Nerdography

Two things:

1. I was my elementary school's National Geographic National Geography Bee champion in 1992. (I got stomped at the state competition, where some of the kids had coaches. I was like, "Should I have gotten a coach?" My parents were like, "No, we'd rather you had a childhood.")

2. My favorite freelance gig is for a local tour company that leads trips all over the world. A few months ago I wrote short historical overviews of countries from Mongolia to Montenegro for their website.

So when I saw this little beauty at Boomerangs, I knew it was coming home with me:



The fact that it cost $3 was just a bonus.

My husband was initially like, "You bought...a globe?" but warmed up when I told him I bought it because it featured post-WWII USSR borders and the French Indochina, two things that were only on maps together for nine years years (1945-1954), making the little globe an antique instead of a piece of junk. (I didn't know that off the top of my head, by the way. I had just finished histories of the Baltic states and the countries of Southeast Asia.)

Mr. Razor, whose geekery surpasses even mine, then wondered if it would be possible to pinpoint the exact year of the globe's manufacture by looking at the countries listed on it. And we were off!

DISCLAIMER: This research was conducted via Wikipedia by two people whose areas of expertise are Medieval British literature and systems engineering, respectively. We also know fuck-all about mapmaking, so if we've screwed this all up, please let us know how, in as much geeky detail as possible. (Note: I am not being sarcastic.)



French Indochina, from the days when one nation could show up in another and take over just by saying, "Do you have a flag?"



So between the World Wars, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were independent states for the first time in a few centuries and were trying to set up governments when WWII rolled around and they got stomped by the Nazis going one way and then stomped by the Communists again going the other way. So the fact that the Baltic area is within the USSR's borders means post-WWII.

(Side note: I wonder if globes were even produced during WWII? Did map makers reprint everything whenever another border shifted? Or were they like, "Eff you Hitler, I'm leaving Poland on there"?)

But you'll notice that Germany remains one country. People born after 1989 are like, "Duh, Germany is one country," but us oldsters remember that there used to be a country called "East Germany" that was full of spies and Olympic athletes on steroids. East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic, came into existence in 1949. So our date range was down to 4 years (1945-1949).



OK, I'ma speed up my (probably horrifying to actual historians) event summaries. Pakistan split from India in 1947. So: 1947-1949. I thought that was as close as we were going to get, but Mr. Razor pushed on.



Oh, hey, Israel! Declared independence in May 1948



And, finally, Korea is one country. South Korea came into existence in August 1948.

So, in theory, our little thrift shop globe was produced in the summer of 1948. Again, I have no idea if maps actually get changed that quickly. Enlighten me in the comments if you know!

All right: what have we learned? 1) The 1940s were a turbulent time for international borders and probably a very stressful era for map makers. 2) I am nerdier than everyone.