"Queer houseboat propelled by engine and air screw."  (Aren't they all?)  A headline from Popular Mechanics, 1920.

You've seen the memes, but you knew there had to be a first one.  "Camera catches cats in unusual pose" -- a headline in Popular Mechanics, 1908.

You've seen those stunt checks for charity, but here's the "largest real check cashed by [a] Los Angeles bank," from Popular Mechanics, 1922.

"Disinfecting shower bath given theater audience."  From Popular Mechanics, 1919. 

"The magic power of a few little lines."  From Popular Mechanics, 1922.

You've seen the unlikely animal tombstones with rhyming epitaphs at Disney's Haunted Mansions, but here's one for a trout that dates back to 1855.  From Popular Mechanics, 1913.

The year in review -- "rowing in a boat that does not move."  From Popular Mechanics, 1908.

In 1970, Joni Mitchell sang that "We are stardust," but here's a precursor from 1896: Stellar Dust, Or The Life Force by P. A. Graves.

You've heard the euphemism "friend of Dorothy," but there's been something queer about Kansas toradoes since at least 1913.  From Popular Mechanics.

"If only I knew how to locate the trouble."  From Popular Mechanics, 1919.

Here's a precursor to I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich a.k.a William Irish.  It's The Bride of a Ghost by Joseph Jones, 1883.

You've heard that carrier pigeons can travel for 10 hours without rest, but did you know how?  From Popular Mechanics, 1918.

Fans of David Lynch will recognize this precursor to his character of the Lady in the Radiator.  From Popular Mechanics, 1921.

Imagine seeing headlines like these, today.  Vestiges of another age.  "City eyesore transformed into Greek theater" (Popular Mechanics, 1917).  "Sunken-garden beauty spot made from ugly gully" (Popular Mechanics, 1920).

The headlines at the top of our collage proclaim that Mr. Hogan is a prophet who has a "vivid air dream," yet in the clipping he doesn't remember his first flight and tends to think about his next dessert while piloting.  How can we reconcile this seeming conflict?  "Sometimes the visionary's discernment is blinded by familiarity" (Jackie L. Green, Vanguard of Visions and Dreams, 2012).

This vintage headline is so old-Hollywood — once a dreamboat makes his entrance, a happy ending is inevitable.

"An amazingly rapid development — but gargoyle keeps pace": a headline from the magazine Flyg, Stockholm, July 1934.

We presume that as Sally Field aged, her roles got less interesting, too.  (Shame on the Washington Post headline writer.)

Here's a precursor to "Toxic Waste" sour candy, from Royal Society of Health Journal, 1814.