1. Little Houses on the Prairie
A series on forgotten places around the world by Brendon Burton.
2. Abduction, Woodsen County, Kansas, 1897
Alex Hamilton of Woodsen County, Kansas, was awakened at 10:30 one night by the sound of a disturbance in the cow pasture on his farm. Peering into the night, he observed a huge airship, some 300-feet long, hovering just 30-feet over the frightened herd of cattle. A brightly-lighted control compartment under the craft was occupied by six strange beings clearly visible through transparent panels in the walls of their vehicle. Hearing Hamilton and others approaching, the weird creatures revved-up a big 30-foot rotor under the aircraft which lifted it 300 feet up into the air. Air the same time, a spotlight from the hovering vessel played on Hamilton and company, who had succeeded in getting within fifty yards of the craft.
As the startling airship moved off to the northwest, it carried off a two-year old heifer dangling at the end of a cable dropped about the struggling animal’s neck. The hide, legs, and head of the unlucky cow were discovered four miles away the next day.
Found on Atomic Flash.
3. These 19th Century Board Games
Found on HyperAllergic.
4. The Secret Service has a massive “ink library” housing every kind of ink that from the past century
Why? To catch forged documents. More found on Popular Mechanics.
5. The Secret Pornography Vault underneath the Vatican
The vaults in Vatican City are said to house some of the most dangerous—and potentially scandalous—secrets that the Roman Catholic church possesses. The church stringently restricts access to its vaults … For reasons that totally escape comprehension, the Vatican is rumored to have the largest collection of pornography hidden in its vaults. Naturally, it was all confiscated—but if that was the case, you’d think the Church would just destroy it rather than keep it.
Found on Boredom Therapy.
6. Italian Anatomical Theatres
Mostly photographed at the Surgery School in Postoia. All by Francesca Catasti an Italian artist based in Tuscany. Raised in a family with a strong scientific background, she developed an early interest for ethology and medicine.
7. The Piganino
A conjectural musical instrument using a keyboard as to produce sound from pigs by poking them.
Louis XI of France was said to have challenged Abbé de Baigne to develop such an instrument, believing that it was impossible to do so. The Abbé, a well known constructor, anecdotally accepted the order against payment. The instrument was a variant of an organ using a keyboard to pick the pigs, which were sorted sizewise.
That brutal monarch, Louis XI of France, is said to have constructed, with the assistance of the Abbé de Baigne, an instrument designated a “pig organ,” for the production of natural sounds. The master of the royal music, having made a very large and varied assortment of swine, embracing specimens of all breeds and ages, these were carefully voiced, and placed in order, according to their several tones and semitones, and so arranged that a key-board communicated with them, severally and individually, by means of rods ending in sharp spikes. In this way a player, by touching any note, could instantly sound a corresponding note in nature, and was enabled to produce at will either natural melody or harmony! The result is said to have been striking, but not very grateful to human ears.
Found on Wikipedia.
8. The Thud Experiment
Also known as the Rosenhan experiment, where participants faked hallucinations to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital but then acted normal. They were forced to take antipsychotic drugs to be released.
The study was conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 under the title “On being sane in insane places”. It is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis.
Pictured: the abandoned St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (see number 10 in this previous volume), one of the sites of the Rosenhan experiment.
Found on Wikipedia.
9. Locomotives for the Ruler of Egypt, 19th century
Found on Live Journal.
10. An Engineering School for Women in Paris, 1932
Autogenous weilding lesson, found on the Russian internet.
11. Dinner for One: A Paris Podcast about making it Alone in the City
© Time Inc.
Like many American female expats in Paris, Sutanya’s story started out the same: meet beautiful French man, fall in love with said Frenchman, marry the Frenchman and move to Paris.
Except, this story ends in a separation.
Join her as she share the OTHER “American in Paris” story while redefining her identity in a new city,…
Catch the trailer:
Find the full podcast on iTunes or via Instagram.
12. Philippe Starck’s plans for a ‘phantasmagoric’ hotel in Metz
Maison Heler’s clubhouse will have views out over the entire city of Metz. The 119-room hotel will provide a base for an 18th-century-style Alsatian club house on top.
