How Belgium Nearly Invented The Internet In 1910
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- In 1910, two beardy Belgians started a project: to collect the entirety of human knowledge in one place, and make it available to everyone. It sounds like they wanted to create Wikipedia or Google - but unfortunately, no-one had invented web servers or home computers yet. So instead, they ended up making the world's greatest filing cabinet. I travelled to the city of Mons to see the beast for myself, and find out more about its incredible story...
INSTA - / the.tim.traveller
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FURTHER INFO
"The web that time forgot", New York Times - www.nytimes.co...
"Mundaneum: the Belgian archive that anticipated the internet" - The Independent - www.independen...
PHOTO CREDITS
Palais du Cinquaintenaire Panorama by Redvers - commons.wikime...
Parc du Cinquantenaire photo by Ben2 - commons.wikime...
Vint Cerf by Duncan Hull / The Royal Society - upload.wikimed...
Bob Kahn by Veni Markovski - commons.wikime...
The Internet by Martin Deutsch - www.flickr.com...
Bakelite telephone by digitalmuseum.se - digitaltmuseum...
Gramophone by Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" | Alessandro Nassiri - www.wikiwand.c...
Early 50s TV set by John Atherton - www.flickr.com...
Bob Taylor by Gardner Campbell - commons.wikime...
I'm an academic librarian and I am so glad that you made this video. It's a really clear introduction to Otlet's work. My former chief librarian, who died in his 40s, had a special interest in Otlet and the Mundaneum. You did him proud.
This is the only channel that makes me want to travel abroad just to visit a Filing Cabinet. XD
😂 I'm picturing myself explaining this surprise to my kids, when they were expecting Disneyland Paris
You must not have heard of the world's tallest filing cabinet in Vermont.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 Sounds dangerous
or Belgium for that matter
I was today years old when I learned about this magical cabinet located about 30 minutes from where I live. Thanks!
NOOO, "The IT Crowd" theme on piano *killed me* 😂
I didn't catch that, but the box with "the internet" as a background I did!
I wasn't awake enough during my first watch (had to rewatch to catch all the easter eggs)
I did recognize "The internet is for P***" way to Quick
Given the name “munduneum” the term “world wide web” is probably even more in line with their project than “internet”.
It seems like most people do not understand the difference between "the world wide web" and "the internet", and apparently even some of the original inventors have given up on making that clear.
@@Rob2 Just go with it. It is the same as hacking (which btw is really just "bodging together", especially using timber). And secretly feel superior because you do know the difference between internet, www, http, tcp/ip and wikipedia.
And then to know that that name, www, was co-invented by a Belgian too, namely Robert Cailliau. Ooh what a quirky little country we are! 😊
It's mundaneum not munduneum.
@@pieter7319 It is sometimes stated that WiFi was invented here in the Netherlands, at a research office of NCR nearby where I live.
It can be debated, but certainly the group within NCR that created a wireless network for their cash register equipment and established the first WiFi standard worked from there.
If you ever experience slow internet, you can blame the Belgians for never getting things done
That's our politicians you're talking about, not us mere mortal Belgians.... :)
Just the shitty government and our population voting stupidly
When you're internet is slow it's actually because the packets are being routed through Belgium and because of waffle-iron politics they have to be equally split between Flanders and Wallonia.
@@hedgehog3180 In short, belgian post services.
Also explained that your computer is fried after a short circuit. (and potato cameras)
ps. all to be taken with a grain of salt. ;)
Think the Belgians went six months without a government, and prospered...
As a Belgian, I'm so happy you covered the Mondaneum and Mondothèque! It's definitely a story worth telling, and it's fascinating to see what these two were thinking about so early in history. Can't wait for the Netflix adaptation of their life stories :-).
Wont happen because it doesn't involve sex, gender crap or female empowerment motives
as a belgian? lol nobody says that, youre wallonian or from flanders.
@@r.a.h7682 Nope I identify myself as a Belgian just like everyone else of my friends family and collegues.
Our football team the Red devils are a Belgian team, we wave our Belgian flags on international events and we sell BELGIAN beer and BELGIAN choclates with the world not "Flemish" or "Wallonian"
Don't hold your breath!?!
@@r.a.h7682 Belgium if you please. Thank you .
They had “adult topics” and later half of it was cleared out to make room for a rubber industry presentation? That’s ironic.
