October 24, a date as any other? (and Stamps of the Day)

There is probably some significance to each date during a year, but somehow this date is stuck in my mind.  Maybe because my oldest grandparent was born on this day in 1897 and that seemed so far, far away in time, even when I grew up many decades ago.  So, I had to look up what else had happened on this date. Very many things indeed - telegraphs, stock crashes and so on.  

Here are some things listed on Wikipedia:

1632 – Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch microbiologist was born (d. 1723) (Imagine seeing cells and moving euglenas for the first time, in the water you drink... )

1861 – The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express. (From horses to copper lines. )

1929 – "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange. (A big stock market crash also happened on Oct 24 2008)

 1931 – The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic. (It now costs $12 to cross it into New York City)

 1945 – Founding of the United Nations (I didn't know they had their own stamps)

(Source: links and entries from Wikipedia)

A wonderful time capsule find from 140 years ago

I was looking around today for some information on how weeds came to the US, and did some little googling and then I got stuck oogling the scanned copies of Hardwicke's Science-Gossip from the late 1800s (late 1872-1885 to be exact) on Google Books. Here you can find anything scientific, curious, and worth reporting, from the small to the large. Here is an excerpt on how some weeds showed up in the US, including butter-and-eggs/yellow toadflax (Linaria, called 'gulsporre' in Swedish). The culprit might have been a Mr. Ranstead in Pennsylvania.

Priests stuffing their pillows with thistles?  What do they think they are, martyrs?

And more:

(real old-fashioned plagiarism by Mr Pratt, aha!)

(And mining insects on ground ivy, or a fungus, or what?  Imagine all the amateur scientists exploring the world around them.  We need more like this today, there is so much unknown out there. 

(Mosquitos are brain-sucking monsters, in my favorite place of Gunnison, Colorado, USA, no less.)

"It will be an incalculable boon to every person who can read and think."  A bit hyperbolic, are we?  The ads are hilarious and wonderful and a true snapshot of the times. 

I apologize for the bad quality of the text images, but that is what I could get from the Google scans. You can explore more here.

Holey cheesus!

"This is your brain on Jarlsberg"

(From PP:s post, but it's so funny it worth one by itself.)

/O.K.

The Micropolitan Museum

A new museum is here, on-line!

Check out all their nice images of diatoms, insect wings, roots, protists, and bacteria! Click on 'floor plan' too - this is how a web map should look like, like a real building map! I love this! I have to show it to my class in Evolution.