Blog Category: history

‘The Writer’ Automaton: an 18th-century programmable computer?

Haunting reminder of millions of lives lost in war as artists stencil 9,000 bodies onto Normandy beach to mark Peace Day

Medieval Bling: Skeletons Encrusted in Jewels and Gold

Vintage Crime Scene Photos Superimposed on Modern NY Streets (Warning: Graphic)

Secret Fore-Edge Paintings Revealed in Early 19th Century Books at the University of Iowa

Inspiring and Intense Soviet Space Propaganda Posters

Seeds of Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness,” in His Terrifying, Tightly-Packed Notes

Incredible paintings of sci-fi suburbia will make you wish you were Swedish

This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers

How 500 Years Of Weird Condiment History Designed The Heinz Ketchup Bottle

A collection of playing cards, circa 1470

The Weirdest-Looking Time Machines in All Science Fiction

Fingers Font Friday – A Handy History of Typography

A Lovely English Garden Full of Deadly Poisonous Plants

The Entire History of the World—Really, All of It—Distilled Into a Single Gorgeous Chart

Rarely Seen Maps From San Francisco’s Quirkiest Hidden Library

The World’s First Banner Ad

The Hiroshima Bombing, Visualized

A Second Life in a Second Language: A Change of Language for a Writer Is a Dangerous Thing

Making Everyday Activities Trippy

National Geographic’s Cartographic Typefaces

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World

French Revolution Wallpapers

Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming in Conversation (1958)

Living People Linked to 5,500 Year-old DNA

“Umami” Was Coined by the Inventor of MSG to Describe Its Taste

Undervalued Inventor Nikola Tesla’s 157th Birthday

The Hut Where the Internet Began

‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ by George Orwell

Orwell’s birthday celebrated with party hats on surveillance cameras

In an appalling decision, the Supreme Court stops use of a key part of the Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court’s ruling overturns both the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8

A pristine ‘temple of the dead’ has been uncovered in Peru

Extreme Typographic Nerdery, Part 2: Making Sense of Type Classification

Extreme Typographic Nerdery, Part 1: Making Sense of Type Classification

Beautiful! Historical use of pomegranate motifs in textiles

Social Networking in the 1600s

“Aviatrix” – A few of the fantastic woman flyers of the early 20th century

“See America with the WPA” Posters

Vintage Photobooth Animations

World’s Smallest Museum Finds the Wonder in Everyday Objects

10 of History’s Most Beautiful Typewriters

See an Autopsy of the Original Mac and Other Iconic Gadgets

Found at Auction: The Unseen Photographs of a Legend that Never Was

Pop Culture Gargoyles Hidden in Gothic Architecture

Essential Guide to Living Lovecraft: The Real World Locations Behind the Horror

Type-o-philes Scour NYC for Urban Signage Project

Broidery on a medieval page