This is amazing! I've heard of jokes about what the internet would look like in real life and now I find out an actual one existed long before the internet itself had been created. I think it's pretty cool how much hard work they must've done to make the entire thing. The fact that one of the men was able to predict the internet is amazing, too. It's too bad most of it got destroyed though. Thanks for sharing this story with us! It's nice to know about something this interesting that I might've not known otherwise.
The way you always, without fail, mention accessibility to the wacky places you find warms my heart
3:47 Quite ironic, how they cleared out half the space for a trade fair.
That's like today, when half your screen is covered by ads and the other half contains the information you're actually looking for.
Not only that, but it was a trade fair featuring rubber. *cough* Belgian Congo *cough*
Jonathan Medes once commented “Magritte was a realist, it’s Belgium that’s surreal.”
Even M. Otlet got rickrolled on his internet.
Instant thumbs up for the IT Crowd reference. 😂
Came here for this comment
It was driving me batty what that piano jingle was, on the tip of my tongue
... and the blurred picture 😆
@@garage6346 I just rewatched the opening. Perfect!
@@garage6346 football friend
"It's a 15 minute walk from the railway station, itself an hour south of Brussels."
Me in Essex: "Ohhh, Hainaut!"
via Newbury Park!
It is in "Hainaut" [no l], not "Hainault via Newbury Park" 😉
Mon Dieu, I'm Belgian and I never knew about this! Now I have a reason to do the unthinkable and visit Wallonia!
I hope you will survive 07
it's a rather nice historic city centre with lots of beautifully restored old buildings, you have to give it to Di Rupo, he knew/knows how to get invstments in his city. The station (massively over budget and overdue) is almost finished now, and while I still miss the old one and think the new one was not necessary, Calatrava knows how to design something imaginative. There's the PASS, similarly to Technopolis, There's Le Grand Hornu, a former mining complex from the 19th century, the Belfry tower, city hall and collegiate church St Waudru, just to name a few highlights. And of course, Dour with the biggest music festival in the southern part of Belgium, is a stone throw away.
@@barvdw this convinced me. I shall brave the journey
Bezoek eens "Karelkoning" ;-) aka Charleroi, mijn dierbare geboortestad. De beste locale gids is Nicolas Buissart - en geloof het of niet, hij spreekt NL (sort of, tenminste) 😁
@@yagi3925 je hebt wel een goede gids nodig, vrees ik, om niet een beetje teneergeslagen te raken na zo'n treurtrip™. En in tegenstelling tot Mons slaagt Charleroi er veel minder in om z'n centrum opgefrist te krijgen, het blijft vrij verloederd. Mensen zijn er wel erg vriendelijk.
If Otlet & La Fontaine were the grandfathers of the WWW (& your wonderful video certainly highlights this, Tim!), then Conrad Gessner (1516-1565) was the great-great-great-etc-etc-father of indexing information. In 1548-49 he issued the first subject index - the Pandectarum. It was meant as a key to his overview of all printed works in Latin, Hebrew and Greek, the Bibliotheca Universalis from 1545. You should pop over here to Zurich to do a video on Gessner. Or Scheuchzer. Or the other Gessner 😀
This is easily the most interesting topic you’ve covered yet. I have a degree in computer science, but they never told me about curious pieces of history like this. Thanks for telling this story, Tim.
Computer science graduate here as well. These two grandfathers were never mentioned in the text book. Only Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee.
Agreed never came up in my Mathematics and Computer Science degree either.
With Tom Scott @TomScottGo looking for interesting subjects and asking the entire Internet for them, you still managed to com up with a video on this AMAZING subject before him! All new to me.
Still hope that Tom will make a video about it, would love to see the different approaches. Like Tom would probably explain more how the system worked, how you would find the information you were looking for. Curious about that now!
The francophone side of Europe is safely Tim's turf. Tom can cover the other places.
Let's face facts Tom does not have Tim style!! 🤠👍
@@mfaizsyahmi It's like the Treaty of Tordesillas but for youtubers.
@@worldtraveler930 To be fair, the reverse is also true.
I am so glad that all the mentioned creative people know each other, and work together just enough to surprise us! Like with Jay Foreman's videos.
I always love how Tim can present a random topic on something I never thought I would find interesting and keep me on the edge of my seat wanting for more.
Thank you Tim!
In regards to inventing the internet, it’s less a case of who should be given credit than it is who should be held responsible.
What did Kaiser Bill know that we didn't?
Maybe the Belgian government knew better about access to too much information! ;-)
There are very few people on TH-cam where I see that a video is about filling cabinets and think "this will be interesting" 😅 And I wasn't disappointed - it was!
I just love your background music jokes, this episode's nod to Avenue Q was my favourite!
