"The imaginary horse isn't real, but your idea of it is real" (Marietta McCarty, Little Big Minds, 2006).  Photo as scanned by the Costică Acsinte Archive.

You've heard of the force which holds the celestial bodies in orbit, and here he is, in the Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, 1917.

It's true that "the news surrounds us" (The Dick Davis Dividend, 2008).  Photo scanned by Oregon State University.

In the "Prologue to the Cook's Tale," Chaucer notes that "offering shelter is a ticklish thing."   From Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1961.

Here's a precursor to the Atkins diet.  This ice cream vending machine has been marked "Permanently out of order."  From Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1963.

From 1903.

Here are two ghostly photographs courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to reveal the photo that inspired the artwork. From 1923.

Here's a giant spider crab from Japan, featured in The American Museum Journal, 1904.

You've heard of "the booze talking," but here's how it happens, c. 1935.  From the Leslie Jones Collection, Boston Public Library.

There are few certainties in life, but here's a sure thing, courtesy of the Stanford Historical Archives.

"The first heaven, that of the Moon, is guarded by the lowest order of angels" (in Dante's Paradiso, as noted in The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories), and here's what it looks like.  A guard stands before Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt's moon model at the Field Columbian Museum, 1898.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to shift the scene by moments.

"It seems our pretty young royals are shrinking before our eyes" (A Current Affair, July 13, 2011).  Pictured, Brisbane decorates for Queen Elizabeth II in 1954.

From c. 1905.

As the words "Printed Backwards" are written forwards, we flipped the image.  Date unknown, scanned by the Miami University Libraries.

A double exposure from a 1933 yearbook, as scanned by Miami University Libraries.

From The Bee-Keeper's Review, 1907.

One is reminded of Woman Has Two Faces: Re-examining Eve and Lilith in Jewish Feminist Thought.  From a 1940 yearbook, as scanned by Miami University Libraries.

Here's a precursor to the "museum in a box" concept.  Chicago's Field Museum packed carefully back in 1927 (for an expedition in Abyssinia).