The recent passing of the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination was a time to remember. Even in the software world.
When Microsoft Encarta first debuted, I was one of the first buyers. I tested it out as I had done each of the various digital encyclopedias I had come across and it passed with flying colours.
What I wanted Encarta and ANY encyclopedia do was to hear sounds and see videos. For me, there were four tests. I had to hear John F. Kennedy's "Ask Not" speech and his "Ich bin Ein Berliner" speech, Neil Armstrong's "One small step..." speech and, most importantly, King's "I Have a Dream" speech. And there had to be grainy video to go with each.
In a lot of ways, those four speeches, all delivered by Americans, shaped a lot of how I grew up, up here in Canada. Kennedy's assassination was the first instance in my young life when a world event caused school to be canceled here. I was in the third grade at the time. I wasn't exactly reading biographies at the time, but the event did cause me to read about Kennedy a few years later when I WAS capable of reading, and comprehending, weightier tomes. Oddly enough, the assassination itself never enveloped me. I was interested in the man's words.
Five years after Kennedy's death, I became acquainted with the words of Martin Luther King for all the wrong reasons. Still, the words moved me. I was just a teenager at the time, and forming my world view that prejudice existed everywhere. Within me, within my family and friends. It's a natural state of being. But RACISM, the acting out of prejudice in a blind, stupid manner ... that was wrong. I've pretty well always had friends who didn't share my skin colour, religion or race. King's words had a lot to do with that becoming a life-long habit.
Finally, a year later, I tried desperately to stay up and watch Armstrong step out onto the moon. I also wanted desperately for the deed to get done on the 18th of July, rather than the wee hours of the 20th. I would have been celebrating my 13th birthday in really special way. For a young lad smitten with science fiction, it was a heady event.
Each encyclopedia that came out on CD back in those days, took entire encyclopedia's of text and added sparing video and audio. Interactive wasn't much of an idea back then. Still, with a half-way decent encyclopedia, I could bring up any of those four speeches. Shivers would go up my spine.
They still do, as my YouTube search for each of them proved tonight.
There wasn't a YouTube back then. Good quality video of the events I've described was hard to come by. Until Encarta came out. I opened the box, installed the program and immediately ran my own personal test. Encarta completely ensorcelled me. And like any good encyclopedia, perusing and browsing through it led me to many different other places and times. I found a series of simple translations of common phrases for many, many languages. I stopped buying Encarta when they lost that feature.
I know some kids think history is boring. If it existed before the age of iPods, it has to be ancient and boring. But there is SOOOOO much to find of worth. Sure, the web has made browsing through an encyclopedia obsolete. Today, you go RIGHT to the relevant article(s). But take a minute to search Google or YouTube for the speeches I've pointed out.
You might just learn or relearn something, such as the fact that Armstrong's speech actually starts, "It's a small step...!"
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