Plan of One Tower for the East River Bridge, 1867
When it opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Designed and built by German-born John A. Roebling and his son, Washington A. Roebling, the bridge connected New York and Brooklyn. The remarkable design used Roebling’s patented system of steel wire cable construction. Its graceful limestone and granite towers, pictured here, took 5 years to build.
(Source: research.archives.gov)
Princess Mathilde of Bavaria (1877–1906), daughter of Ludwig III, ca. 1905.
Roman du Chevalier Tristan et de la reine Yseult (écrit par Gassien de Poitiers)Page de garde du troisième volume, armes de Jean du Mas. Comment la veille de la Pentecôte le Roi Arthur devait tenir cour pleine, Lancelot conduit par une demoiselle à l’abbaye, adoubement de Galaad à l’abbaye, apparition du Graal à la table rondeEspinques Evrard d’ (15e siècle) enlumineur
(Source: frenchhistory)
Titanic, Third Class (Emigrant) Ticket
One hundred years ago today the Titanic left Southampton England en route to France and then Ireland to pick up additional passengers for its maiden voyage.
Four days later it hit an iceberg 375 miles south of Newfoundland.
If you were a third class passenger, your chance of survival was 25 percent.
First class passengers had a 62 percent survival rate. Second class passengers had a 41 percent survival rate. The crew had a 24 percent survival rate.
Image: An Emigrant — or third class — ticket for Lillian Asplund. Via Boston.com.
Manuscript in short score: Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande, Act I, Sc. 1.
(Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Coll., Yale Univ.)
I find it interesting that something in the musical hand of Debussy seems to reflect the core values of French music in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries—contrary to the often aired popular misconception of “Impressionism” in music as a careless, hedonistic color wash, precision, balance, and finely measured detail are at the heart of the French school. But it is true that, as with the art of the period, these musical canvases are meant to be appreciated from a certain careful distance.
Sketch of the Battle Field of Shiloh showing the disposition of the Troops under the command of Major General D. C. Buell on the 6th and 7th of April 1862.
The Battle of Shiloh began 150 years ago today on April 6, 1862 in southwestern Tennessee. The costliest battle of the war up to that point, it would only foreshadow the carnage yet to come.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.
Statement by Senator Robert F. Kennedy on the Death of the Reverend Martin Luther King April 4, 1968
(via life)
New York City, ca. 1897.
Source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
The memorandum which sparked the Dreyfus Affair, 1894
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having communicated French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was sent to the penal colony at Devil’s Island in French Guiana and placed in solitary confinement, where he was to spend almost 5 years.
(via frenchhistory)
