life:

On the 40th anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s death, LIFE.com celebrates the master’s career with a series of pictures made by photographer Gjon Mili over roughly two decades in the middle part of the last century.

(Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

theoddmentemporium:

‘The Circus’

A circus scene made from cloth by an eight-year-old Queen Elizabeth II (1934)

soviet-boy:

Crumbled remains of a statue of Alexander III, 1917.

(via architectureofdoom)

collective-history:

The Wawona tree, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite Valley, California ca. 1918

1969-ben a képen látható 2300 éves fa kidőlt, mert nem bírta megtartani a koronáján lévő KÉT TONNA havat.

Azóta Fallen Wawona Tree a neve, értelemszerűen :D

(via collectivehistory)

humanscalecities:

Figure 6 (appears on page 72 of the book): “Diffusion of the movable-type printing press over time. From Dittmar. “Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact of the Printing Press.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 3 (August 1, 2011): 1133-72, by permission of Oxford University Press.

The Role of Place in Discovery and Innovation

todayinhistory:

October 15th 1888: ‘From Hell’ letter received

On this day in 1888, the infamous ‘From Hell’ letter was sent allegedly by serial killer ‘Jack the Ripper’. The letter was sent to George Lusk, the head of Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The letter told how the killer had supposedly taken a kidney from one of his victims, eaten one half, and another half was sent with the letter. Of all the letters sent claiming to be the murderer, this one is most often considered legitimate, as it did not use the pseudonym ‘Jack the Ripper’ and the most recent victim had had her kidney removed.

collective-history:

Madam C.J. Walker and several friends in her automobile.

She was the first woman in America to become a millionaire by her own endeavors, as well as the first African American millionaire. 

(via collectivehistory)

collective-history:

Henri LaMothe celebrates his 70th birthday by jumping 40 feet into 12 inches of water at the Flatiron Building, 1974. 

(via collectivehistory)

collective-history:

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev applauds U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon after his speech at American National Exhibition in Moscow.

(via collectivehistory)

aerotommi:

Charles de Gaulle in his Citroën DS via karburator.hu

collective-history:

The term Timbuktu Manuscripts applies to 700,000 medieval African documents, ranging from scholarly works to short letters, that have been preserved by private households in Timbuktu. The manuscripts were passed down in Timbuktu families and are mostly in poor condition. Some of the manuscripts date back to the 13th century.

With the demise of Arabic education in Mali under French colonial rule, appreciation for the medieval manuscripts declined in Timbuktu, and many were being sold off.

The majority of Manuscripts are in Arabic or in African languages written in Arabic script or Africanized versions of the Arabic alphabets, collectively called “Ajami script”. The written local languages in the manuscripts include Songhay and Tamasheq. These manuscripts deal with a wide variety of subjects including mathematics, science, philosophy, Islam, astronomy, law and even contracts.

via

(via collectivehistory)

life:

For millions of people who recall the 1972 Olympics in Munich and who still shudder at the memory of the slaughter unleashed by terrorists there, those words are indelible. They were spoken by ABC’s Jim Mckay — the man behind the famous “thrill of victory, agony of defeat” introduction to the network’s long-running show, Wide World of Sports — when he learned that Israeli athletes and coaches taken hostage by terrorists from the Palestinian group Black September had been murdered.

Here, on the 40th anniversary of the September morning when the terrorists first attacked members of the Israeli team in their apartments in the Olympic Village and took them hostage, LIFE.com presents Rentmeester photos that ran in LIFE a few weeks after the murders — including one image (the first in this gallery) that for countless people became the photograph from the Munich Massacre: a portrait of, in the magazine’s phrase, “a masked figure of doom.”

See the photos here on LIFE.com

todayinhistory:

September 2nd 1666: Great Fire of London begins

On this day in 1666 the Great Fire of London broke out in Thomas Farynor’s bakery in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. Strong winds created a firestorm which burned for 3 days and destroyed thousands of buildings, leaving almost 100,000 without homes. St. Paul’s Cathedral also fell to the flames. There were only 6 recorded deaths, however there may have been more which were not recorded.

“…it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruins.”
- Samuel Pepys

collective-history:

A photographer balances on the outermost edge of the 300 meter transmitter, Königs wusterhausen, Germany, 1932 

German Federal Archives

(via collectivehistory)

collective-history:

Herero survivors after an escape through the arid Kalahari desert.

The Herero and Namaqua Genocide is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century. It took place between 1904 and 1907 in German South-West Africa (modern day Namibia), during the scramble for Africa.

On January 12, 1904, the Herero people, led by Samuel Maharero, rebelled against German colonial rule. In August, German general Lothar von Trotha defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of thirst. In October, the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate.

In total, from 24,000 up to 100,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama died. The genocide was characterized by widespread death by starvation and thirst because the Herero who fled the violence were prevented from returning from the Namib Desert. Some sources also claim that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert wells.

In 1985, the United Nations’ Whitaker Report classified the aftermath as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and therefore one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century.

The German government recognized and apologized for the events in 2004, but has ruled out financial compensation for the victims’ descendants.

via

(via collectivehistory)