Photograph courtesy of The Library of Congress These vivid color photos from the Great Depression and World War II capture an era generally seen only in black-and-white. Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1940 and 1944. The…
NEVER FORGOTTEN – THE LOCHNAGAR CRATER Photograph by MIKE ST MAUR SHEIL The detonation of buried mines that formed the Lochnagar crater July 1, 1916 The Lochnagar mine crater on the 1916 Somme battlefields in France is the largest man-made mine crater created in the First World War on the Western…
TYRANNOSAURUS SEX Photograph by MARIO MODESTO You thought that was a typo didn’t you? But oh no, the headline is correct and this exhibit is very real. You can see it for yourself at the Jurassic Museum of Asturias in Spain. And in case the skeletons cast in a mating position weren’t…
THE GREAT BOSTON FIRE OF 1872 – NOV. 9, 1872 Photograph by Joshua Smith The Great Boston Fire of 1872 was Boston’s largest urban fire, and still ranks as one of the most costly fire-related property losses in American history. The conflagration began at 7:20 p.m. on November 9, 1872, in…
OFFICIAL BIRTH DATE OF ORGANIZED CHEERLEADING – NOV. 2, 1898 World’s first cheerleader Johnny Campbell – University of Minnesota Organized cheerleading started out as an all-male activity. In 1898, University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell directed a crowd in cheering “Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-u-mah, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!”, making…
Photograph by LAMBORGHINI In production from 1974 to 1990, the Lamborghini Countach is one of the most iconic sports cars of all time. It pioneered countless design aesthetics such as: the wedge-shaped, sharply angled look seen in countless sports cars of today (including most of Lamborghini’s models since); the ‘cabin forward’ concept which…
THE ERIE CANAL OFFICIALLY OPENS – OCTOBER 26, 1825 Photograph by Clifton Park Collection The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about 363 miles (584 km) from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from…
DAGUERREOTYPE: FIRST COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS RELEASED ‘FREE TO THE WORLD’ – OCTOBER 19, 1839 An 1837 daguerreotype | Photograph by LOUIS DAGUERRE The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silver plated copper plate. The raw material…
COLUMBUS ARRIVES IN AMERICAS. ‘COLUMBUS DAY’ BECOMES OFFICIAL HOLIDAY – OCTOBER 12, 1492 Artwork by Dioscoro Teofilo Puebla Tolin Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday. The event is celebrated…
6TH DEADLIEST EARTHQUAKE IN HISTORY – OCTOBER 5, 1948 Ashgabat Earthquake Memorial The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake, at a magnitude 7.3 Mw, occurred on October 5/6, 1948, near Ashgabat, in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. The earthquake is considered to be the 6th deadliest earthquake in the history of humankind. Due to…