Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Daily Wiki


One of my favorite pastimes is randomly searching topics on Wikipedia. Now everyone knows that Wikipedia is "The Free Encyclopedia" and that the articles are written and edited by volunteers . Anyone with access to the site can edit any article (my line-brother once edited the Phi Bet Sigma page to include his line name lol) so it's also known that Wikipedia should not be used as a credible reference. Writing and editing of articles has become a bit more stringent over the past few years to increase the site's reliability. Nevertheless Wikipedia is indeed informative and entertaining. I can admit with, no shame, that I have turned to Wikipedia to answer many of my questions. In fact almost daily I visit the site to learn about some of the most random things. Usually my initial search leads me to a path of more searches (knowledge), no doubt because of those damn hyperlinks lol.

Well here's my search for today:

Autobahn which lead me to realize that I was really looking for German Autobahnen. As I was reading through I saw that the "Iron Curtain" had cut some of the sections off. Iron Curtain huh? One of the biggest rods that helped form the curtain was the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 or simply the Czech coup. After reading the impact of the coup on the US, I refreshed my knowledge on the Marshall Plan. The Italian and French responses to the coup ultimately led to the creation of NATO. I followed NATO with a Containment, its importance during the Cold War and how instrumental West Germany was to the US, France and the United Kingdom during the Cold War.

Random I know, but educational and entertaining. I have an hour commute to work in the morning, gotta do something right...

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