Pure Historic

A blog devoted to things of our past.

Permalink todaysdocument: Wright Brothers Take Flight On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful sustained powered flight of a heavy-than-air vehicle near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Surfman John T. Daniel of the U.S. Life-Saving Service snapped this picture when the Wright Flyer made its historic first flight. “Original Wright Brothers 1903 Aeroplane (‘Kitty Hawk’) in first flight, December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville Wright at controls. Wilbur Wright at right (First flight was 12 seconds)” By Orville Wright and John T. Daniels, December 17, 1903 (165-WW-713-6); Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs; Record Group 165; National Archives.
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Permalink booksnbuildings: “Shakespeare’s House, The Library. Statford-on-Avon.” Photo c. 1885 (via)
Permalink mothernaturenetwork: 100 years later, scientists still working to unlock mysteries of AntarcticaScientists have turned their attention from mapping Antarctica to shedding new light on the inner-workings of the continent.
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Permalink centuriespast: from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu) The Great Tengu Does Calligraphy (Sho no dai tengu), A Nose-pulling Contest with an Elephant (Zô no hanabiki), from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu) Japanese, Edo period, 1863 (Bunkyû 3), 5th month Artist Kawanabe Kyôsai (Gyôsai), Japanese, 1831–1889  Publisher Wakasaya Yoichi (Jakurindô), Japanese The Museum of Fine Arts Bostom
Permalink themodernhistory: Lenin Flees Russia Again | History Today …at the end of 1907 Lenin fled Russia for the second time, to Stockholm, Berlin and Geneva. Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya (his wife) were living in Switzerland when the 1917 revolution in Russia and the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II made him realize that he must go back to Russia or risk being left out of developments there. The German government, at war with Russia, decided to send Lenin back home by train through Germany at German expense - like a plague germ in a sealed container, in the famous simile - to help create damaging political unrest in Russia.
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Permalink sirmitchell: A photograph from 1952 that shows the first millisecond of a nuclear explosion.  Woah. 
Permalink scipsy: Cambridge University is putting the papers of Sir Isaac Newton online for the first time, including his own annotated copy of his greatest work, Principia Mathematica, with notes and calculations in his handwriting revising the book and answering critic (via The Guardian) Cambridge Digital Library.