There's a War on. See Twitter for Updates

I’m a big fan of Twitter. I've written before about why I think it's so great and some of the incredible things people have done using Twitter as their foundation.

Well lately I’ve come across a great new account that's my latest obsession: @RealTimeWWII

It’s a fantastic idea. Someone (my guess is that it's a group of people) started tweeting on September 1st, the day in 1939 when the Germans invaded Gdansk in Poland and World War 2 began, real time updates as if we were back in 1939 and the war were taking place.

Something similar was done through Facebook a while back (you can see a jpeg of it here) and while it was impressive and well done, it wasn’t nearly as detailed or as engaging as this Twitter account.

This guy (or these guys) tweet several updates a day including quotes, pictures and videos. The amount of information and the level of detail is astonishing. We get tweets about the famous speeches and actions of Hitler at the major Nazi rallies as well as quotes and pictures from individuals you've never heard of who were living in the ghettos or concentration camps. It literally covers the whole spectrum, from the major turning points in the war to the daily lives of those suffering through it.

Here's just a small sample of some of the tweets:










Aside from being a really interesting account of the events of World War II it also gets you thinking; we’re so used to instant updates on major world events through Twitter, what would it have been like had Twitter been around for other historical events? Would it have shaped their progress and outcome, as Twitter has done with major events like the current ‘Occupy Protests’ or the political movements in the Middle East over the past few months?

Wouldn’t it be great to see similar accounts for other historical events – the Irish Civil War, Columbus’ voyage to America, the Spanish Inquisition.

Of course the thing about WWII is that it was in the very recent past so there are lots of video, photographic and documentary footage and resources available, that’s why this one works so well.

To say that something is ‘brought to life’ is a bit of a cliché but it definitely presents the events of the war in a way that hasn't been done before and a way that is really engaging and captivating.

There's also huge potential here to use Twitter as an educational tool. I reckon social media is going to be used more and more in education in the future and this is a great example of how it can be done.

So go and check out RealWorldWWII and if you know of any other Twitter accounts doing somehing similar involving different events from history please let me know.