegel magazine this week, quickly pointing out all the book's flaws. "The book cites Johannes Gutenberg as the inventor of the printing press. But it is well documented that the Chinese invented this 300 years earlier."
But they didn't have the American market either.

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