Mine (before):
The greatest hitter of the time was Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers.
John Phillip Sousa was writing marches and Scott Joplin was writing ragtime.
Relativity (basically the most rigid reality in physics) had been discovered only three years earlier.
Gustav Mahler was composing gigantic symphonies.
Poor kids often worked in mines and factories in America.
The Lincoln cent had yet to ever be minted.
The entire lifespans of Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and John F. Kennedy were yet to begin and end.
The entire lifespans of baseball greats Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial, Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and Ernie Banks had yet to begin and end. Other sports greats -- Gordie Howe, Muhammad Ali, Joe Lewis, and Wilt Chamberlain -- likewise.
Las Vegas had been founded only three just three years earlier.
Duke Ellington was nine years old, Walt Disney was seven years old, Glenn Miller was four years old, and John Wayne and Benny Goodman were one year old.
Adolf Hitler was a struggling artist and Winston Churchill was a successful journalist.
Impressionism was new, but it was not yet recognized as the greatest school of painting since the High Renaissance.
The Titanic had yet to sail and sink.
Horses were still more reliable than automobiles, all new to the market.
The United States of America was 132 years old.
"Wireless" technology implied telegraphy.
Music that one heard at a movie was typically played by a moonlighting church organist or piano teacher.
Telephones and recorded music were just taking hold.
Enrico was the hot star of opera.
Africa was almost fully colonized.
Women did not vote.
Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii were not yet states.
Blacks were barred from major-league baseball.
There was no NFL, NBA, or NHL.
Major league baseball was played no farther west than St. Louis or farther south than Cincinnati.
When the Cubs were in their most recent World Series before 2008 (1945):
World War II had just ended.
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Heinrich Himmler, Josef Goebbels, Franklin Roosevelt, Bela Bartok, and Anne Frank died that year.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were smoldering ruins from the atom bomb.
George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were alive.
Radio was commonplace, but television was practically a laboratory curiosity.
Color film was rare.
Stereo sound was rare.
Jim Crow politics were still entrenched in the South.
Very little of the Interstate Highway System (which had not been founded) had been build.
The entire life of baseball stars Gary Carter and Kirby Puckett were yet to begin and end.
Major League baseball was still not played west of St. Louis or south of Cincinnati. (Of course there was some question of whether the play of the Pacific Coast League was on the level o0f the Major Leagues).
The color bar was still in effect (but it would soon come to an end).
There were still former Civil War soldiers and former plantation slaves in America. (America was getting plenty of recently-emancipated slaves -- slave labor largely of the Nazis).
Mine (after):
A black man is President of the United States.
The greatest active hitter in baseball is Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers.
America has never had a female President.
Vin Scully had just retired from announcing sports at age 89.
Wireless communication can imply a device as small as a compact.
Electric cars are new to the automobile world.
Landline telephones are going obsolete.
There is no cure for cancer, Parkinsonism, or Alzheimer's disease.
Manned spaceflight has yet to go beyond the Moon's gravitation.
A 77-year-old Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize in literature for his song lyrics.
Former US Presidents George H W Bush and Jimmy Carter are alive at age 92.
Impressionist paintings take the second-highest bids at art auctions after only the Renaissance masters.
Africa has no colonies.
The death penalty still exists in America.
The greatest hitter of the time was Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers.
John Phillip Sousa was writing marches and Scott Joplin was writing ragtime.
Relativity (basically the most rigid reality in physics) had been discovered only three years earlier.
Gustav Mahler was composing gigantic symphonies.
Poor kids often worked in mines and factories in America.
The Lincoln cent had yet to ever be minted.
The entire lifespans of Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and John F. Kennedy were yet to begin and end.
The entire lifespans of baseball greats Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial, Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and Ernie Banks had yet to begin and end. Other sports greats -- Gordie Howe, Muhammad Ali, Joe Lewis, and Wilt Chamberlain -- likewise.
Las Vegas had been founded only three just three years earlier.
Duke Ellington was nine years old, Walt Disney was seven years old, Glenn Miller was four years old, and John Wayne and Benny Goodman were one year old.
Adolf Hitler was a struggling artist and Winston Churchill was a successful journalist.
Impressionism was new, but it was not yet recognized as the greatest school of painting since the High Renaissance.
The Titanic had yet to sail and sink.
Horses were still more reliable than automobiles, all new to the market.
The United States of America was 132 years old.
"Wireless" technology implied telegraphy.
Music that one heard at a movie was typically played by a moonlighting church organist or piano teacher.
Telephones and recorded music were just taking hold.
Enrico was the hot star of opera.
Africa was almost fully colonized.
Women did not vote.
Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii were not yet states.
Blacks were barred from major-league baseball.
There was no NFL, NBA, or NHL.
Major league baseball was played no farther west than St. Louis or farther south than Cincinnati.
When the Cubs were in their most recent World Series before 2008 (1945):
World War II had just ended.
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Heinrich Himmler, Josef Goebbels, Franklin Roosevelt, Bela Bartok, and Anne Frank died that year.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were smoldering ruins from the atom bomb.
George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were alive.
Radio was commonplace, but television was practically a laboratory curiosity.
Color film was rare.
Stereo sound was rare.
Jim Crow politics were still entrenched in the South.
Very little of the Interstate Highway System (which had not been founded) had been build.
The entire life of baseball stars Gary Carter and Kirby Puckett were yet to begin and end.
Major League baseball was still not played west of St. Louis or south of Cincinnati. (Of course there was some question of whether the play of the Pacific Coast League was on the level o0f the Major Leagues).
The color bar was still in effect (but it would soon come to an end).
There were still former Civil War soldiers and former plantation slaves in America. (America was getting plenty of recently-emancipated slaves -- slave labor largely of the Nazis).
Mine (after):
A black man is President of the United States.
The greatest active hitter in baseball is Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers.
America has never had a female President.
Vin Scully had just retired from announcing sports at age 89.
Wireless communication can imply a device as small as a compact.
Electric cars are new to the automobile world.
Landline telephones are going obsolete.
There is no cure for cancer, Parkinsonism, or Alzheimer's disease.
Manned spaceflight has yet to go beyond the Moon's gravitation.
A 77-year-old Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize in literature for his song lyrics.
Former US Presidents George H W Bush and Jimmy Carter are alive at age 92.
Impressionist paintings take the second-highest bids at art auctions after only the Renaissance masters.
Africa has no colonies.
The death penalty still exists in America.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.