During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, farms started to use new machinery and fertilizers that transformed them from small-scale enterprises into food factories. Entrepreneurs selling products designed to increase a farmer’s production were anxious …
It’s quite fascinating to read the vintage magazine adverts because nothing gets old faster than technology news and ads. In this article, we’ve collected some retro computer ads to give you a hands-on look into what made the tech headlines before the age o…
Imagine getting on a train and leaving your parents and your family behind. Imagine arriving in a new place, where you don’t speak the language and where everything is different. People wear clothes that seem strange; the food is different too. Imagine …
After World War II had ended, the surrendered Japan was devastated. All the large cities, industries, and transportation networks were severely damaged. A severe shortage of food continued for several years. Allied forces led by the United States occupi…
From the 1960s to the late 1980s, New York City’s iconic Times Square was a difficult place to be. Felony and crime rates were high, despite heightened police existence. A plethora of go-go bars, sex shops, peep show establishments, and adult theaters becam…
In 1942, twenty-one-year-old Esther Bubley, accepted a position with the Office of War Information (OWI) in Washington, D.C. to work as a darkroom lab technician. The OWI had recently absorbed the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and their stable of l…
In April 2003 Jørn Utzon, at the age of 85, was awarded the Pritzker Prize ─architecture’s ‘Nobel’. The citation reads: ‘There is no doubt that Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece. It is one of the great iconic buildings of the twentieth century, an i…
After Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain traveled twice to the continent hoping to appease Hitler’s aggressive intentions, and to prevent another destructive European war, but with a distinct lack of success. …
Antonio Gaudí started work designing a building in 1883 he originally termed the “church of the poor”. After disagreements between the founding association and the original architect, Gaudí was assigned to lead the project in 1884, and thus produced an ent…
Nobody could tell exactly when it began and nobody could predict when it would end. At the outset, they didn’t even call it a depression. At worst it was a recession, a brief slump, a “correction” in the market, a glitch in the rising curve of prosperit…
All NASA craft must undergo complete testing through one of the administration’s 42 major wind tunnels and it’s cleared for liftoff once all the parameters are reached. These wind tunnels range from just a few inches wide to cavernous enough to test ful…
At 240 feet (73 m) long by 62 feet wide (19 m) and reaching a height of 66 feet (20 m), the Great Sphinx is one of the largest statues in the world. Even the ancient Egyptians themselves were puzzled by the remote antiquity and purpose of the Great Sphi…
The close relationship between Queen Victoria and her young Indian attendant Abdul Karim was deemed controversial and scandalous by the royal court. A fter the Queen passed away, the family evicted Karim from the home the queen had given him and deporte…
On the evening of October 8, 1871, more than 300,000 weary residents of the great city of Chicago went to bed expecting nothing more than a quiet night’s sleep followed by an ordinary Monday of going to work or tending family. Instead, these unprepared citi…
The crinoline appeared on the fashion scene in the mid-1800s and took its name from the French word crin (“horsehair”), a stiff material made using horsehair — and "linen." A crinoline (hoop) is defined as a framework consisting of round/oval circles (s…
Manzanar, Spanish for “apple orchard,” began soon after 1900 in the dream of a fruit-growing empire and today is a national symbol of America’s decision at the onset of World War II to confine thousands of its citizens of Japanese ancestry behind barbed wi…
With the rise of the daily newspapers in the 1880s, more than half of all newspapers in the United States were sold by newsboys (and a few newsgirls). Newspapers that previously had appeared only in morning editions began to be offered in afternoon edit…
Paris in the 19th century was as notorious for its noxious odors as it was for revolutionary riots. The streets overflowed with rubbish and horse dung, and anyone caught short in the open simply relieved themselves where they stood. To remedy this, city…
This photo collection shows color images of the lifestyle, windmills, canals, cities, and countryside of the late 1890s Netherlands. The pictures are created using the Photochrom process which is a technique that applies colors on black and white images…
On May 23, 1914, the SS Komagata Maru, a steamship carrying 376 passengers of Punjabi passengers - largely Sikhs but also some Hindus and Muslims - arrived on the west coast of the Dominion of Canada. Based on laws implemented to limit the immigration o…