History Detectives

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I don't watch much TV, but one of the few shows I do watch is History Detectives on PBS. Each episode features three investigations, each one centering on the history of a specific item and its historical significance. For example, someone may have a family heirloom that they believe may have belonged to George Washington. The person contacts the History Detectives and one of them travels to the person's home, listens to the information the person has about the item, and then, in most cases, takes the item with them as they travel around the country to fill in the missing blanks in the item's history and find the answers to the questions the owner has about it.

Watching the show, I have to wonder if anything bad has ever happened to one of the items being investigated. Have any of the History Detectives accidentally damaged (or utterly destroyed) one of the items when taking it with them to investigate? I can only imagine how that would go over. It'd be like "Sorry Mrs. Estherhouse, that artifact you had was genuine Navajo...but I sat on it in the car. It's in this little plastic bag now. Thanks for calling the History Detectives."

Yeah, I'd think if that ever happened it probably wouldn't make it to air. Each episode opens with a summary of the items being investigated, and I can only imagine how it would sound if something bad happened to one of them and they actually left it in the show: "In tonight's investigations, Wes examines a revolver which may have belonged to Jesse James; Gwen visits a home that may have played a part in the underground railroad; and Eduardo accidentally drops what might have been a priceless piece of Americana off an I-95 overpass while traveling through Hoboken, New Jersey."

Anyway, it's a neat show. Check out their website at http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/.

Comments

Ed said…
I would watch the show if they broke stuff regularly.
August 23, 2010 at 2:56 PM
Alan said…
LOL! Dude, it's so funny that you left a comment today, because on my drive in this morning I was thinking "I wonder if Ed looks at my blog anymore. I update it so infrequently."

The show is on tonight. One can only hope that at least one of the 3 artifacts meets an unfortunate, untimely end. (Insert evil laugh here).

Seriously though, I'd never hope for that.
August 23, 2010 at 3:03 PM

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