1. John Holliday Perry’s Private Underwater Habitat
John Holliday Perry started diving at a time that he called a few years B.C., Before Cousteau developed the aqualung. He built most of the submarines for the James Bond movie Thunderball, and kept a few for his own use on a private island in the Bahamas. At right is his shark hunter which he used to access a private underwater habitat in 1990. The house was about 30 ft down, and entered through an opening on the floor. He liked to spend time down there listening to Brahms, Beethoven, and Belafonte, while watching the fish swim by. RIP John, an American original.
Photographed by George Steinmetz.
2. Herbert Ponting’s Portraits from Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition
Ponting, who died in 1935, is best known for photographing Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole in 1911/12.
Found on Flashbak.
3. I Flew the Same Route as the 1920s Airmail Pilots, and Lived to Tell the Tale
Read the full article on The Smithsonian.
Further reading: The Forgotten Giant Arrows that Guide you Across America, left behind by a forgotten age of US mail delivery.
4. “The Copper King Lounge” Union Pacific Streamliner, 1938.
Found on the Internet Archive.
5. Wuppertal, Germay, home to the world’s oldest operating monorail system
the growing German city of Wuppertal needed a railway, but had nowhere to put it. A regular monorail was deemed unsuitable, and an experimental “Floating Monorail” system was selected and constructed through the city and above the river, and remains in popular use today after over 115 years.
Found on Rare Historical Photos.
6. Ski Lift Fail
Found on Tumblr.
7. Highly Amusing Alternate Meanings for Common Words
8. Olden day equivalent of having multiple tabs open – easy access to 7 open books at once
Found on Mildly Interesting.
9. Outdoor cylindrical wine cellar with spiral staircase
At a private residence in London, found on Differ Design.
10. Casa de Retiro Espiritual
Outside of Seville, in the middle of a rolling field, this house is the weekend retreat of a couple with two children. Inspired by the traditional Andalusian house, it has a central patio onto which all rooms open. The house is insulated by the earth, which keeps it naturally cool in the hot, arid southern climate. Two tall, rough stuccoed white walls meet at a right angle to herald the entrance to the house, which is otherwise contained by sinuous walls. Water cascades within both high walls along the handrails, creating a great amount of noise at the bottom of the stairs but becoming increasingly quieter as visitors ascend to the top. The large, continuous living space of the interior area is defined by smooth cavities excavated into the floor. The walls are washed by the soft, diffused light, that descends from the skylights and filters in from the breezy patio.
Designed by Emilio Ambasz.
11. Brigitte Bardot and Kees van dongen, 1958
Found on Flickr.
12. Lotte Reiniger, Early filmmaker and master of Shadow Puppets
Born in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin in 1899, she made more than 60 animated films between the 1910s and the 70s, of which around 40 survive.
Found on the Telegraph.