The IT Crowd “Internet” background photo on the intro is absolute gold!
The rich history of this filing cabinet is extraordinary. I love it
Great video. Loved the IT crowd reference.
I can't believe that I got Rickrolled here....
Also nobody going to talk about the background music?
_Everybody_ talks about Tim's background music. (-:
Toujours très bon Tim ! Maintenant, lorsqu'un theme musical au piano débute, je tente toujours de deviner de quoi il s'agit; tu as planté tellement d'oeufs de Pâques dans les videos passés que je ne veux pas en manquer un!
Ça me fait penser à la musique du générique de IT Crowd
@@mammouth2727 C'est justement ça la référence, avec en background la fameuse boîte noire qui contient l'entièreté de l'Internet présentée dans l'un des épisodes :)
As a non-Frenchman who can read some French, I was completely off guard by the "d'oeufs de Pâques", which I'd had to look up. (and so the rabbit hole goes)
@@NoNameForNone Hahaha! Being a bilingual Canadian, I tried my best to translate the well known "Easter Egg" calling of clever surprises hidden within artist's creations. I might have invented the french equivalent in fact! Reverting back to Tim, I adore the fact that he is a francophile brit living in France and that there seems to be an association/friendship/brotherhood of co-YT creators Geoff Marshal and Jay Foreman.
There’s also a reference for “the internet is for porn” (Avenue q musical)
Thank you for always mentioning the accessibility of the places you go. as a wheelchair user I really appreciate it.
This must be the best travel channel in the whole internet. Well done!
Damn. I wonder what the two of them would think if they saw the world today... Thanks for bringing the mundaneum to my attention! ^^
It always amazes me how many folk from decades and even centuries past had pretty much hit the nail on the head with certain inventions, even if their version doesn't quite grasp the small scale we have thanks to a little thing called the microchip.
I suppose their version of spam would be someone jumping out from around a corner and flicking index cards at you.
A the IT Crowd reference and a Rick roll. You are spoling us Tim
Currently reading the book Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age. So far it's made me appreciate libraries a lot more. Thanks for this video!
Yet another informative and interesting upload ...thanks Tim keep it up!
The last place I expected to get Rick rolled was this channel! Well played Tim!
The Avenue Q playing in the background disguised as an old timey piano piece is such a brilliant musical touch
3:33 I see what you did with the music. Well done.
thanks for making these lovely bite sized docos that are super interesting. I love your content and its super digestable for someone who has seemingly no time for good content anymore I love this a lot
Documentaries.
@@kiereluurs1243 ???
3:33 Brilliantly subtle choice of background music :)
Loved the IT Crowd theme!!
Thanks again for a great video. Love the Rick Astley cameo.
My contribution: in the rock opera Tommy, Pete Townshend foresaw something known as The Grid, I think, where people would be connected. And as I'm sure you're aware Minitel was very big in France through the eighties. Would be great to see a video on that.
I'd love to visit this for nostalgia's sake, my town's library used to have index cabinets. I still miss flipping through those drawers, with the mish-mash of hand written and typed out cards.
Loved it, thank you for this wonderful story, it was a pleasure to learn about this.
My favorite laidback youtuber. So cool. Thank you Super Tim
Still not entirely obscure and forgotten here in Belgium, but for sure very much so elsewhere I guess.
Quirky, very entertaining and informative ... another excellent one this !
Fascinating and interesting story Tim thanks so much for sharing. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Tim I just wanna say I love the audio design of your videos. I always try and recognise the songs and listen for jokes. And the content is really good!
When we were kids the librarians would explain to us and show us the "Dewey Decimal System" for organizing books... but until today never knew the overall international developments in which it was ensconced...
Belgium is great, Belgians are fantastic! You're right to underscore this. It's a terribly underrated country and people.
I'm so glad you always mention how accessible the places are that you visit.
The music, just hilarious, for us that actually seen Avenue Q 😅❤ 3:44
The crudely animated mouth movements is my favorite aspect of this channel.
Your videos are brilliant. Love the editing (the Rick Roll and the meta TV in a TV, haha) and I just love the topics you select. Truly great videos. Been watching you for years now and it just gets better and better. Thanks for all the cool stuff you do!
just top notch editing and effects. well done Tim
It's always fun trying to spot the music covers!
Tomorrow's World: instant nostalgia.
Ha! Glad others recognised that too 😊
Excellent nod to the Internet episode of the IT Crowd with the piano theme music at the beginning 🤓👍
Thank u. Through your travels and your knowledge I started reading more and of course following you. I m obsessed with your channel. Merci.
