The sounds of a century
By CBSNews.com producer David Morgan
Jascha Heifetz
Each year the Library announces new additions to the Registry that are deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." This year's additions include a 1917 recording for the Victor Talking Machine Company by violinist Jascha Heifetz, all of 16 years of age.Audio: Heifetz Plays "Caprice"
Sounds Of The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
On a 1935 expedition to document rare North American birds, Arthur Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg of Cornell University recorded a pair of ivory-billed woodpeckers in an old-growth Louisiana swamp forest -- the last recordings of a species now believed extinct. This audio has been used to help develop pattern-recognition software, so that computers may analyze new field recordings to identify similar bird sounds.Audio: Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
Radio
The radio crime drama series "Gang Busters" (a.k.a. "G-Men") aired from 1935 though 1957 on several networks, including CBS. It initially won the cooperation of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI in its showcase of true crime stories.Marian Anderson At The Lincoln Memorial, 1939
Singer Marian Anderson was rightly heralded for her voice, yet she was not allowed to perform at Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall because of her skin color. The controversy led to an historic Easter Sunday recital before an audience of more than 75,000 (and, via radio, millions more). NBC Radio's continuous coverage is the most complete documentation of this high note in the struggle for civil rights.Audio: Anderson at Lincoln Memorial
"Tom Dooley"
Frank Profitt of Beech Mountain, N.C., first sang the murder ballad "Tom Dula" for folklorists Frank and Anne Warner in 1938, and subsequently recorded it for them two years later, accompanying himself on a self-made banjo. The folk song became a standard in John and Alan Lomax's "Folk Song USA" songbook in 1948.Audio: Frank Profitt Sings "Tom Dooley"
An Iron Curtain
In a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., on March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill called for a tougher stance against Soviet expansionism, pronouncing that "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."John Lee Hooker
The largely self-taught Mississippi Delta bluesman John Lee Hooker recorded a demo of "Boogie Chillen," which the Detroit R&B label Modern released in 1948. Its infectious rhythm, simple instrumentation and confessional lyrics have made it a classic.Audio: John Lee Hooker