Image from VeesVintage

Today Twitter turns 5. Hooray! Twitter, if you were a person, you would be going into first grade.

Twitter is a pretty amazing thing. It’s changed a lot about the way we get news, stay in touch with friends, obsess over celebrities, share opinions and a lot more. However, we’re sure that there are plenty of other people posting today about how great Twitter is and how we haven’t been the same since it was open to the commercial public in 2006. So today, to pay tribute to a true phenomenon of new media social networking, we’re taking a look back at where it all began with first tweets from just a few of our personal favorite and most (arguably) notable accounts. We weren’t able to find first tweets for everyone we wanted, but we dug up a decent sampling. Looks like our first missives to the Twitterverse can say a lot about us:

@mayoremanuel: fuck you right in your fucking face-hole. (September 27, 2010)

@aplusk: I really want to go to Iran. Every one that I meet that goes there says it’s amazing. http://bit.ly/8vjma (February 28, 2009)

@sarahpalinusa: Michigan-thx 4 Going Rogue! Perfect tour kickoff w/Kid Rock tune praising Northern MI humming in backgrnd @ Barnes/Noble. Above expectations (November 18, 2009)

@barackobama: Thinking we’re only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq. Learn more at http://www.barackobama.com (April 29, 2007)

@glennbeck: This is my first ‘tweet’. I’ll try to keep the lying about train travel to a minimum. (May 21, 2009)

@stephenathome: A well-made suit gives you the illusion of a physique. (September 17, 2008)

First tweets can actually be pretty tricky to find, so help us out by commenting with yours. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @thelampnyc.

Image from tvparty.com

June 28, 1951: Sixty years ago today, Amos ‘n Andy debuted as a television show on CBS. The program began as a radio show on 1928 and became wildly popular, with nearly 40 million listeners by 1931. The series was based on the comedic misadventures of two black farmhands from Atlanta seeking a better life in Chicago (later, in Harlem), but the characters were voiced and created by  Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll–who happened to be white.

When CBS decided to mount the television program, they cast only African-American actors, making it the first prime-time television show in history with an all-black cast (this was not repeated for another twenty years).  However, many in the black community saw the casting, along with the rest of the show, as a step backwards for the civil rights movement which had been gaining momentum since the end of World War II. Most notable among the protestors was the NAACP, who in June of 1951 even sought an injunction against Amos ‘n Andy on television, stating, “Every character is either a clown or a crook. Negro doctors are shown as quacks. Negro lawyers are shown as crooks.” Although the NAACP failed to win the injunction, and some influential members of the black community including the Pittsburgh Courier defended the show, growing cries of outrage forced CBS to cancel Amos ‘n Andy on television after two seasons.

Whether Amos ‘n Andy was a source of great comedy or great injustice is still a subject of debate taking up many books and articles even in the modern day. Nonetheless, the show is a cornerstone in the history of minority representation in media. It furthermore stands as an example of how different forms of media can provoke unique responses–would discontent have continued to grow if Amos ‘n Andy remained a radio show through the 1940s and 1950s, and never attempted to cross over into the visual medium of television? What do you think?

The Pentagon Papers led to a landmark ruling on the First Amendment.

The government stepped in and ordered the Times to stop publication of the papers, and when the newspaper refused, the government sued. An appellate federal court issued a temporary injunction on June 15 which halted further publishing by The New York Times. But by then, additional newspapers like The Washington Post had received portions of the documents and began publishing as well. An intense legal battle followed for the next two weeks in which other newspapers printing portions of the papers were required to cease publishing. On June 30, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the government did not provide sufficient proof to justify the injunction, marking a landmark victory for a free press under the First Amendment.

Although the papers have been published, both in the newspapers and in subsequent volumes of books, they have never been published in their complete form, entirely free from redactions. But today, to mark the fortieth anniversary of the leak, the National Archives and Records Administration is releasing the completely declassified document for the first time–all 7,000 pages, available here. Thank goodness for e-readers.

Presenting the Ampex VRX-1000, First Commercial Video Tape Recorder

April 14, 1956: A small California company named Ampex debuts the first commercial tape recorder. This was a big deal for television, because up until this time, TV shows were taped using a modified film camera pointed at a television monitor. The picture was not very good, and the film had to be developed, which took precious time in the world of television broadcasting where fast production turnaround times are key. With the new machine, shows could be more easily videotaped and played back, and then replayed for other time zones. The first Ampex machine was giant and klunky, but it worked, and formed the base for improvements and modifications which led to better picture quality, increased efficiency…and endless summers of reruns.

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Remains of Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Myers arrive at Dover Air Force Base, April 5, 2009. Photo: Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

April 6, 2009: For the first time in 18 years, Americans saw news coverage of coffins returning from war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Near midnight on April 5, the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Myers arrived at Dover Air Force Base after he was killed by an explosive in Afghanistan on April 4. With the permission of his family, news media were allowed to photograph the flag-draped coffin as it was unloaded by the military honor guard.

