The NY Public Library's Vintage Valentine Collection.




Vintage Valentine's Day Cards on Flickr.




Subterranea Britannica.

Underground places in the UK - subways, Tube stations, air raid shelters, radar stations etc.




Photo Essay: Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution.

'I have a 30-year-old book of photographs of the revolution by a photographer named Hatami. I thought it would be interesting to reproduce them for the 30th anniversary of the revolution. I paid my nephew Nico $20 to scan the entire book :o) The photos that have a black line in the middle are the ones that were spread on two pages. '




Captured Emotions: Baroque Painting in Bologina 1575-1725.

'This exhibition tells the extraordinary story of a small group of artists who changed the course of art history. In the decades after the deaths of the great Renaissance masters, such as Raphael and Michelangelo, the art of painting was thought to have gone into steep decline. But then, in the late 16th century, the Carracci family of painters from Bologna burst onto the scene with tremendous energy and vitality, raising art to new heights. '




Vintage Mexican Advertisements.




The Village Atlas.

19th century maps of places in London, the West Midlands and other urban centres in the UK.

'This period saw much of England’s countryside alter beyond recognition; although London and the great new industrial towns of the Midlands and the North had begun their inexorable expansion in the latter decades of the eighteenth century and the opening ones of the nineteenth, it was during the sixty-four year reign of Queen Victoria that they saw their most spectacular period of growth. As a result, it is today almost impossible to visualise the villages, hamlets and green fields which existed, scarcely out of of living memory, where the concrete, brick and glass of modern conurbations rise today. '




The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike.

'The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike is the common name of a 13 mile (21 km) stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike that was bypassed in 1968 when a modern stretch opened to ease traffic congestion. The reasoning behind the bypass was to reduce traffic congestion at the tunnels. In this case, the Sideling Hill Tunnel and Rays Hill Tunnel were bypassed, as was one of the Turnpike's travel plazas. The bypass is located just east of the heavily congested Breezewood interchange at what is now exit 161.'




The Voyage of Charles Darwin.

'This old series of BBC film depicts the life of Charles Darwin in the 1800s. Check out for more upcoming episodes! '




The Hypothetical Planet Vulcan.

A planet that was hypothesised to exist between the Sun and Mercury, based on a perceived anomaly in Mercury's orbit. It was believed that the 'wobble' could be explained by the gravitational pull of an undiscovered planet (the planet Neptune had previously been hypothesised for the same reason). In fact, the 'wobble' was no such thing - light was bent by the gravitational pull of the Sun which introduced a perception error - but this wasn't understood until Einstein's theory of general relativity explained how rays of light could be 'bent' by gravity.




Pictures of Buses in Las Vegas.




The Population of China's Provinces Compared.

'Here, for easy reference, is a list in descending order of magnitude of those Chinese territories (their population in brackets) followed by the foreign country they compare to.'

'1. Guangdong (113 million) Germany plus Uganda (3)
Henan (99 million) Mexico
Shandong (92 million) Philippines
Sichuan (87 million) Vietnam
Jiangsu (75 million) Egypt
Hebei (68 million) Iran
Hunan (67 million) France
Anhui (65 million) Thailand
Hubei (60 million) U.K. ... '




Winter in New York.

Photographs.




Miyako Festivals.

Nice artwork about Japanese festivals.

'[The albums depict] the annual festivals and customs of Kyoto at the beginning of the Showa2 period. These paintings are accompanied by explanatory texts written by the folklorist and Kyoto scholar Ema Tsutomu.'




The World Trade Center.

Photographs.




Ireland through a Pinhole Camera.




Florida Broadsides 1800-2000.

'Broadsides are traditionally considered to be large, one-sided printed posters used for public communication. These were usually posted in prominent public spaces such as churches, street corners, and town halls. '

'Typical examples of broadsides include campaign posters, playbills, public notices, announcements, petitions, proclamations, and advertisements. But paper-bound communications were not limited to broadsides, and included pamphlets, cards, tickets, blank forms, flyers, reprinted newspaper articles, and political cartoons. '




Pisco Clowns.

'Ruxandra Guidi reports from Peru on one effort to help quake survivors in Peru relieve their stress through laughter. A team from the group Doctors without Borders has been working in Peru since an earthquake hit parts of the county two months ago. The team includes clowns who put on shows for residents of quake-affected villages.'




Russian Cartoons.

'Mikhail Zlatkovsky has been lampooning Russian leaders since the days of perestroika. But he has discovered that satire permitted by Gorbachev and Yeltsin is dangerous under Putin'.




Berlin Wall Graffiti.

'A mile-long stretch was left as a memorial and decorated with murals commemorating the fall of communism. Now that section is in disrepair and there's a debate in Germany over what to do about it.'




My Father's Handwritten Instructions.

'Yesterday, my father died. When my brother and sisters and I pulled his pre-need folder this morning, we found (among the elaborate plans he'd laid out for us) these handwritten notes for how his services were to be conducted. He wrote these over 18 years ago. '



Querying the Hive Mind.


'What are small ways you use to make a mundane life more bearable?'


'After years of drifting along as a "spiritual but not religious" believer I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that I'm not actually a believer at all. I am an atheist with a lingering but unwanted desire to believe and it is making me miserable. Can you help me move past this? '


'Some people have this mysterious ability to be - disarming. Please explain this skill and help me learn it!'


'Recommend non-fiction books about animals -- books that will blow my mind.'


'How does your creativity work?'


'How do you organize yourselves using online tools? '


'What is your best technique for calming down quickly?'




The World of Dante.

'The World of Dante is a multi-media research tool intended to facilitate the study of the Divine Comedy through a wide range of offerings. These include an encoded Italian text which allows for structured searches and analyses, an English translation, interactive maps, diagrams, music, a database, timeline and gallery of illustrations. Many of these features allow users to engage the poem dynamically through the integrated components of this site. '