History is something big that happens in the past that you look back on and wonder about… ofttimes we only know about it from the pages of a book, old video footage, relics in a museum, or something like that, but there are also living resources for history in the memories of older people and indeed in your OWN head.

This Quackcast was inspired by me thinking about musicians like Prince, Queen, and David Bowie- many younger people now are looking back on them as if they were musical geniuses, like Beethoven and Mozart, but I can clearly recall when they were just pop-musicians, you were interested to hear their latest stuff on the radio of their latest video but it wasn't ground shaking. They were not considered super dooper massive cultural icons then, in fact they had less regard and hero worship than most modern young celebs do now! Your average popular “influencer” probably gets more regard now than David Bowie did back in the 70s and 80s.

As Generation Xers Banes, Tantz, and I were part of a world in the later days old the cold war, when it was at its peak, before the end. This flavoured all of culture in all sorts of direct and indirect ways and if you don't understand that then you can't properly understand those cultural products that came out of that time. All the massive prosperity of the west and ultra-capitalism from the 1950s onwards with the USA solidly driving all western culture was because after WW2 the world was split in 2 and everyone had to unite around the USA because they were the strongest power militarily and economically in opposition to the “communist block”, NATO vs the Warsaw Pact.

It's the reason American media from Hollywood stayed as so huge, the reason American influence in music was so primary, and the same with style, design, and technology. But there are plenty of direct influences too, a character like James Bond makes no sense outside of that split world, in fact nor does any spy fiction that came from then. The Klingons in Star Trek were Russians. The action genre in movies solidly had to do with the cold war- Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger's career's were formed around Cold War influences…

What big aspects of history where you “there” for? The fall of the Berlin Wall, Perestroika, 9/11, The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the start of myspace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the beginnings of social media and influencer culture, the rise of reality TV, the fall of bookshops…?

This week Gunwallace was inspired to craft a musical theme to Capricious Infection - A mystical, magical, stargazing sound here, touches of Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles. You can imagine you’re in a field in darkness, wandering over cold, dew wet grass and staring up at the vast, glittering majesty of the milky way galaxy above.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic: Wings Of Daera - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/jun/16/featured-comic-wings-of-daera/

Featured music: Capricious Infection - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Capricious_Infection/. - by CressidiasComics, rated T

Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

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