In order to fund the Statue, elements of it were shipped from Paris to New York and exhibited to the public – such as the the arm and torch, on display here in Madison Square Park, New York.
The arm and torch could be seen in there for six years, from 1876 and 1882 – and for 50 cents, it was possible to climb up to the torch’s balcony.
Filed under Humor and Observations
c. 1865-1894
Countess di Castiglione
The selfie queen of Paris society
c. 1867
IMAGE: ©RUE DES ARCHIVES/PVDE/GETTY IMAGES
When she first visited the photography studio of Mayer & Pierson in 1856, Virginia Oldoini had already become notorious in Paris society. Married at 17 to Italian Count Francesco Verasis di Castiglione, she had been dispatched to Paris to convince Napoleon III to support Italian unification — instead, she promptly became his mistress.
Their dalliance was brief but helped establish her reputation as a beautiful and enigmatic seductress.
She was enthralled with the study of her own beauty, and collaborated with photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson on over 400 self-portraits.
While Pierson operated the camera, the pose, dress, setting and angle were all conceived by the countess. She was also involved in post-production, directing the printing of the pictures and often painting on top of them herself.
The countess posed in the elaborate and luxurious gowns that she wore at court, reenacting her moments of greatest triumph. She soon expanded her oeuvre to include scenes and costumes inspired by theatre, literature and myth, and even rather voyeuristic shots of her bare feet.
As she grew older, she retreated from high society and became an eccentric recluse, living in an apartment with the curtains drawn, only venturing outside at night. She died in 1899 at the age of 62, but her extensive and distinctive record of herself endures.
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF / ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
The Countess with a child, possibly her son Georges.
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
The Countess with a child, possibly her son Georges.
IMAGE: CHRISTIAN KEMPF/ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1867
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
1894
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1895
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
c. 1865
IMAGE: ADOC-PHOTOS/CORBIS
Filed under Humor and Observations
c. 1860
The little girl who told
Abe Lincoln to grow a beard
“All the ladies like whiskers.”
c. 1846
Springfield, Illinois — Early portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
IMAGE: CORBIS
IMAGE: CORBIS
Abraham Lincoln became president of the United States in October 1860 at the age of 51. But a few weeks earlier he had been judged unequal to the task by 11-year-old Grace Bedell. Young Grace wrote to Lincoln pointing out what was, in her eyes, a serious defect: his lack of facial hair.
c. 1860
Half figure seated portrait of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States.
IMAGE: CORBIS
Oct. 15, 1860
Grace Bedell’s letter to Abraham Lincoln.
IMAGE: DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY, BURTON HISTORICAL COLLECTION
IMAGE: CORBIS
Lincoln wrote back to Grace in the letter below.
(Some experts believe the letter’s spots are from snowflakes landing on the paper, as Grace hurriedly read the letter on her way home from the local post office.)
Oct. 19, 1860
Abraham Lincoln to Grace Bedell.
IMAGE: BENJAMIN SHAPELL FAMILY MANUSCRIPT FOUNDATION
IMAGE: CORBIS
1858
Beardstown, Illinois — Believed to be one of the last photos made before Lincoln grew a beard.
IMAGE: BETTMANN/CORBIS
Less than a month after receiving Grace’s letter, Lincoln had a beard.
Nov. 25, 1860
The first photograph to show Lincoln’s beard.
IMAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
On his inaugural train journey from Illinois to Washington D.C., Lincoln stopped in Westfield, New York (Grace’s hometown) and asked to meet her.
Nov. 8, 1863
IMAGE: CORBIS
In 2009, almost 150 years later, a Liz Bedell, then a 23-year-old staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives, was exploring the Library of Congress’ Lincoln bicentennial exhibition. She saw the original letter from Grace, and Lincoln’s reply, in a display case.
In the exhibition’s visitor log, she wrote: “I cried my eyes out when I saw the letter from Grace Bedell to Abe Lincoln — she’s my great-great aunt, and I grew up with the story not really believing it.”
Filed under Uncategorized
1930s
Rise of the Monowheel
Because a single wheel is all you need for speed.
September 1932
J. A. Purves drives a Dynasphere spherical car, an automobile shaped like a giant radial tire. Mr. Purves was the vehicle’s inventor.
IMAGE: HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS
The bicycle had its origins in 1817 in the Velocipede, a powerless wheeled frame which the rider sat astride. The first reliable report of self-propulsion by means of pedal power dates to the early 1860s.
Almost immediately inventors were attempting to do away with the second wheel, and in 1869 four different machines appeared, one of them the subject of the first monowheel patent.
Why build a monowheel? Working with a single wheel could result in a more efficient mode of transport, as would the associated reduction in size, weight, and resistance. For some inventors, here was a new and simpler form of mechanised locomotion. For others, the monowheel was a toy, a novelty – albeit one with a very high thrill factor.
But there were more than a few problems inherent in the design that inventors sought to overcome – impeded view, lack of stability, the difficulty of steering and the phenomenon of “gerbiling.” Because a monowheel rider relies on gravity to remain upright, if the machine accelerates or brakes too quickly, the rider spins inside the machine like a pet gerbil in its wheel.
In a conventional bicycle one wheel provides the propulsive force, the other, steering, but a monowheel wheel has to provide both. Leaning, using skids providing drag or extra small wheels or a gyroscopic steering mechanism have all been explored. Keeping upright in a monowheel requires skill and some machines employed an extra wide wheelbase to aid this.
Monowheels are still being produced and ridden today. There are monowheel enthusiasts in the UK and a British Monowheel Association, and a Monovelomachine featured in the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A monowheel was also the transport of choice of coughing cyborg bad-guy General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III.
December 1924
IMAGE: POPULAR SCIENCE
Feb. 8, 1932
Electronically driven wheels which revolve while the drivers remain stationary are tested at Bream Sands, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England.
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
February 1932
Dynasphere wheels being driven on Beans Sands near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England.The petrol driven model is on the right and the smaller, electric model is on the left. The inventor Dr J. A. Purves of Taunton hoped to revolutionize modern transport with them.
IMAGE: J. GAIGER/TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
September 1932
A Dynasphere being demonstrated at Brooklands race track, Surrey, England.
IMAGE: H. F. DAVIS/TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
1932
The Dynasphere was capable of speeds of 30mph.
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
September 1932
Weybridge, Surrey, England, UK -The Dynasphere is demonstrated.
IMAGE: AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/CORBIS
Sept. 1, 1931
Swiss engineer M Gerder at Arles, France, on his way to Spain in his “Motorwheel,” a motorcycle with a wheel which runs on a rail placed inside a solid rubber tire.
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
1935
A man on a penny-farthing bicycle alongside Walter Nilsson aboard the Nilsson monowheel.
IMAGE: FPG/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
February 1932
IMAGE: FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
Filed under Humor and Observations
SOURCE: Smithsonian Institution
Filed under Uncategorized
Filed under Humor and Observations
“A sea captain, Jean Marie Le Bris (1817-1872) observed the flight of the Albatross. He caught some of the birds and analysed the interaction of their wings with air. Le Bris built a glider, inspired by the shape of the Albatross and named L’Albatros artificiel. During 1856 he flew briefly on a beach, the aircraft being placed on a cart towed by a horse. He flew reportedly to a height of 100 m for a distance of 200 m.– Wikipedia
Filed under Humor and Observations
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 