Category: HISTORY

March 21, 2015 at 4:15 pm

Guy Finds WWII Photos of his Hometown and Reshoots What it Looks Like Today

Guy Finds WWII Photos of his Hometown and Reshoots What it Looks Like Today

Last summer, reddit user MisterBrick found a collection of photos from WWII of his hometown of Dijon, France. As a photo project, he decided to reshoot the pictures to show what the places look like today, 70 years later. If you’re digging this series, you can find many more “then and now” projects featured…

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February 22, 2015 at 2:35 pm

CT Scan Reveals Buddha Statue is Actually a Tomb for a Mummified Monk

CT Scan Reveals Buddha Statue is Actually a Tomb for a Mummified Monk

A CT scan has recently revealed that a Buddha statue is actually a tomb, containing the mummified remains of what scholars believe is the body of Buddhist master Liuquan, a monk who lived in the 1100’s. The statue is currently on display at Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands (exhibit info here). The exhibit marks…

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February 17, 2015 at 7:26 pm

Picture of the Day: Times Square, D-Day, 1944

Picture of the Day: Times Square, D-Day, 1944

Photograph by Howard Hollem, Edward Meyer or MacLaugharie In this poignant photograph, people at Times Square in New York City are seen reading a news ticker about D-Day (Normandy landings), the largest seaborne invasion in history. D-Day occurred on 6 June 1944 when Allied forces targeted a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of Normandy, France…

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February 17, 2015 at 10:35 am

12 Exquisite Artworks Carved from Jade

12 Exquisite Artworks Carved from Jade

Jade is an ornamental rock applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals: nephrite and jadeite. Last May, the Metropolitan Museum of Art released a collection of 400,000 high-resolution digital images. Be sure to check out the incredible collection here. The Sifter went through the MET’s amazing archive…

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February 5, 2015 at 7:02 pm

20 Amazing Letters Worth Reading

20 Amazing Letters Worth Reading

Since 2009, Shaun Usher has curated the incredible blog, Letters of Note; a collection of fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes and memos throughout history. Usher has carefully catalogued nearly 1000 letters and going through the archive is a recurring ritual for the Sifter. Last year, 125 of the most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters…

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January 28, 2015 at 1:29 pm

The Largest Airplane Ever Built

The Largest Airplane Ever Built

The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a cargo aircraft that was designed by the Soviet Union’s Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft…

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January 27, 2015 at 4:20 pm

Picture of the Day: NASA’s SDO Captures its 100 Millionth Image of the Sun

Picture of the Day: NASA's SDO Captures its 100 Millionth Image of the Sun

Photograph by NASA/Goddard/SDO An instrument on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured its 100 millionth image of the sun. The instrument is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA, which uses four telescopes working parallel to gather eight images of the sun—cycling through 10 different wavelengths—every 12 seconds. This is a processed image of SDO…

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January 24, 2015 at 4:58 pm

Artists Recreates Six Generations of Family Portraits Dating Back 200 Years

Artists Recreates Six Generations of Family Portraits Dating Back 200 Years

Artist, photographer and baker extraordinaire Christine McConnell (christinehmcconnell.com) has recreated six generations of her ancestors portraits, following her maternal line back nearly two hundred years to hear Great-great-great-grandmother Martha, who was born in 1821. The attention to detail in this photo series is fantastic as McConnell successfully recreates the look, feel and wardrobe of…

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January 21, 2015 at 1:40 pm

Repairing a $12 Million Monet After It Has Been Punched

Repairing a $12 Million Monet After It Has Been Punched

Photograph via @MetroUK on Twitter On 29 June 2012, Andrew Shannon entered the National Gallery of Ireland and punched a hole through a Monet painting from 1874, valued at nearly $12 million. While Shannon was recently sentenced to 5 years in prison, the painstaking process of restoring the prized artwork took an arduous 18…

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January 15, 2015 at 6:27 pm

Picture of the Day: Steam Locomotives at the Roundhouse in Chicago, 1942

Picture of the Day: Steam Locomotives at the Roundhouse in Chicago, 1942

Photograph by Jack Delano Seen above are steam locomotives of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway in the roundhouse at the Chicago, Illinois rail yards. The photograph was taken in December of 1942 and now resides at the Library of Congress. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway operated more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of track…

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