The Astonishing Story of Marion Stokes \u2014 The Woman Who Spent Over 30 Years Recording Every Minute of US Television Beginning in 1979, former librarian and civil rights activist Marion Stokes made it her life\u2019s mission to preserve the truth as it appeared on television. She quietly began recording TV news broadcasts, not just one channel but up to eight at a time, around the clock, every single day. What started as a deeply personal effort became one of the most ambitious media preservation projects in history. Over the course of 33 years, Marion amassed more than 71,000 VHS tapes, capturing everything from breaking news and political debates to commercials and cultural shifts \u2014 moments easily lost to time. Stokes saw television not only as a reflection of society but also as a fragile and manipulable record. She feared that without preservation, important context and nuance would disappear. Her work, once dismissed as obsessive, is now recognised as a visionary act of guerrilla archiving. Since her passing in 2012, the Internet Archive has taken on the monumental task of digitising her collection. It is a massive and ongoing effort that continues to reveal the richness and depth of her vision. Marion Stokes did not just record television. She preserved a living record of modern history. #MarionStokes #MediaHistory #TVArchive #PreservingThePast #CivilRights #HiddenHistory #VHSArchive #InternetArchive #MediaPreservation #AmericanHistory