From Le Salon de 1869 Charivarisé.

Here's a precursor to the Pez candy dispenser, from Nouveaux Voyages en Zigzag à la Grande Chartreuse by Rodolphe Toepffer, 1854.

Did you know the everyman John Doe shortened his name when he immigrated (as did John Q. Public, who was originally of the proud Publicus line)?  We find John Doughgob's original signature in The American Legion Weekly, Dec. 23, 1921.

The largest crystal ball we've encountered, from The Saturday Evening Post, 1839.

Here's a precursor to the 1927 film It, with Clara Bow as the "it girl."  Our illustration is by L. Hurley for The Echo yearbook of Greensboro College, 1921.  (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)

The alphabet departed this life on May 15, 1898, as we learn in Out-of-Door Memorials: Mausoleums, Tombs, Headstones and All Forms of Mortuary Monuments, 1898.

At the end of The Maltese Falcon, the priceless statuette is at large.  But did you know it ended up at stately Wayne Manor?  Our proof appears in episode 22 of Batman.  This is perhaps not so very surprising, as "the world of The Maltese Falcon is similar to that of the TV version of Batman and Robin" (John Docker, Postmodernism and Popular Culture, 1994).

"Yes, an entire picture comes forth as you connect the dots." —Daveta Brown, Are You Ready for the Frontline?