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What was the most EDUCATIONAL TV show, DVD, or book you have recently done?

RetiredNSmilin

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I was going through my DVD collection earlier today and I have them sorted as to categories.

I have a section called EDUCATIONAL and I have to tell you, some of them were very good at imparting their knowledge onto me.

The list is long and good, but I have to say, the short series "How The STATES Got Their Shapes" has to have been the most entertaining and educational of them all.
For instance;

How a guy with money bribed Congress to let him keep some land of his in Missouri that created the famous Missouri boot heel.

How a swath of states all had to be 3 degrees of latitude, and another swath of western states had to be 4 degrees of latitude....and if you look at them on a map, you can see a pretty uniform thickness to them all.

How some states were lengthened or shortened to gain them access to bodies of water.

The funniest was COLORADO. It looks like it was superimposed over all of its surrounding states, and in actuality it was. It seems all of its surrounding states were agricultural, and CO was mostly mining. The miners drink too much, gamble and whore too much, so each surrounding state gave up a small amount to give those damned miners their own state so they would not bother the good farmers of the other states.

Anyway, what was or is your best educational TV show or DVD that has taught you a lot. I know most of us think we are all geniuses to begin with, but there is always room for more knowledge.

Maybe your choice will help to educate and/or entertain the rest of us.
 
Great idea for a thread. I must admit nearly all my DVD's are entertainment and I really have few educational ones. I guess I am old school and rely on books for that.

One that i got a lot from was from UCLA called The World's Columbian Exposition. It takes the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893 and builds it in a simulation and you can walk right through it and tour it. Its an ongoing project and they expect to be doing it for many years before it is finished.

I loe the book DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY and this came from my interest in that.

However, I do look forward to seeing what others say here and hope to sample some. The first about the states sounds interesting.
 
Well it wasn't recent, but a favorite of mine is "To Kill a Mockingbird". So many life lessons in that book/movie.
 
Do YouTube series count?

They have done a bunch of short series about different historical topics with a comedic twist.

Self-explanatory. Also hilarious.
 
Right now I'd have to say Ken Burns' The War. Seven discs, and a lot of stuff that wasn't in the original broadcast.

I have about 200 history books; currently I'm reading Lawrence in Arabia, by Scott Anderson. It covers T.E. Lawrence and others prior to WWI and gives a fascinating history of the west in the Middle East.
 
The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt.

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