Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0438: Memorize the World War II timeline in 15 minutes

Episode Date: November 11, 2015

Keely asks about number memorization tools. I present a mnemonic timeline of World War II to show how remembering numbers can be both handy and very easy. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 438. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. In a recent email, Keeley expressed interest in more number mnemonic resources, and I thought I'd use this opportunity to present a sample application with a simple historical timeline of World War II. So if you have number pegs or pegs that represent different numbers from 0 to 99,

you can actually use these to store basically unlimited information on many, many subjects when combined with a memory palace. And today I'm going to do a demonstration of that with these major events from World War II. Now I'm just going to pick several dates, two from each year from 1939 to 1945. But the beauty of this is if you can remember these dates, you basically have the whole story laid out in your head in the palace that you've created in this episode. And you can easily tell the whole story from beginning to end. But then you can also add virtually unlimited details between the points that I'm creating when we do this episode. So here we go. What we're going to do is we're going to have six different rooms in a house

as the six different years from 1939 to 1940. So first of all, the first room is going to be the bedroom. This will be a journey from your bed out the door. So picture your bedroom. That's 1939. The second location is the bathroom. You get up, you go to the bathroom to take a shower or whatever. 1941 is the staircase. 1942 is the kitchen. You've gone downstairs and you're getting your breakfast 1943 is going to be the front door 1944 is going to be your car and 1945 is going to be the road so basically just think about this journey if you don't have a staircase choose something else between your bedroom or between your bathroom and the kitchen, but we have bedroom, bathroom, staircase, kitchen, front door, car, and road for 1945. All right, all we have to do is store some objects in each

of these places, and these objects are going to represent the months that certain big events in World War II happen. Now, the only actual, since we're only doing months rather than days of the months, we're just going to use a few object pegs. And the only ones that we need are up to 12 because they're only 12 months. So first of all, we'll have Germany invade Poland in your bedroom. And we have to associate that somehow with soap because the month that that happened was September, which is the ninth month. So imagine in the first place in your bedroom, probably your bed, you have some soap sitting on your pillow and making a bunch of suds and things like that. But you also want somehow to visualize Germany invading Poland. Now you might create mnemonics for Germany and for Poland. You might create mnemonics for Germany and for Poland. You might just make Germany somebody with a mustache.

And then you might have Poland be a sort of pole or a bar. But one way or another, you have to associate those with the soap. So you remember that it was in September. And since it's in your bedroom, you'll already remember that it's in 1939, which is the first year of the war as far as we're concerned in this exercise. Then the second event that we're going to use is November, where the Soviet Union invades Finland. Again, you're going to have to turn these into images, but we also need to associate them with a tooth for the month of November because it's the 11th month and the object for 11 is a tooth. So the Soviet Union invades Finland. I would put that somewhere closer to your door in the bedroom.

So after the bed, but before you leave the bedroom. So there we have the beginning of the timeline, 1939. In the ninth month, which is September, Germany invades Poland. In the 11th month, which is November, we have the Soviet Union invading Finland. All right, so far so good. We'll go to the bathroom. April of 1940 is when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, so they're moving north as well as east. And what happens here is we have the number four, which for me is a sari, a sort of blanket that Indian women wear. And so you're going to associate Germany invading Denmark and Norway with a sari and put it in the bathroom, in one of your locations in

the bathroom. In the second location, we have June, which is the sixth month, and Italy is entering the war and invading southern France. Associate that with a leaf of sage. It's a kind of herb, so you want to imagine a leaf, and associate that with Italy kind of entering the war now by invading southern France. So we now have not only the basic timeline of how the war started, at least in Europe and then the Soviet Union invading Finland, all these things starting in 1939 and 1940, starting with your bedroom and then in the bathroom. Now, moving to the staircase, we're going to have June again, this time 1941, so another sage, but this time on the staircase.

