"Nothing but ice, ice to the horizon.  7 April. 1895."  From Farthest North by Fridtjof Nansen, 1898.

From The Works of Charles Dickens, Household Edition.

From The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby, 1881.

An illustration from a 1903 issue of The Quiver magazine.  The caption reads: "Disguised himself as an Italian quack doctor."

"People Have Been Complaining About This Longer Than You Think" dept.:

"The automatic typewriter, the telegraph, and the penny postal card have done much to cause a gradual decline in the gentle art of correspondence." —Donald Ogden Stewart, Perfect Behavior (a mock etiquette book from 1922

Q: How can a bug become horse armor?

A: With determination!

—Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000)

Here's a blank map of Scotland, from an 1822 census report.

Viewed under a microscope, religions are composed of ions.

"Begins dearly beloved & ends in amazement!"  From The Sisters, or the Fatal Marriages by Henry Cockton, 1851.

Here's a precursor to The Flintstones, from A Lord Mayor's Diary, 1906-7 by William Purdie Treloar, 1920.

Time travel is possible because Father Time's soap bubbles of the years linger.  From Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.  [In honor of Marja Lingsma's photos [a & b] of her parents blowing bubbles.]

Santa Claus is really the Easter Bunny, as revealed in St. Nicholas magazine, 1915.

Eat, sleep, talk, from Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

"The magic cane that polished many a clown," from Knaresborough Castle Yard, 1879.

Here's a spooky moment from Moreton, or the Doomed House, 1847.

Here's another precursor to the famous finale of Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, this time from Az 1848-49-iki Magyar Szabadságharcz Története by György Gracza, 1894.  [Previously, and better, here.]

From The Choice Works of Thomas Hood, 1881.