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On the date

Wednesday, January 1, 1919

From the day

Perspective: The Future Historian · Sight

I look through the viewport of history at a world singed by arc welding and ash, watching the morning light glint off the polished brass of a new pop-up toaster that mocks the hungry headlines. Men in heavy wool coats huddle in the New York slush, their eyes darting toward newsboys shouting about the Bolsheviki; the first tremors of the Red Scare are already visible in their rigid silhouettes and suspicious glances. Across the room, the erratic static of a shortwave radio tries to bridge the gap to a fractured Poland, humming a low, mechanical funeral dirge for the old world. The vivid neon signs of a changing era slice through the winter fog, casting a sickly glow over a generation that survived the trenches only to find the peace feels like a fragile, hollow bubble.

Memories from that day

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The Headlines

CALLS ON AMERICA TO SAVE POLAND; Sending of Troops to Check the Bolsheviki and Germans Is Urged. MANY POLES IN OUR ARMY Eager to Join Their Countrymen, It Is Said--SuppliesAlso Urgently Needed. Work for Our Men in Poland. CALLS ON AMERICA TO SAVE POLAND German Menace in the East.

Read in The New York Times →

Best-selling Sheet Music

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

John Kellette

The must-have

Lincoln Logs

Slang

Slang of the decade

General

lousysnapshotmovies

Soldiers

over the topblightyno man's landcooties

Suffragette

deeds not wordsvotes for women

Catchphrases of 1919

  • The Red Scare

Tech Check

Pop-Up Toaster, Shortwave Radio & Arc Welding.

Cost of Living (1910)

Loaf of Bread

$0.06

Gallon of Gas

$0.15

Average Home

$3,600

New Car

$950

Time Elapsed

39,237 days ago

(107 years, 182 days)