Pictured first is an ancient precursor to the Rabbit-Duck Illusion (1892), excavated from the Hopewell Mound City Group in Ohio and depicted in The Antiquarian (1897).

From The Baby's Museum by Uncle Charlie, 1882.

Here's a precursor to the 'couch potato' phenomenon of the 1970s, from Bachelor Ballads and Other Lazy Lyrics by Harry Spurr and illustrated by J. Hassall (1899).

From Lays and Legends of the Weald of Kent by Lilian Winser and illustrated by Margaret Winser, 1897.

From Nasby in Exile by David Ross Locke, 1882.

A close encounter with a Grey from Eaglehawk and Crow A Study of the Australian Aborigines by John Mathew (1899).

"Party animal" traces back to 1982 (if you trust Merriam-Webster), but here are some true party animals depicted in Broadside Black-letter Ballads, Printed in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, edited by John Payne Collier, 1868.

From The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby, 1881.

Here's a precursor to Bonnie and Clyde being riddled with bullet holes, from Film Flashes: The Wit and Humor of a Nation in Pictures, 1916.

The lady with a pig's head, from The Book of Days by Robert Chambers, 1864.

"Sing, or by Heavens I'll shorten your nose," from Snarleyyow by Frederick Marryat, 1897.

"It is nearly eleven o'clock, and the cold thin rain, which has been drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest."  From The Works of Charles Dickens, Household Edition.

An illustration from The Tantalus Tour by Walter Parke (1896).

An illustration from An African Millionaire by Grant Allen (1897).

Here's a precursor to the flamboyant Cockettes (founded 1969), from the medieval land of contraries, Cockayne.  From Carols of Cockayne by Henry Sambrooke Leigh, 1874.

From our one-letter words department, here's the letter T meaning "tea."  Our illustration appears in Gazetteer and Business Directory of Rutland County, Vt., for 1881-82.