The use of mechanical means for the application of exercise in therapeutics was first systematized and employed in a complete way by Dr, Gustav Zander, of Stockholm, about 1857. Zander’s vision of regular exertion using machines to honor health and well…
The samurai were a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms. The word first appeared in a document of the Heian period; before that time such people had been called mono-no-fu or bushi. Mono means ‘thing’ and fu means ‘man’; that is, men who dea…
David Douglas Duncan was a renowned war photographer and photojournalist, who first encountered Picasso in 1956 when he infamously rang the doorbell of La Californie, the artist’s home in Cannes. At the time, Picasso was in the bathtub and allowed Duncan to…
The Messerschmitt KR200 microcar was, and remains, the most evocative example of the bubble car genre; a tiny, instantly recognizable, three-wheeled tandem-two-seater, bearing of the aviation’s most potent brand names. Targeting solid German citizens to…
Death masks are fascinating but slightly haunting relics from an age before photos. Until cameras rendered them redundant, it was common for notable people to have metal, wax or plaster applied to their face when they had died, creating a “death mask”. …
These vivid color images show the everyday life and the ancient landmarks of Rome in the 1890s. While transportation and engineering show the first sign of the modern world, the Eternal City still demonstrates its glorious past. The old photographs d…
Princess Diana visited the United States in early November 1985 with her husband Prince Charles. The royal couple stayed at the White House, where they attended a gala dinner on 9 November. The 24-year-old Princess was photographed dancing with the acto…
The Hollywood sign may be unique among American icons. It is a landmark whose white letters are familiar around the world as the prime symbol of the movies. Day after day tourists with cameras wander into surrounding Griffith Park or troll up and down t…
There are very rare occasions when people can see a new volcano emerging from virtually nowhere. Considered by some as one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, Parícutin volcano is undoubtedly one of the wonderful geomorphological landscapes of the Globe…
Skylab was America’s first step toward making space something other than a nice place to visit. Developed in the shadow of the Apollo moon missions and using hardware originally created for Apollo, the Skylab space station took the nation’s astronauts from…
Bruce Lee (Chinese name Li Jun Fan, born in 1940) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist, martial arts instructor, actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and philosopher. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing fr…
By almost any account, the Godfather films are monuments on the landscape of American cinema. There are, of course, differences of intention and achievement among the three, but the first one, The Godfather (1972), stands out in popular and critical opinio…
The 1950s were a period of huge change for Hong Kong. The end of Japanese occupation, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. and U.N. trade embargoes on China, and a mass influx of Mainland immigrants bringing low-cost labor to the city,…
The racetrack on top of a factory is actually a very famous now-defunct Fiat factory located in the city Turin in North Italy. When Giovanni Agnelli, the CEO of Fiat, had visited the Ford factory in Detroit, he then decided to expand production by adopt…
On September 11, 2001, US President George W. Bush went to Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Florida to meet students and staff and to bring attention to his plans for education reform. It looked like another regular day. That all changed after 8:46 a…
Selena was a singer-songwriter who came to be known as the “Queen of Tejano music,” a popular form of music originating in Texas and taking influences from polka, rock, conjunto, and mariachi. An enormously popular singer in Latino communities across No…
Sophia Loren (born in1934, Rome, Italy), is an Italian film actress who rose above her poverty-stricken origins in postwar Naples to become universally recognized as one of Italy’s most beautiful women and its most famous movie star. She was named by the Am…
This collection includes interesting old pictures of the mountains of the Holy Land that were taken in 1915. The set includes images of Mt. Tabor, Mt. Carmel, Mt. of Olives, Mt. Nebo, and other important landmarks. The lantern slides are provided by Ore…
He was “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” the biggest attraction in the history of professional wrestling. At seven-foot-four (2.23m), 450 pounds (205kg), André the Giant was a living, breathing legend, the kind of make-believe figure usually encountered on…
These beautiful, romantic old postcards show Scotland from a time long gone. Originally published by the Detroit Publishing Company, they were created by image-makers fascinated by Scotland's castles and sweeping landscapes and much of the collection gives…