A Cabinet of Curiosities
- Dr Clive Beautyman
- Feb 17, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 15, 2025
A miscellany of links to other websites.
Another striking photograph from @StuartHumphryes taken in the 1850's.
A witness to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln 1865 appears on 1956 Game Show "I've Got A Secret"
(Image National Portrait Gallery)
(Image - Lithograph 1888)
He crossed the Delaware with Washington in 1776
A photograph of the English academic Martin Routh (1755-1854) who was one of the earliest-born Englishmen to be photographed. He once met a woman who had seen Charles II (1630-1685)
This site and this and this contain a list of historical events which surprisingly took place in the same year (the accuracy of some is doubtful).
The image shows the first fax machine (1843) and settlers on the Oregon Trail around the same time.
An enhanced film of a day at the beach in 1896 The Twitter thread also shows the original film clip.
This Greenland Shark was photographed around 2017. Scientists estimate it was most probably born around the year 1627, making it 393 years old in 2020 within a possible age range age of 275-515 years.
This is also included a Twitter thread by @JoaquimCampa of films of cities around the year 1900 including New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Havana, Sarajevo (1914), Madrid, Marseille, Belfast, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Rochdale, Moscow, Barcelona, Tokyo, Beijing, Cairo, Bucharest, Nottingham, Manchester, Istanbul et al.
A photograph of Alim Khan (1880-1944), Emir of Bukhara, taken in 1911. It is from a collection of very early colour photographs taken by Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky (self-portrait below left) documenting the Russian Empire in the years 1909-1915. Below right - "Laying concrete on the dam's foundation on the Oka River. 1912"
The writer Leonid Andreyev (1871-1919) also took colour photographs of Russia in the same era - he is seated at the table back right in this photograph from 1912. His photographs (more actually autochromes) are held by the University of Leeds.
This is where North Two Ocean Creek in Wyoming splits into two branches. The left one drains into the Atlantic Ocean, the right into the Pacific Ocean.
Below, two soliders who fought under Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars. Based on his campaign medal the man on the left (photo from @StuartHumphryes ) probably in the Peninsular War (1807-1814). On the right (from @The LWA ) is John Jack who also fought at Waterloo (1815)
These are the last survivors of the Battle of Waterloo photographed 65 years after the battle at London’s Royal Hospital in Chelsea in June 1880. John McKay was born aboard HMS Victory in 1785.
From @HistoryGirlBW
This is actual footage of the wife of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) arriving at Astapovo Railway Station looking for her husband who had left her on 10th November 1910. She was initially refused entry to the station master's house to see him but was allowed in a few hours before his death on 13th November. The full account is here.
This is the first motion picture of London - taken by Wordswoth Donisthorpe in 1890 in Trafalgar Square.
There are several films of street traffic in the 1890s - this example has been captioned with the locations.
Other examples, along with other historical footage, can be found on the Brtish Pathe website.
Two photographs of Dorothy Catherine Draper (1807-1901) born in Newcastle upon Tyne. The one on the left taken by her brother in 1839 or 1840 may be the earliest portrait photograph taken in USA and is certainly the first taken of a woman in USA. The other is from the 1890s
Violet Jessop (1187-1971) was on board the liner RMS Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke in 1911 - it made it back to Southampton without sinking. She was on board her sister ship RMS Titanic when it sank in 1912, and on board the third sister ship RMS Britanic when it sank after striking a mine in 1916 - she survived both sinkings.
Also on board on all three occasions was "the unsinkable" stoker Arthur John Priest who in addition survived the sinkings of HMS Alcantara and SS Donegal and a collision while aboard RMS Asturias. He died in Southampton from pneumonmia aged 49.
Millvina Dean (1912-2009) at two months old was the youngest passenger on board RMS Titanic and she was the last living survivor.
A striking photo (via @Kiefer_Matt_ ) of Vilhelm and Eric Carlberg competing for Sweden at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.
Timothy the tortoise (circa 1844 - 2004) was the last survivor of the Crimean War (1853-6) having served as mascot on HMS Queen during the first bombardment of Sevastopol.
This is from the YouTube channel Life in the 1800s which has several other interesting videos.
A 1913 (colourised) photograph of Amundsen, Shackleton and Peary. (via @GrayConnolly)
The interior of a 1926 Rolls Royce (credit @ABeautifulCult1 )
From the NASS YouTube channel which has lots of historic footage (mostly USA-based)
This is Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (1800-1891) who was a Prussian Field Marshal. He is the earliest born person who can be heard on a sound recording.
This video gives the background and also covers Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville who invented a sound recording device in 1857 (predating Edison's invention of 1877) but had no means of playing the recordings back - they were intended to be an automatic version of shorthand. Recent work has enabled some of his recordings from 1860 to be heard and these are the earliest sound recordings
This is La Maison de Jeanne which dates from the late 15th century and is probably the oldest house in France.
This is the the oldest verified photograph of London. It was taken in September 1839 from Trafalgar Square, looking past the equestrian statue of King Charles into Whitehall and Parliament Street beyond.
Photograph enhanced by @StuartHumphryes
This enormous flag is the ensign flown by the Spanish warship San Ildefonso at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The ship was captured by the Royal Navy and the flag was hung inside St. Paul's Cathedral during Lord Nelson's funeral.
The Society for Photographing Relics of Old London between 1875 and 1886 took 120 photographs to preserve a record of old London buildings - some pre-dating the Great Fire in 1666 - which were scheduled for demolition.
The upper photograph taken in 1875 shows the galleried yard of The Oxford Arms coaching inn near St. Paul's Cathedral which was rebuilt after the Great Fire and demolished in 1876.
The lower photograph taken in 1877 shows Cloth Fair.
The photographs for the Society were taken and printed by Alfred & John Bool & Henry Dixon.
Even today Cloth Fair contains the oldest house in the City of London built between 1597 and 1614 and the only one to survive the Great Fire.
Although best known for his London photographs Henry Dixon photographed many other subjects. This is his photograph of the fort at Chitadurga in 1868.
Two images from the parish of St. Mary Axe in London. One of the "The Golden Axe Inn" in around 1883 and the other of 30 St. Mary Axe tower (aka The Gherkin) in around 2024.
This is a recording of the voice of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria made on 14th December 1915 during World War I.
This article describes the circumstances under which the recording was made and a provides an English translation of the speech.
The Vienna Phonogrammarchiv which hold this recording has been recognised under the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.
This map shows where Franz Joseph was living in 1913-14 along with some of his neighbours. (Unknown source).
The earliest born person to be filmed was Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) who was filmed in 1896.
In 1900 the artist Philip de László (1869–1937) painted a portrait of Pope Leo XIII then aged 90.
In 1933 the same artist painted a portrait of the future Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) at the age of 7.
The lifetime of these two sitters spanned 212 years.
His other portraits included Emperor Franz Joseph, President Calvin Coolidge, Lord Curzon, Emperor Wilhelm II, President Theodore Roosevelt, King George VI, Elinor Glyn, Vita SackvilleWest and King Edward VII.
The Voronov family of Russian peasants listen to the radio for the first time in 1928 (Source)
This is Maria Belvill (1811-99) pictured in 1892. She and her husband John Henry Belville (1795–1856) started a business in 1836 to collect the correct time from Greenwich Observatory every day and sell it to around 200 clients in London. Their daughter Ruth Belville (1854-1943) the Greenwich Time Lady continued the business until 1940.
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