Archive · Architecture · Cinema · Observations · Paris

Security openings in the walls of the Royal Opera of Versailles at the 1961 Kennedy reception

Watching newsreel footage of the Kennedys' state visit to France in 1961, I noticed some curious openings in the wall of the Royal Opera of Versailles. What are these little squares, scattered across the different tiers of the auditorium, for? They are neither heating nor lighting vents. They are

Cutaway of a sailing ship showing decks, holds, barrels, cannons and people inside, with a red cross on the mast.

NB! · Archive · Observations · Science

The Design of the São Gabriel, Vasco da Gama's Flagship on the 1497–1499 Voyage to India

I adore diagrams like this! How the São Gabriel, Vasco da Gama's flagship, was built: aboard her, as part of a flotilla of 4 ships, he sailed to India in 1497–1499

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Monarchies

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna and Tsarevich Alexei in the Lilac Study of the Alexander Palace

NB! · Archive · London · Monarchies · People

George V at his coronation in 1911

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Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers corresponded from 1926 for forty years, their long conversation at a distance interrupted only by Arendt's emigration

Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers corresponded from 1926 for forty years, their long conversation at a distance interrupted only by Arendt's emigration. Pupil and teacher became, over the years, not merely each other's correspondents but good friends, and their families even grew close. Their correspondence is

Archive · Monarchies · People

Kutuzov's final days, reconciliation with Alexander I and the funeral procession

On 28 April 1813 Mikhail Kutuzov died of a cold in Bunzlau, aged 68. It is held that before his death the great Kutuzov was at last reconciled with his perpetual adversary, Tsar Alexander I. The constant quarrels between Alexander I and Kutuzov had begun as long ago as 1805,

Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Mores

To Mummy and Papa, in memory of their Coronation, from Lilibet (by hand)

A note from the eleven-year-old Princess Lilibet, the future Queen Elizabeth II, to her parents, George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, on the day of their coronation, 12 May 1937. The loss of simplicity, naivety and spontaneity is, after all, one of the most significant losses mankind suffered

NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies

The future Queen Elizabeth II with her maternal grandmother, Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, in the garden of the family home, St Paul's Walden Bury, in Hertfordshire

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Pop Culture

The hall of Villa Pirondini, an eighteenth-century residence where in the summer of 1990 the Italian band CCCP recorded the album Epica Etica Etnica Pathos

The hall of Villa Pirondini, an eighteenth-century residence where in the summer of 1990 the Italian band CCCP recorded the album Epica Etica Etnica Pathos. The photograph by Luigi Ghirri was on the album cover

Archive · In the Press · Art · Monarchies · Society

"Beware, Brother!" The Ghost of Louis XVI Appeals to Nicholas II on the Cover of the American Satirical Weekly Puck, 8 February 1905, Shortly after Bloody Sunday

Frank A. Nankivell's illustration, with its voice from the past, urged the Russian autocrat to heed the entreaties of his subjects, that he might avoid the guillotine already visible on the horizon. He did not heed them

Archive · Books · Observations · Humour

Sketch of an animal's head on the draft of the poem “Andrey Chenier” of 1825

How about this self-portrait of Pushkin as a horse? Drawing on the draft of the poem “Andrei Chénier”, 1825

Archive · Faith · Science · Mores · People

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov Makes a Most Unexpected Connection Between the Easter Festivities and a Rise in Mortality

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov makes a most unexpected connection between the Easter festivities and a rise in mortality. In one of his letters to Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov, written in 1761, speaking of Easter, Lomonosov describes the dangers to life and the multitude of deaths that overtake the Orthodox people every year.