Cool Gift of the Day
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
What it is:
A collapsing ruler that measures out the span of human history.
Why we love it:
You may ask how we can possibly measure the enormity of history; human society is so complex, so nuanced and chaotic that it would be impossible to distill it down to anything less than, say, two meters in length. Two meters is, coincidentally, the exact length of the "History by the Meter" ruler. With epochs on one side and major events on the other, it's a handy, portable (it folds down to a convenient 9 inch long piece) way to keep track of the most important events of human history. It's particularly good for kids, who may find the enormity of what has come before them to be a little hard to visualize, stretching it out in one big long line should do the trick. We may not be able to comprehend the vastness of humanity, but, at least this way we can remember when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, and that's a good start.