History

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November 17, 2018

Library of Congress Makes Finding Free to Use Material Easier Than Ever

Where can you go if you want to peruse vintage travel posters, Civil War photography, or explore America via WPA imagery? The Library of Congress, of course. As the United States’ oldest federal institution, the Library Congress has become the de facto repository of all things associated with American history. Thanks to the institution’s large digital collection, it’s possible to gain access to millions of items right from your computer.

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November 9, 2018

History Comes to Life Through Beautiful Colorized Photographs

Bringing a bit of color to history, The Paper Time Machine is an incredible collaboration between Wolfgang Wild (the creator and curator...

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November 9, 2018

World’s Oldest Known Figurative Painting Discovered in Remote Area of Borneo

Researchers from Australia’s Griffith University have made stunning discoveries that are changing the way we think about the history of...

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November 8, 2018

16th-Century Calligraphy Manual Available for Free Download

Calligraphers today have multiple tools at their disposal, including digital means to preserve their beautiful work. Hundreds of years ago, they weren’t as fortunate. Technology wasn’t at enough of an advanced level until about 1440, when the invention of moveable type on the printing press forever changed the way that texts were published. Increasingly, instead of labor intensive hand lettering, texts were printed for widespread consumption.

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October 31, 2018

Día de los Muertos: How Mexico Celebrates Its Annual “Day of the Dead”

Throughout history, cultures across the globe have adopted creative ways to deal with death. In ancient China, they crafted funerary sculptures.

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October 31, 2018

The History of Halloween: Exploring the Age-Old Origins of the Enchanting Holiday

For centuries, people young and old have reveled in the fun and frightening festivities of Halloween.

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This Jewel Box at Yale Is America’s Largest Building Dedicated to Rare Books

One of the largest buildings in America dedicated to rare books and manuscripts, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is a jewel box filled with history. Located on Yale University’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut, the Beinecke can hold 180,000 volumes in its central tower and more than one million volumes in its underground book stacks.

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October 15, 2018

Fascinating Map From 1942 Features Oceans as the Main Focus of the World

When you imagine a world map, what do you see?

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October 8, 2018

Take a Virtual Tour of Every Inch of the New York Public Library’s Incredible Interior

If you love the New York Public Library as much as we do, you’ll enjoy this detailed tour of the...

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October 4, 2018

This 1,400-Pound Device Was the World’s Largest Camera in 1900

To understand just how far photography technology has developed over the past 100 years, take a look at the incredibly large camera used to photograph a train in 1900. As the history of the camera tells us, it wasn’t always so easy to go out and document things we now take for granted.

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October 3, 2018

Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Is Discovered Inside the Coffin of a Saint

Europe’s oldest intact book has been discovered after being closed inside a hermit monk’s coffin for over 400 years.

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September 11, 2018

This Golden ‘Peacock Room’ Is a Masterpiece Transported Across the Ocean

Imagine a room so special that it was dismantled, packed into 27 crates, and floated across the ocean.

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