While today you might have to study Twitter, Facebook or peoples IP addresses to determine where they live and travel, this visualization of westward expansion in the US between 1700 and 1900 looks at the most popular social network of the day: the post office. To create the graphic, map obsessed Derek Watkins took data from the USPS Postmaster Finder and found latitude/longitude coordinates extracted from place names checked with the USGS. [Read more...]
This moving example of motion graphics revisits one of the best known speeches in United States history, the Gettysburg Address. Coming after a decisive turning point in the American Civil War (in which the North took superiority) the speech is now considered one of the finest examples of oration in history. Abraham Lincoln was able to summarize the entire war in just ten sentences and in the process redefined the war as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as “a new birth of freedom” that would bring true equality to all of its citizens.
This video with it’s clever transitions and ominous war-like mood does the speech justice. [Read more...]
