"Inhabitants of the Fantom City."  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1882. 

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to see another version.

Here's an example of "the creation of mystery in the lighting of open courts," from the Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, 1917.  The "third dimension in light" is achieved through a combination of white flood light and color relief light.  The scintillator and fireworks were approximately one-third of a mile in the background."

The eclipse of August 31, 1932.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to bring on the night.

Here's an early celebrity endoresement — Father Time vouching for a pocket watch.  Circa 1890.

From De Goddelycke Voorsienigheydt Uytgebeeldt in Joseph Onder-Coninck van Egypten, 1710.

From The Fairy Foxes, a Chinese Legend, told in English by Mrs. Archibald Little, 1895.

"What a simple matter this thing of communicating with the spirits has turned out to be."  An illustration by M. L. Blumenthal for The Saturday Evening Post, 1920.  This should be of interest: The Care & Feeding of a Spirit Board.

"Love's young dream.  Pleasanter to the parties concerned than to the neighbors."  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1871.   This should also be of interest: How to Be Your Own Cat.

Here's a precursor to the phenomeon of people not writing back.  Date uncertain.

They tell us that paisley is merely a design or a symbol, but don't believe their lies.  In this figure from Behavior of the Lower Organisms by Herbert Spencer Jennings, 1906, we see that paisley behaviour is carefully studied, if not fully understood.  The top right arrow shows the direction the paisley turns in response to stimulation, while the three interior arrows indicate the direction of the beat of the cilia.  "What form of life is paisley, exactly?" asks Jude Stewart in Salon.  Common answers include an uncurling date palm shoot, a cypress pine, a leech, a lotus, and a mango, but the truth may have us reaching for our hankies.

Meanwhile, Uel Aramchek posits that paisleys are artifacts from a parallel universe.

You've heard of an airplane's "horsepower," but did you know how literally to take that?  From c. 1937.

A press notice from magician Vernon S. Raymond, 1906.

From back when lead was a selling point for paint.

Our custom widget that checks for duplicated images suggested this pairing.  We note several similarities: pointy ears, snakes/tendrils, full moon/clock face.  Click each image for its source.

"Look at the 'boidy.'"  From the Arthur O'Connor scrapbook, 1949, courtesy of the NDSU Archives.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to reveal the larger version.

"Beautiful Birmingham."  From c. 1907.

From Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Interagency Bison Management Plan for the State of Montana and Yellowstone National Park, 1998.

"We know that flying horses don't exist" (Bertrand Russell's Philosophy of Logical Atomism).  (Contrary proof courtesy of the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive.)

"Britain needs you at once."

The colors of "any reasonable rainbow" include "white for inside and outside."  From c. 1890.

Here's a fine line of screech owls from Bird Lore, 1919.

From De Kapelle der Dooden by Abraham a Sancta Clara, 1741.

A nightmare involving Abraham Lincoln.  From Fun magazine, 1864.

"Everything was fitting together just right.  All of the Somethings were living things and were growing" (J.B. Symons, in something called The Turms [sic] of Peace).

"I'm haying a ___ of a time in Coney Island."  Date uncertain.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to change the light.

She Walks in Battledress.

"'Crystal Geyser' near Green River, Utah," circa 1940.

"A dandy skeleton," from The New Hyperion, 1875.

Here's some vintage pixelation from The Oölogist, 1923.

From Stories for the Household by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by A. W. Bayes, 1889.

From The Trail Book by Mary Hunter Austin, 1918.

From Baltimore and Ohio Employees Magazine, 1922.

Here's some art that's been altered to fit a room, from Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1873.

"The statue of Agassiz, Stanford University after Earthquake April 18, 1906."

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to force a smile on this Pacific Southwest Airlines personality

Rodents are inextricable from mechanisms with dials.  This we know from the nursery ("Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock") and the laboratory (Helen Hubbert's 1915 dissertation about albino rats, in which a chartometer figures).

From the Costică Acsinte Archive.

Here's a precursor to the retractable dog leash, from c. 1890.

"Ekko" by Theodor Kittelsen, ca, 1920.

Here's a startling vision at the astrologer's, from The London Apprentice and the Goldsmith's Daughter of West Chepe by Pierce Egan, 1855.

From The Waldorf Family by Emma Embury, 1848.

Did nobody tell the LSAT writers, who "always use the literal (or dictionary) meaning of a word," that the word set alone famously has over 460 definitions?

From Fun magazine, 1864.

A detail from a CB Radio card, date uncertain.

The is one of the many tools we use to insert an asterisk.  From Dreer's Garden Book, 1917.

"We wear our years like a red badge of courage — and some of us even admit our age" (Kay Allenbaugh, Chocolate For A Woman's Blessings).  Our photo is courtesy of the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive.

"Friends reduced to shadows."

From 1886. 

From Playroom Stories by Georgiana Craik, 1863.