Turning the Book Wheel
TDIH RMS Lusitania sunk by German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland.
Cartoon by William Rogers, political cartoonist for the New York Herald, as found in the book America’s black and white book: one hundred pictured reasons why we are at war , c.1917.
![Born today in 1867, Wilbur Wright. Above, an image of one of his flights taken from a French book in our Air & Space Library rare book collection, Notre vie… par Wilbur et Orville Wright [1909?]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/f0d439694c065c357e85b0d6f026ab20/tumblr_mld7eeuR0n1rn3gulo1_500.jpg)
Born today in 1867, Wilbur Wright. Above, an image of one of his flights taken from a French book in our Air & Space Library rare book collection, Notre vie… par Wilbur et Orville Wright [1909?]
Dr. David Livingstone (yes, that one) was born 200 years ago today March 19th, 1813. To commemorate, some items of Africana housed in our Cullman rare book library.
More information on this legendary explorer, missionary, writer and anti-slavery crusader can be found on the David Livingstone 200 site
![February 12, 1809 Charles Darwin was born. To commemorate this, and the impending Valentine’s day holiday, some musings on marriage from our beloved Chuck D. courtesy of Darwin online.
excerpts from Darwin, C. R. ‘This is the Question Marry Not Marry’ [Memorandum on marriage]. (7.1838) CUL-DAR210.8.2 (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
This is the question
Marry Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. — W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St. Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.
Not Marry No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working ‘in’ without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much) Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —
more Darwin:Charles Darwin’s library on the Biodiversity Heritage Library
Our first edition of On the Origin of Species also on BHL.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/3f023d09fa96079f784ebf5ecc14aed1/tumblr_mhwuf6UPCF1rn3gulo1_500.jpg)
February 12, 1809 Charles Darwin was born. To commemorate this, and the impending Valentine’s day holiday, some musings on marriage from our beloved Chuck D. courtesy of Darwin online.
excerpts from Darwin, C. R. ‘This is the Question Marry Not Marry’ [Memorandum on marriage]. (7.1838) CUL-DAR210.8.2 (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
This is the questionMarry
Not Marry
Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. —
W My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.
Marry — Marry — Marry Q.E.D.
No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working ‘in’ without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives
Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)
Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —
more Darwin:
Charles Darwin’s library on the Biodiversity Heritage Library
Our first edition of On the Origin of Species also on BHL.
Happy Birthday, Jules Verne!
image of Verne surrounded by his prophetic creations from Science and Invention Vol. VIII, No. 4, Aug. 1920
cover and illustrations from the 1874 English translation of De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon Direct in Ninety-seven Hours and Twenty Minutes, and a Trip around it. Trans. by Louis Mercier and Eleanor King)
And out of the night came a silver bird bearing a boy who carried letters of introduction to Paris.
Reblogging this post to for TDIH Charles Lindbergh is born February 4, 1902
On 19 September 1783 the Montgolfier brothers launched the balloon Aérostat Réveillon with the first living creatures ever to fly…in a basket attached to the balloon. Our intrepid (and unwitting) test pilots were a sheep called Montauciel (“Climb-to-the-sky”), a duck and a rooster.
The image above is from Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond Description des Expériences de la Machine Aérostatique de MM. De Montgolfier, et de Celles Auxelles Cette Découverte a Donné Lieu, 1783
Today in 1837 Tiffany & Young (later Tiffany & Co.) was founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young.
Here is a design from a slightly more famous Tiffany (Louis Comfort) in our collection. from The Art work of Louis C. Tiffany (1914) (via Smithsonian Institution Libraries : Stained glass SIL7-49-03)
Today in 1769 Georges Cuvier, French naturalist, was born. Famous for his work in comparative anatomy and paleontology, Cuvier also established the concept of extinction as a fact.
The above is a a plate from The animal kingdom, arranged after its organization, forming a natural history of animals, and an introduction to comparative anatomy. By the late Baron Georges Cuvier … . A later English translation of one of his seminal works, many of which you can check out on the Biodiversity Heritage Library, including this copy of Leçons d’anatomie Comparée which was owned by Charles Darwin.
And out of the night came a silver bird bearing a boy who carried letters of introduction to Paris.
Yesterday was National Aviation Day. To belatedly celebrate, an image from Charles Lindbergh’s We: The Famous Flier’s Own Story of His Life and His Transatlantic Flight 1927
