Greifswald – “History you can touch!” was the theme of this year’s Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania History Festival on 4 July 2026. We were there in person – and yes, we’d brought along a bit of history for people to touch (and even some to eat)!
However, we also showcased the works we’d recently scanned into the MV Digital Library, such as the Barther Tageblatt from 1926:
On 4 July 1926 – the 150th anniversary of American Independence Day – the newspaper reported:
“— America has long been in the grip of a monument mania. This is an affliction which, in itself, poses no danger to the public and essentially manifests itself in private individuals or associations endeavouring to erect monuments to all manner of figures, both plausible and implausible. In Baltimore, they have now come up with the brilliant idea of erecting a monument to the progenitor of the human race in recognition of his services to the development of humanity. The subject of the monument: Adam. The monument is fitted with a sundial, which is intended to suggest that the father of the human race already possessed a certain sense of time; but they have gone even further – they have determined the birthday of the valiant Adam, and indeed Adam is said to have been born on 28 October in the year 4040 BC. In any case, there is hardly anyone who can prove that Adam was not born on that day. Unfortunately, it is not known to what extent his descendants lay a wreath on the annual day of remembrance.”
This entry is doubly curious, because: the monument was in fact erected as early as 1909 by John P. Brady – who, for his part, had calculated Adam’s birthday to be 28 October 400 BC.
(Greifswald University Library)