Was there a section for pictures of cats? It's not the internet if it's not 50% pictures of cats
Wonderful video.
Thanks Tim.
Love the TW theme music.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who recognised that!
@@sjmelnikoff
So am I.
"Why you' think the net was born ? POR.." .. God damn song in the background making it hard to focus x'DDD
My country nearly dit what?!? 😂😂😂 That so cool in fact.
Thanks for the video, greetings from Belgium.
Votre français est vraiment bon, bravo Tim 👏.
Il habite on France pour quelque Années
Ieuw ne Waal
@@AXELVISSERS nen Belg
love the subtle IT crowd intro at the beginning
This video is a godsend, the content fits so well in my topic for a school project! thank you very much for the inspiration
Thank you for the "internet"-box from THE IT-CROWD and the fitting background music. And for the rick-roll at the end. You always find interesting subjects and present them in an informativ and fun way!
Nice use of the IT Crowd theme! Another great video, thankyou
Olet and La Fontaine are the fathers of the modern Documentation science. Thanks for telling us this unkown story.
Gotta love the IT crowd music and background at the beginning
Tim, this is one of your best yet. Entertaining, informative and eye-opening.
The music in this video is just brilliant!
This is fascinating! I'd heard of Tim Berners-Lee, Arpanet, TCP/IP, etc, but I honestly thought this was going to be about Ted Nelson and his Xanadu project. Well, except for the "Belgium" part.
Otlet is so interesting. For those interested, Alex Wright wrote a great book on him, "Cataloging the World."
This made me sad - such an amazing idea, a library where you can learn about anything, and such a sad ending for these two guys. They were clearly great humans and I'm thankful to them for being able to watch this video about them here on the internet.
This was truly inspiring! Love your work!
I always say I come away from a Tim Vlog having learned something......... today I can say that literally
FABULOUS episode, Monsieur Tim! One of the most fascinating vids so far, on your channel. Je suis gobsmacké! 👏
Magnificent Tim, just magnificent.
That La livre bit is uncanny!! I wasn't with you until that!
3:28 my tea spurted when I realized what was coming next from the music
People like to say Tim Burners-Lee invented the World Wide Web but forget about Robert Cailliau who was literally right next to him doing half of the work. Belgium's part of the invention of the internet is severely understated.
Given the Belgian government's track record on how they treated ordinary people who lived under their rule, I'm not surprised that they also didn't care about people learning things.
Hugo Gernsback, “Ralph 124 C41+”. First published in 1911, second author's edition in 1926, third and final in 1952 (although the aether theory, while firmly discouraged by 1926 if not even 1911, was left where it was). It was THIS author after whom the “sci-fi Oscar”, the Hugo Award, was named. In that book, Gernsback predicted, among other things, videoconferencing and Zoom, personal urban e-vehicles, and post-Keynesian financial system.
Super interesting topic, I'm surprised this isn't something that is more known considering how much setup happened here for later electronic systems. (Also appreciate the appropriate Avenue Q at 3:20)
So Paul Otlet also composed the IT crowd theme song for Piano I presume?
The IT Crowd theme and one of my favourite songs from Avenue Q were well selected.
the videos are always a great way to end the sunday
That wonderful rendition of The IT Crowd theme 😂
Congrats on 300k subscribers!
The smell of my elementary school library's card catalog just came to mind.
Your videos are truly the best
I loved the IT Crowd references, and the vintage Rick Roll.
Great job Tim!!! T’habite you from Belgium.
4:50 This was so informative. Thank you, Tim.
That's amazing, glad you enjoyed our city! By the way, when was this video filmed?
Thank you! The footage was filmed back in April
Imagine web searching by calling someone up and asking them to show you something. **Shudders**
speaking about the internet. while playing piano version of the "IT crowd" theme @0:40
nice touch
This feels like something Tom Scott would cover. Seriously though these two were ahead of the curve.
I had to give a like, even if only for the best "Tomorrow's World" theme. I mean, the video was pretty good anyway... Thanks Tim
The mention of the trade fair for the Belgian rubber industry gets much, much darker when you know about Belgium's history with the Congo.
Not belgium but the king of the belgian's it was his private state and not from belgium belgium gaind it in 1908 and named it the belgian congo and that crap that happend in the private state was done by murcs fro france britain the usa and nordic country's with the force public .
@@commando2113 True, but the government (or some government officials) knew and did nothing to stop it. So The statement @ThurstonCyclist made still stands imho.