France in the year 2000, as envisaged in 1899. Some tech is wonderfully prescient: we've versions of Zoom, a vacuum cleaner, drone deliveries. Other visions less so, particularly those anticipating a life beneath the waves, of underwater croquet + whale buses...

The Public Domain Review

Lost Futures: A 19th-Century Vision of the Year 2000

Future visions of everyday life in the year 2000, from a series of French fin-de-siècle postcards.

125 photographs of life in Palestine before the British Mandate, ca. 1896–1919:

The Public Domain Review

Photographs of Life in Palestine (ca. 1896–1919)

Stereographs depicting daily life in Palestine before the British Mandate.

Born #onthisday in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Read an account of him at just 8 years old. As well as dazzling the narrator with his musical genius Mozart “would also sometimes run about the room with a stick between his legs by way of horse” — https://buff.ly/37uRoJ7 #OTD

🥁 Announcing the Public Domain Image Archive! 🥁 We are very excited to share our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images, all free to explore and reuse. Our aim is to offer a platform that will serve both as a practical resource and a place to simply wander — an ever-growing portal to discover more than 2000 years of visual culture. Start exploring here:

Public Domain Image Archive

Public Domain Image Archive

Explore our hand-picked collection of out-of-copyright works, free for all to browse, download, and reuse. This is a living database with new image...

@Public Domain Image Archive

As many embark boldly (and perhaps temporarily) on brand new gym memberships, here's a look at where it all started: the workout machines of the 19th century:

The Public Domain Review

Gustave Zander and the 19th-Century Gym

Modern fitness culture finds its origins in 19th-century Stockholm, where Dr. Zander invented precursors to today's gym equipment.

Happy #PublicDomainDay 2025!⁠ It's the day at the start of each year on which works enter the #publicdomain. See our highlights — featuring Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and others — here:

The Public Domain Review

Happy Public Domain Day 2025!

Each January 1st is Public Domain Day, when a new crop of works have their copyrights expire and become free to share and reuse for any purpose. He...

“Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History”, Alex Andriesse on the world of 18/19th-century board games in which players progress chronologically through history itself:

The Public Domain Review

Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History

Players moving pieces along a track to be first to reach a goal was the archetypal board game format of the 18th and 19th centuries. Alex Andriesse...

Born #onthisday in 1827, the French astronomer, artist, and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot. See a collection of his stunning astronomical art here:

The Public Domain Review

The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings (1882)

The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings published in 1882, a collection of 15 exquisite pastel works created by the French artist, astronomer and amate...

#otd (And prints to buy here: https://publicdomainreview.org/shop/fine-art-prints/artist/etienne-leopold-trouvelot/)

Invent Monopoly, do not collect $200... Lizzie Maggie's "Landlord's Game" and how an anti-capitalist board game invented by a woman became an uber-capitalist game that profited a man:

The Public Domain Review

The Landlord's Game: Lizzie Magie and Monopoly's Anti-Capitalist Origins (1903)

The story of how a homemade, anti-capitalist game created by a woman becomes a mass-produced uber-capitalist game that profited a man.

#OnThisDay in 1931, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley died from pneumonia contracted after walking home in a snowstorm. In 1885, the self-educated farmer from Vermont, using a homemade camera, became the first person to photograph a snow crystal:

The Public Domain Review

The Snowflake Man of Vermont

Keith C. Heidorn takes a look at the life and work of Wilson Bentley, a self-educated farmer from a small American town who, by combining a bellows...

#otd