EVER TICKETS are exclusive NFTs minted and reserved for Flow Fest 2021 attendees. They commemorate the launch of the Everbloom NFT platform and grant their holders with exclusive privileges and drops.

EVER TICKET - SILVER

November 4, 2008: CNN projects that Barack Obama has won the 2008 presidential election to become the 44th president, and the first African American president of the United States, Wolf Blitzer announces.\
The decisive victory was a watershed moment in US politics as Obama rose to the nation’s highest office on a campaign of hope and change. The increased turnout, especially among Black voters in the South, helped to flip nine states and earn the largest popular vote percentage by a Democrat in 44 years. The preceding Democratic primary also helped shape the party’s landscape for years to come, with Obama defeating Hillary Clinton — the eventual first woman nominated by a major party in 2016 — and Joe Biden, who Obama selected as his running mate and who would go on to become president in 2020.

2008: CNN projects Obama will win

March 12, 1989 - an English scientist named Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for what would become the World Wide Web and forever change the world.

It all began with a simple question. While working for CERN, Europe’s preeminent physical research laboratory, in early stages of what would become the Large Haldron Collider, Berners-Lee pondered: “How will we ever keep track of such a large project?” His solution — laid out in a memo to his boss — was to allow documents to link to one another no matter who wrote them or which computer they were stored on. It would enable people to find information “sometimes without knowing what [they are] looking for.”

Berners-Lee’s boss’s initial response: “Vague but exciting.”

Exciting indeed. The moment the memo, entitled “Information Management: A Proposal,” hit his boss’s desk, it set in motion technological advancements that would bring a nearly limitless supply of information to billions of people and transform daily life in much of the world.

The proposal gained momentum within CERN, and Berners-Lee spent the next two years writing the core protocols that still define the World Wide Web, and which you likely interact with daily: HTTP, HTML, and UDI (later known as URL and URI). CERN open-sourced the code in 1993, which gave rise to the consumer internet industry and the popular websites we use today.

So while both the computer and internet were momentous in connecting people and information, it was arguably the World Wide Web that brought it all together to really change the world. Berners-Lee’s invention made the instantaneous sharing of large swaths of information possible for the first time ever — and, without it, you very well might not be reading this. 

Artwork: Brett Ferdock, Mark Amadio, and Agne Jurkenaite / CNN

1989: Invention of the World Wide Web

Once again, the league returns to Cleveland for All-Star Weekend at the time of a major milestone. This time, the NBA’s 75th Anniversary sees another iconic group celebrated: The NBA’s 75th Anniversary team. While the list was announced in the fall, this represents the first chance for the game’s greats to gather and be celebrated in front of the fans. We may not yet know who will be playing at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on February 20, but with the league’s current talent at an all-time high, it will surely be another electric display of the world’s greatest athletes.

NBA All-Star 2022: Cleveland, Ohio

The NBA’s 75th Anniversary is an opportunity to properly honor the league’s historic legacy. Not only do we stop to marvel at how far the league has come, but we pay tribute to the icons who brought this game to where it is today. The growth of our game from 1947 to today is nothing short of remarkable, and NBA 75 is a culmination of transcendent players, extraordinary moments and legendary teams – all of whom lifted the game to heights. An homage to exceptional talents and unforgettable flashes in time, NBA 75 celebrates 75 years of greatness.

NBA 75th Anniversary Court

November 9, 1989 - East German border guards opened checkpoints along the Berlin Wall, allowing people to cross into West Berlin for the first time in 28 years.

The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, became the physical embodiment of the human division and ideological struggle in post World War II Germany. The country was split in two — the stilted and restrictive Soviet-allied East Germany on one side, the fast-growing, open West Germany on the other. Built to stop the flood of defections from east to west, the Berlin Wall separated families and disrupted daily life for millions. While it stood, only about 5,000 people successfully defected, with at least 171 killed trying and many more caught and punished. 

By 1989, though, the tight restrictions that categorized Communism in East Germany and the Soviet Union were beginning to wane. 

Ultimately, the fall of the Berlin Wall was set in motion by a bureaucratic mix-up. During a press conference, Günter Schabowski, a top East German spokesman inexperienced with taking live questions, mischaracterized a new law, saying that it immediately allowed emigration through the border crossings at the wall. The actual law, meant to simply define a new process by which East Germans could apply for emigration, was embargoed until the next day, allowing Schabowski’s interpretation to spread quickly.

Within hours, thousands of people arrived at the border crossings demanding to cross. The confused and overwhelmed border guards began letting some people through before eventually opening the gates completely. West Berliners met their long-separated compatriots with flowers and champagne while some began to demolish parts of the wall with various tools. More than 2 million people crossed that weekend to celebrate together.

The moment of unity marked the beginning of a new era for Berlin. In the weeks and months that followed, travel restrictions continued to ease and, ultimately, the official decommission of the wall was announced. The Cold War officially ended at the Malta Summit just three weeks later, and within a year, Germany was officially reunified as one country. 

The pioneering spirit and proud independence that brought down the wall have endured as part of Berlin’s artistic and cultural identity ever since.

Artwork: Brett Ferdock, Mark Amadio, and Patrick Gallagher / CNN