Customers line up at the first McDonald’s hamburger stand at San Bernardino, California in 1948.
Eh, how far they’ve come.
Category Archives: History
Frasier v Ali, Madison Square Garden, March 8, 1971
Oh, my. Ali-Frazier, which even then was more a cultural touchstone than a boxing match, would probably paralyze us if it were held today, leveraging its various themes of race and politics on our social networking fulcrums. America would have to close for business to properly attend to this frenzy. Ashton Kutcher has 6.3 million Twitter followers? Ali would crash the Internet with his feeds (@smokinJoe is so ugly he should donate his face to @BureauofWildlife. #gonnawhupya).
Richard Hoffer, SI
Wadstock
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They built it. They came. They charged accordingly.
Samples from La Guerra Ilustrada – a private archive of propaganda, poster art and ephemera from the Spanish Civil war.
More here.
What!?
No spoons?
A trivia-packed vertical diagram presenting aspects of Irish traditional music and instrumentation from 500BC to the present day, created by heritage retailer Paul Murphy producing “products made in Ireland”.
*prods uilleann*
A recent CT scan of an 11th century Buddha reliquary by Drents Museum in the Netherlands revealed the mummified remains of a Buddhist monk interred within. Identified as Buddhist master Liuquan of the Chinese Meditation School, his organs had been removed prior to mummification and replaced with scrolls of paper covered in Chinese script.
According to Buddhist experts, Liuquan is not actually dead, but in an ‘advanced state of meditation’
The reliquary will be on show at the Hungarian Natural History Museum until the end of May, if you’re in the area.
A 19 year old James Dean at Santa Monica City College in 1950.
The oldest complete deck of playing cards in the world – the Cloisters set – made in the South Netherlands between 1470 and 1480.
The hand-painted suits (possibly an unused gift and so still in near perfect condition) have a hunting theme with hunting horns, dog collars, hound tethers, and game noose instead of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
In 1983, the deck was sold for over $140,000 to the the New York Metropolitan Museum Of Modern Art where it remains on rotating display.
The World’s Oldest Full Deck Of Playing Cards as Almost Lost To History (Business Insider)
Above: The World Trade Center in 1970; Sears Tower in 1970) Chrysler Building in 1929, New York Times Building in 1903, Manhattan Bridge in 1909; San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in 1933; the Empire State Building in the early 1930s and Brooklyn Bridge in 1883.
MORE: 15 Vintage Photos of The US Iconic Buildings And Bridges As They Were Being Built (Vintag)
Body Talk
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The first recorded use of many of the ‘filthiest words in the English language’ by Lapham’s Quarterly.