The Long View

In 1903, David Walsh, M.D., proposed building a national monument in Hyde Park so that the greatness of the British empire might be remembered in 8,000 years.

A square pyramid 150 feet high could enclose sculptures depicting British life and serve as a mausoleum for distinguished Britons. The cost might be defrayed by public subscription.

Asked his opinion, architect Aston Webb wrote, “It sounds to me too grand to have much chance of being carried through in this material age of ours, but I wish you all success.”

April 14, 2026April 13, 2026 | History · Oddities

A Gettysburg Puzzle

This 1867 gunnery manual contains a surprising claim:

I don’t know whether it’s accurate. In On Killing (2014), Lt. Col. Dave Grossman writes, “The obvious conclusion is that most soldiers were not trying to kill the enemy,” but that conclusion is disputed. More here.

March 19, 2026March 18, 2026 | History

Life During Wartime

A recent survey of London school children has shown that youngsters between the ages of five and seven have forgotten so many of the attributes of peacetime living that they will have a hard time adjusting themselves to normal conditions again.

Most of the children, when questioned about such things as street lights or foods like bananas, stared suspiciously at the teacher and indicated plainly that they did not believe in their existence.

— New York Times, June 1943

(Shown a seashell, one boy replied, “That’s no shell. Shells come out of guns.”)

March 16, 2026March 15, 2026 | History · Society

Paperwork

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.

— Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1838

(Daniel Dennett: “A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.”)

March 11, 2026March 10, 2026 | History · Literature · Quotations · Society

Portrait

In 1865, Iowa lithographer W.H. Pratt wrote out the text of the Emancipation Proclamation in carefully varied density to produce this result.

February 27, 2026February 26, 2026 | History

Down Under

How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? Or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? That the crops and trees grow downwards? That the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens are mentioned among the seven wonders of the world, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains?

— Lactantius, Institutiones Divinae, 303

February 26, 2026February 25, 2026 | History · Science & Math

Tops

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:02_Pantheon_Dome.jpg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

At the time of its completion under Hadrian, the Pantheon in Rome had the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome.

It still does. It’s held that record for nearly 2,000 years.

February 23, 2026February 22, 2026 | History · Technology · Trivia

Illumination

The Tyrians having been much weakened by long wars with the Persians, their slaves rose in a body, slew their masters and their children, took possession of their property, and married their wives. The slaves, having thus obtained everything, consulted about the choice of a king, and agreed that he who should first discern the sun rise should be king. One of them, being more merciful than the rest, had in the general massacre spared his master, Straton, and his son, whom he hid in a cave; and to his old master he now resorted for advice as to this competition.

Straton advised his slave that when others looked to the east he should look toward the west. Accordingly, when the rebel tribe had all assembled in the fields, and every man’s eyes were fixed upon the east, Straton’s slave, turning his back upon the rest, looked only westward. He was scoffed at by every one for his absurdity, but immediately he espied the sunbeams upon the high towers and chimneys in the city, and, announcing the discovery, claimed the crown as his reward.

— Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleanings From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1869

February 3, 2026February 2, 2026 | History · Literature

To the Life

John Owen, one of the last veterans of the French and Indian War, lived to be 107 and posed for this photograph shortly before his death in 1843.

That makes him one of the earliest-born humans ever to be photographed. He was born in 1735.

February 3, 2026February 2, 2026 | History · Technology

Succinct

In November 1943, as they planned a summit meeting, FDR wired Churchill to suggest that Cairo might be too dangerous a location. Churchill responded:

SEE ST. JOHN, CHAPTER 14, VERSES 1 TO 4.

These verses read:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

They met in Cairo.

January 20, 2026January 19, 2026 | History