The [US] National Trust for Historic Preservation has released its 21st annual list of the nation's Most Endangered Historic Places. Among them: Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, (where Linda Brown tried to register for school, resulting in Brown vs. Board of Education); New York City's Lower East Side; California's State Parks; Philadelphia's Boyd Theatre, and several others. The previous 20 years of Most Endangered Historic Places can be found in the Archive.
posted on May 20, 2008 - View this thread

"“If any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egress and regress unto our town. For we are bound by the law of God and man to do good unto all men and evil to no man.”

Today is the 350th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance - a precursor of the Constitution, and "an iconic record of early Dutch colonial government that proclaimed the necessity of religious freedom of conscience and toleration." As this NYT Op-Ed notes, this document originated (and is currently on display) in "the most diverse neighborhood in the most diverse borough in the most diverse city on the planet."
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - View this thread

In 1627, Schiller's Coelum Stellatum Christianum attempted to replace the mythical constellation figures with Christian figures. More from the Linda Hall Library Digital Services Unit. Art, illustration, and astronomy aficionados will appreciate the beauty of historic celestial atlas illustrations: Bayer's Uranometria 1603 (also the 1661 Edition), Flamsteed - Fortin Atlas Celeste - 1776 (text intro), Celestial Atlas by Alexander Jamieson. HubbleSource is cleaning up scans from one historic atlas and making them available in web and hi-res versions for use in non-commercial applications. (See also: David Rumsey Map Collection, and the exhibition Out of this World (index & T.O.C.), more Images, Artwork and Historical Objects at the US Naval Observatory.
posted on Dec 13, 2007 - View this thread

Puzzled about what to get the history buff, throwback or Luddite on your holiday shopping list? Explore the sutler's wares in the world of historic reproduction clothing! Strut your eighteenth-century style with Jas. Townsend & Son, or dress for the Lewis & Clark expedition with Smoke & Fire. USHist.com provides the finest in Mexican War and Cavalry/Indian War apparel, as well as fashion to end all wars in theWWI collection. Don't forget the ladies (and weak-minded gents) left at home - Blockade Runner offers fine Civil War civvies.
posted on Dec 11, 2007 - View this thread

Crime and punishment - a curiously compelling and quirky collection of historic crime photos, including unusual mugshots, corpses & crime scenes. A few favorite characters: idle and disorderly persons; "something amazing" about Harry; a cocky quartet; an illicit drug trader who "drives his own motor car and dresses well"; a subject who refused to open his eyes; charged with conspiring to procure a miscarriage; and guilty of unlawfully possessing cocaine.
This is just one of many marvelous vintage image sets from a historical consultant from Amsterdam - a mammoth treasure trove!
posted on Oct 3, 2007 - View this thread

Want to live for free (sort of) in a historic home? Maryland, Delaware, and Massachusetts all have resident curatorship programs, in which you can live rent-free in a historic home, provided you spend your own time and money renovating it. Contact your state's historic preservation office to see if there's a program like this near you...
posted on Sep 6, 2007 - View this thread

Classic Car Restorations - I was particularly taken by the Model A and the parade ground car of Stalin.
posted on Jun 26, 2007 - View this thread

The San Francisco Armory, was built in 1914 and its 200,000 square feet spans an entire city block. For 30 years empty, abandoned, defunct, its imposing architecture, modeled on a Moorish castle, has long been an unsettling and intriguing curiosity for local residents. But new life will at least be breathed into this historic monument: the Armory has been purchased by Kink.com [nsfw], a fetish porn studio that will soon begin filming within its walls.
posted on Jan 11, 2007 - View this thread

A gallery of obscure patents.
Bird diapers, a motorized ice cream cone and an apparatus for simulating a "high five" are among the treasures unearthed by delphion's gallery of incredible but real US patents.
See also their gallery of historic patents, featuring, among others, the patent for the hypodermic syringe (1843).
posted on Jun 27, 2003 - View this thread

Bob Dylan Live at Newport, 1965: Maggie’s Farm. 10 MB Quicktime mp3 A notorious and historic moment, that began a legendary year of touring , stolen moments of which are available in several sometimes bootlegged formats .Sometimes, perhaps revised , stories differ at what happened, and, now, post-ironically enough, He appears at Newport again this Saturday.
posted on Aug 2, 2002 - View this thread