And what's going to be represented there is that Germany and the Axis invade the Soviet Union. And then in December the 12th, at the bottom of the staircase, or not December 12th, but the 12th month, we have Japan bombing Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entering the war. So this is sort of where the U.S. enters the war, really significant to me at least, the fact that the U.S. got into World War II. And so the fact that this is where we hit the bottom of the staircase, it's kind of like there are two phases of the war. The part before the U.S. got into World War II, and so the fact that this is where we hit the bottom of the staircase, it's kind of like there are two phases of the war, the part before the U.S. enters and the part after the U.S. enters, so I've kind of divided my memory palace that way, but now that we're at the bottom of the staircase, we have our object mnemonic 412, which for me is a tuna can, and Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor with a big tuna can at the bottom of the staircase,

and the U.S. doesn't like that, so they enter the war. Next we'll go to 1942, which is the kitchen. We have the Allies beginning to bomb Germany. This is really significant because basically all of urban Germany was reduced to nothing throughout the course of the war, and that all started in May of 1942. Now for May, we have the number five, which is a whistle. So you want to put a whistle representing the bombing of urban Germany in your first location in the kitchen. Make sure that that's really visual and distinct. And you can remember when you think of that whistle in the kitchen, the bombing of Germany. And then October, which is the 10th month, British troops defeat the Axis troops in Egypt,

which was a significant turning point in the war. And so that was October, which is the 10th month. And that's going to be represented by dice for me. So associate the dice with Egypt and the British troops defeating the German and Italian troops in Egypt in the kitchen. Next location, the front door for 1943. We have the Allies gaining control of Sicily in the seventh month, of course, July. And the object for that is going to be a sock. So maybe the front door is stuck partly open and the bottom of it has been caught on a sock and you have to create some sort of visual representation of the allies gaining

control of Sicily with that sock. So fortunately Italy kind of looks like a boot or a foot and so you just stick that boot in that sock and the kind of Italy boot sock thing is kicking Sicily, the little island there, and that's where the Allies have gotten control. And then the second big thing for 1943, or for the front door, is it also relates to Italy, and it's the fact that the puppet state under Mussolini happened in the 11th month, which is September. So associate a tooth with the puppet state that the German-occupied Italy became under Mussolini. They just put Mussolini back in charge and kind of controlled that part of Italy, but really the Germans set it up as a puppet state. But anyway, associate that with a tooth going a little further outside, but still at the front door, maybe with a tooth on your front porch or a puppet of a tooth.

So there we have it, 1943 at the front door. The next year is 1944, which is going to happen at the car. And here the U.S. opens a second front in Normandy. So this was a big turning point. The U.S. landed in Normandy, and they opened up their second front there, and this happened in June. So once again, we need a sage or a leaf, but this time in the car. So you might imagine the U.S. troops parachuting with sage leaves into your car. And then December, the 12th month, maybe using the back of your car or something further along your car on your timeline, we have the Battle of the Bulge, which ends with the Germans in retreat in December. So I would just imagine that my car's gasoline tank is left open

and is kind of bulging out, and the tuna can is inside the tank to represent the number 12, and that's where the Germans are all running away because they're afraid that the gas tank's going to explode or whatever, I don't know, but that's the Battle of the Bulge with the Germans in retreat in December, the 12th month for the tuna can of 1944. Then finally we have 1945, the fifth month, which is a whistle. Germany surrenders. So Germany has run away from that gas tank about to explode on the car. And now on the street itself, they're down there, and then they all blow a big whistle, and they surrender in May. That's the fifth month.

And then in August, the eighth month, the Japanese part of the war basically ends with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we need just imagine us dropping a sofa and making such a big explosion that the whole road is completely gone, and that's basically how the war stops. So there you go. If you just enhance these images a little bit, you can think through this whole palace and tell the entire story of the war, not just sort of how things went in general, but with years and months of who did what. Now if you like the format of these newer episodes with more information, more examples, and the fact that they're a bit longer, please let me know because they are more work, but I actually enjoy doing them more. So just shoot me an email at timothyatmasterofmemory.com, or if you have a learning request, leave it at masterofmemory.com

slash question. The world's knowledge can be yours. This has been Timothy of Master of Memory, and I'll talk to you again soon.