Category: History
Impending War in Europe, 1866
Published, June 20, 1866, New York Tribune
First Record Cover Art, 1939
Before this cover by Alex Steinweiss, most records came in a plain, brown, paper sleeve with a hole in the middle showing who the artist and song was. Steinweiss had a better idea. He took a cameraman to the city’s famous Imperial Theatre, where he convinced the owner to briefly change the signage of the marquee, and made history.
Smash Song Hits by Rodgers and Hart by Richard Rodgers and the Imperial Orchestra, Columbia Records (1939)
Scott Expedition of 1911-1913
Scientists T Griffith Taylor and Charles S Wright in the grotto of an iceberg during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1913. The Terra Nova can be seen in the background. Photos by Herbert Ponting Continue reading “Scott Expedition of 1911-1913”
Indefinite amounts of alcohol
Winston Churchill got a doctor’s note to drink “indefinite” amounts of alcohol during prohibition
Lost City of Etzanoa
In the early summer of 1601, Juan de Oñate, a conquistador who helped establish the Spanish colony of New Mexico, set out with 200 soldiers, several cannons, a dozen priests and others, on a search to find Quivira, a fabled city of gold. What he found though was the “most monstrous cattle” (bison), wide open prairie with “grasses so high that in many places they hid a horse” and a settlement on the Arkansas River of more than a thousand large, thatched-roof buildings, scattered among fields of corn, squash, and beans.
This map was drawn in 1602 by a Wichita Indian who was captured by the Spanish, the Lost City is located near present day Arkansas City in southern Kansas.
El Castillo, Yucatan, 1860
Photo of El Castillo at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico by French archaeologist and photographer Désiré Charnay, before its excavation.
95 Years of Crosswords
This flapper doesn’t seem to be interested in crossword puzzles, which was the newest craze in 1924. The history of the crossword puzzle dates back to December 21, 1913, when the Sunday New York World printed Liverpudlian Arthur Wynne newest puzzle he called a “word-cross.” The puzzle was an immediate success and became a weekly feature. Though it was a popular regular feature it didn’t become a craze until 1924, when an upstart publishing house by the name of Simon & Schuster compiled a collection of the puzzles in book form.
Emoticons, 1881
200 Years of Silent Night
Silent Night (Stille Nacht) was first performed on Christmas Eve, 1818, at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, Austria. The song was composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr. Below is a USO Christmas card from the early 40s with the lyrics to that famous carol.
Only the first two verses are presented on the card above, the last verse goes:
Silent night! holy night!
Son of God love’s pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.