Sunday, December 20, 2009

You Are There - Walter Cronkite Reports World History

While sitting around eating left-over Thanksgiving turkey a few weeks back, the conversation turned to Walter Cronkite. It was at this time that somebody mentioned if I had heard of Walter Cronkite's television show... "You Are There" - I had not.

The series ran on CBS in the 1950s. Here's more information on the series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_There_%28series%29

I was told he would broadcast different events in world history and that CBS would recreate the scenes as if it were breaking news... I was hooked. I had to find some of these episodes, and I did...

After a few minutes of searching I discovered the Museum of Broadcast Communication and 13 of the episodes in their archives. Though only 8 of them have video. You can do a search for yourself here: http://archives.museum.tv/archives

The show is a hoot... I've been having trouble uploading the video to the blog, but it was quite easy to pull it from The Museum of Broadcast Communication's website. They're a little dated, but still entertaining... and used in the right way, and with a sense of humor and a grain of salt, could definitely be used in the classroom.

Some titles include: The Assassination of Julius Caesar, The Chicago Fire, The Death of Socrates, The Emancipation Proclamation, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, Grant & Lee, The Death of Stonewall Jackson, The End of the Dalton Gang and The Crisis of Galileo, et. al


Related Posts by Categories



2 comments:

Mike B said...

There was also a CBS radio show from 1947 - 1950 with the same title and same type of presentation - noted news correspondents reporting on, for instance - the Alamo or the burning of Joan of Arc. A different format - but an interesting one.

klkatz said...

Reader Mike B - included this link to a similar radio program referenced above:


http://www.archive.org/details/You_Are_There_OTR


And he's got a similar Bob Hope radio program from his blog:
http://citruscountysocialstudies.blogspot.com/2009/12/thanks-for-memories-bob-hope.html

Post a Comment