Black-and-white photo of workers on the bed of a drained Venetian canal, with mud and boats and an arched bridge in the distance.

Archive · Geography · Observations

Cleaning of a Venetian canal in 1956 and the depth of Venice's canals

Without its water, Venice does not look its best... 1956: one of the Venetian canals being cleared. Yes, many of Venice's canals are not deep at all, a metre and a half to two at most; the deepest canal reaches 10 metres, and the deepest part of the

NB! · Archive · People · Humour

The 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, in Tracksuit Bottoms and Dress Shoes Aboard the Presidential Aircraft in 1984

Archive · Architecture · Faith · Cinema · Moscow · Heritage

The Pushkin Monument opposite the Strastnoy Monastery, 1936

The Pushkin Monument opposite the Strastnoy Monastery, 1936. Alexander Sergeyevich gazes at the spot where he stands today. One of the most beautiful monasteries in Moscow is occupied by the Central Anti-Religious Museum of the Union of Militant Godless of the USSR, the Central Archive, the Communist University of

Archive · Faith · Mores · Humour

What Did Our Ancestors Think of Those Who Drink Their Own Urine and Eat Beavers?

One of the oldest monuments of Russian polemical writing, the eleventh-century Epistle of Theodosius of the Caves to Prince Izyaslav Yaroslavich on the Latins, counsels not merely abstaining from intercourse with the Latins and not giving them one's daughters in marriage, but also, mark this, neither drinking

Elderly Henri Matisse in glasses sits in bed working with coloured paper, with a row of drawn faces on the wall above him.

NB! · Archive · Art · People

Henri Matisse, paralysed in 1950, kept working from his bed until his death

Henri Matisse at work in bed. In 1950 the artist was paralysed and could no longer walk, but he did not cease to create until his death

NB! · Archive · People · Pop Culture

Audrey Hepburn in Hubert de Givenchy's salon, wearing Givenchy

NB! · Archive · Art · Museums · Heritage · Paris

The Empty Space Where the Mona Lisa Hung After Da Vinci's Painting Was Stolen from the Louvre in 1911

NB! · Archive · The East · London · Monarchies

The Ethiopian Delegation at the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902

A woman in a dark jacket and hat checks the bathing suit of a young woman on a sandy beach, with bathers in the background.

NB! · Archive · Mores · Society

Checking the length of a woman’s bathing suit on a beach in Chicago in 1921

A policewoman checks a girl's bathing dress against the regulation length for bathing costumes. Chicago, 1921

Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Mores · Saint Petersburg

The Heir in a Falconer's Costume at Count Sheremetev's Costume Ball

For the 1894 fancy-dress ball at Count Sheremetev's, the Tsarevich Nicholas came as a falconer. In his diary the heir wrote: "In the evening I put on the kaftan of a 'falconer' from the time of Alexei Mikhailovich; Xenia dressed as a boyar'

NB! · Archive · Mores · Humour

Do you know how to spot the prostitute in this contest, open to both men and women, in a sixteenth-century German manuscript?

Do you know how to spot the prostitute in this contest, open to both men and women, in a sixteenth-century German manuscript? She is the only one in her underwear

NB! · Archive · Books · Mores · People

This Is What a Sixteen-Year Age Gap Looks Like

This is what a sixteen-year age gap looks like. Lev Nikolayevich and Sofya Andreyevna Tolstoy