NB! · Archive · Mores · People · Pop Culture

John Lennon on the knee of his Aunt Mimi Smith, who became his guardian after his parents' divorce and raised him as her own son

Abstract painting with large white shapes on a black ground, pink and blue edges and an orange disc at top right, on a white wall.

Archive · Books

Abstract painting by Natalia Turnova dated 2007

Private. Natalia Turnova, 2007

NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Mores

When the ladies of the court, wearied by the unending ball that was the brief reign of Peter III, complained to him that in the tobacco haze of the boisterous public festivities they were obliged to rub shoulders with comic actresses and dancers, the Empe

Archive · Art · Humour

Beware!

Beware! Take care: these two, one in a white greatcoat, the other in a brown one, may well be Russian generals spying on our barriers French caricature of the Second Empire era, 1854. Jean Geoffroy

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Paris

The Illumination of the Eiffel Tower in 1920

NB! · Archive · Art

Eclipse, Jean Grandville, 1844

NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · Humour

What do you make of the road signs in a book of 1400?

What do you make of the road signs in a book of 1400? I think they are magnificent

Archive · London · Observations · Mores

Pre-Christmas shopping at Woolworths in London in 1955 and life before online shopping

Christmas Eve at Woolworths in London, 1955. Do you remember the time when shops were crowded and noisy, and when going shopping was a serious undertaking in its own right? No snowdrift could daunt you when you knew that any minute now you and Mum would queue at the department

An old car with a tall body, a cross and the word “Radiologie” on its side stands on grass in front of trees.

NB! · Archive · Science · People

Marie Curie created mobile X-ray units during the First World War

The X-ray car was Marie Curie's idea. It dates from the years of the First World War. She also trained 150 nurses to work as technicians in the mobile X-ray laboratory. On board this vehicle they not only took the pictures but also developed them on

NB! · Archive · London · Mores

A drunkard leaning on a lamp post at night in London, 1934

NB! · Archive · Books · Science

Explosive Devices of the Fifteenth Century

Explosive devices of the fifteenth century. From the 1405 book on military technology by the German engineer Konrad Kyeser

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