The photography ban was lifted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in February 2009 after years of debate. The ban was put in place in 1989 by Dick Cheney, who was at that time Secretary of Defense. In a moment of great embarrassment for the Administration, major news media outlets televised a split-screen of then-President George H.W. Bush joking at a White House press conference alongside live video of flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base. Debate around the ban concerned issues of privacy, politicization of the war and First Amendment rights. Arguments were made that prohibiting photos of the dead downplayed the war while inhibiting the national mourning process, and counter-arguments were made that the photos were disrespectful to family members, and that it would be inappropriate for the images to be used in a political debate.

But President Obama was elected under a banner of government transparency, and Gates ordered a review of the policy. It was found that as long as family members approved in advance, media were free to capture and publish photos of the dead returning from war. As Gates told reporters in advance of the final decision lifting the ban, “If the needs of families can be met and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better.”

However, American viewing access to the fight was held in monopoly by the fight’s sole promoter, Jerry Perenchio. While over fifty countries purchased broadcast rights to the telecast and reporters from all over the world translated and commented from the ringside, the only way to view the fight in the United States was to attend it in person or pay a reported $20-40 to watch the fight on closed circuit television. As a result, Republican members of Congress–including amateur boxer Charles Sandman Jr. of New Jersey, former pro quarterback Jack Kemp of New York, former major league pitcher Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell of North Carolina and two-time Olympic decathlon gold medal winner Bob Mathias of California–introduced a bill which would prohibit media monopolies of major sports events. According to Sandman, the passage of his bill and a complementary bill proposed by Les Aspin of Wisconsin, “No one type of media, like closed circuit television in the recent case of the Frazier-Ali heavyweight boxing championship, will be permitted to monopolize the right of the public to witness these events.”

This legislation was one of many items which have been proposed since the early 1970s attempting to overturn the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which exempted certain professional sports from antitrust laws. The battle continues: In 1995, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont helped pass legislation which narrowed baseball’s antitrust exemption, and in 2006, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania sought to overturn exemptions for the National Football League. A December 2010 Supreme Court decision curtailed the NFL’s efforts to establish broader antitrust exemption, which could impact the collective bargaining process with players that is currently the subject of a potential lockout.

Still image from video of Rodney King beating

By the time of the Rodney King beating, the LAPD was no stranger to allegations of police brutality–over 15,000 such allegations had been made since 1985–but this was the first time that excessive force was caught on tape. Although initially the tape was kept from the public, it was out within a couple of days, and every news station in America ran the violent footage supporting claims of systemic abuse and racism within the LAPD.

As Geoffrey Taylor Gibbs wondered in the aftermath of the beating, imagine if there was no videotape, or even if there was just a photograph or an audio recording of the incident. Most likely, King would have been just another black man making just another accusation that he was a victim of police brutality. He would have been one of thousands who made similar accusations, but it is likely that not much would have changed. The videotape changed everything. It galvanized equal rights activists nationwide, forced politicians to act (as they did when the LAPD Chief of Police was fired) and provided savage, irrefutable proof to the American public that racism is alive and well. It amplified the trial and raised the stakes so that when the officers were acquitted by an all-white jury on April 29, 1992, Los Angeles blew up. The riots ended on May 2 with the help of the National Guard, 3,500 military personnel and the LAPD. By then, over 51 people were killed, 2,383 people had been injured, 8,000 people were arrested and more than 700 business had been burned to the ground.

Nowadays, particularly since so many cellphones are equipped with cameras, damning evidence is frequently and easily caught on video (ahem, John Galliano) and distributed around the world with lightning speed without much ceremony or amazement. But twenty years ago today, it was unique for an incident like the Rodney King beating to be caught on tape, and that tape wrote a crucial chapter in the history of American civil rights.

ARCHIE: Hey, let me ask you something. How long you notice this kid Roger that was in with Mike?
STEVE: Oh, a couple of years, ever since he started coming to the shop.
ARCHIE: A couple of years. Now you’re a man of the world. Now you must know that this kid is kind of a la-di-da, right?
STEVE: Is that what Mike thinks of Roger?
ARCHIE: Forget about what Mike thinks. I can’t even tell you what he thinks. Here, put them glasses over here, I want to go with you once more. Go ahead. (Steve takes the beers, moves them to another table.) Come on, let me get even with you one more time. Go on, get it up there. (Steve and Archie grab hands in an arm-wrestling hold on the table.)
STEVE: What does Mike think, Arch?
ARCHIE: Aw, Mike, geez. Well for one thing, he thinks that friend of his, Roger, is straight. And for another thing–well Steve, you’re gonna wanna bust him wide open when I tell you this, I don’t know where he gets these brainstorms, but he thinks that you’re–geez, I can’t even say it to you, Steve.
STEVE: He’s right, Arch.
ARCHIE: Huh?
STEVE: He’s right. (Steve slams Archie’s arm down on the table.)
ARCHIE: Oh, you mean he’s right about his friend Roger there.
STEVE: About everything.

This may seem tame to us now, but back then it was a brave move, especially for a new show on a major network, CBS. Since then, gay characters have continued to appear on television shows, playing central roles on shows like Ellen, Will & Grace and Glee. We still have a ways to go before homosexuality is accepted as a normalcy on television, or that gay characters are represented in a proportion approximating the gay population. Still, it’s worth celebrating the first step on that journey, forty years ago today.