Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Mores

Theodora, Olga and Kira Kirillovna at the 1956 wedding of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria

Girlfriends Meet over a Glass of Sparkling Wine to Talk About Princes. From left to right: Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark, elder sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; Princess Olga of Yugoslavia; and the Prussian Princess Kira Kirillovna Romanova, Princess of the Blood Imperial. The photograph was taken

NB! · Archive · Mores · Education

Boys from Ardingly College travelling home for the Christmas holidays, 1926

NB! · Archive · Books · People

Jorge Luis Borges at the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial in 1983

NB! · Archive · Books · People

Romain Gary, one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century, in the uniform of the Free French Air Force at the funeral of General de Gaulle, the founder of that formation, in November 1970

Archive · Books · London · Observations · Heritage · Society

The Ministry of Justice in England is planning to digitise historical documents from its archives

The Ministry of Justice in England is planning to digitise historical documents from its archives. We are speaking of wills covering at least the last two hundred years. This is held to be a boon for historians and genealogists, who will gain access to the documents. Where does this initiative

NB! · Archive · Moscow

Snowdrifts on Kuznetsky Most in 1918

Russian icon: a bearded saint with a halo, in red and gold vestments, holds an unrolled scroll; four figures on a cloud appear in the upper left, with inscriptions above.

Archive · Faith · Books

Icon of Saint Avvakum holding a scroll, with figures on a cloud

... Send me some little keepsake: a spoon, or a bowl, or some such thing. Or have you nothing of your own either? My poor dear fathers! Well, bear it, for Christ's sake! So be it! For I am rich: I have fish and milk aplenty, by the grace

NB! · Archive · Geography · Books · Nature

This Is What Snow Looks Like in Olaus Magnus's Description of the Northern Peoples, 1555

Archive · Faith · Books · Ethnography

In the 1642/3 edition of Symeon Metaphrastes' "Services and Life of Nicholas the Wonderworker", a curious eighteenth-century note appears in the margin of one page:

"If things go completely badly, pray to dear little Nicholas: he will drop to his knees before Christ and beg forgiveness for you." The main thing to know about the veneration of Saint Nicholas the Pleasant in Russia.

NB! · Archive · Faith

Jews in the German Army on a Frosty Hanukkah, 1916

NB! · Archive · Society · Humour

Cholera Stays Away from France for Fear of Catching the Flu

Medieval miniature in an initial: Christ in a blue cloak rises above the tomb while helmeted guards with weapons sleep around it.

Archive · Faith · Art · Books

Risen Christ leaves the tomb past sleeping guards in a medieval miniature

The Resurrection of Christ from the Sherborne Missal, 1399–1407. Christ leaves the tomb while the guards set over it sleep