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[freeformschooler]

Most history education focuses on martial and political affairs: the exploits of kings, clashes between nations, civil unrest and uprisings. History also has a weird and wonderful side that is rarely mentioned except in folk tales: odd regional customs, funny but useful inventions, and bizarre domestic circumstances. You won't get any kind of worthwhile education from this thread, but if you have or find weird photos or illustrations about the past, this is the place for them.

I don't mind discussion on these pictures as the thread is likely to fall into a lull. Necro it if you have new material.

Pictures of your own family or region's weird history are especially appreciated!

To start, here are two of my favorite examples.

Spoiler: The Turnspit Dog (click to show/hide)

Harper remarked that ‘the turnspit dog’, usually of the ‘Dachshund type’ was a familiar sight in the kitchen of any ‘considerable inn’ at that time. They would have been in great demand in the numerous coaching inns as coach after coach disgorged its hungry travellers. Harper described the poor animal and his employment as like ‘a caged mouse or squirrel with his recreation-wheel, revolved [in a kind of] treadwheel which, in this instance was connected with apparatus for turning the joints roasting at the fire and formed not so much recreation as extremely hard work.’

The turnspit dog breed - and breed makes a vast difference in the sort of work a dog is suitable for - is now extinct.

Spoiler: The Penny-farthing (click to show/hide)

What's so strange about this picture? Notice the make of the bicycles. The Penny Farthing was not, as you may have heard, the main precursor to modern bicycles: indeed, the "Dandy-horse" was around long before. Increasing the size ratio of front to back wheels was an intentional adaption for the comfort of the rider.

By 1870, the designs of the boneshakers began to change with the front wheel of the bicycle being made larger and larger in order to improve the comfort for the rider.  Originally known simply as bicycles or “high-wheels”, people began referring to them as “Penny Farthings” because of their resemblance of its wheel sizes to the largest and smallest English copper coins of the day.  The Penny Farthings were expensive too and thus riders were mostly wealthy young men.

[Baffler]

I don't think any such thread would be complete without these pinnacles of old-timey science:

Spoiler: Difference & Analytical Engines (click to show/hide)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine

Charles Babbage, an English engineer and inventor, designed this machine (about the size of a horse) that was essentially a device for tabulating functions using divided differences. He pitched it as a machine that could work out "astronomical and mathematical tables" to the Royal Astronomical Society, but the machine ended up costing too much and the government abandoned the project. The above is a fully functional replica constructed by the London Science Museum completed in 2001, the first complete model ever produced.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine

An improvement on the Difference Engine that Babbage designed drawing from experience gleaned from building the Difference Engine. the Analytical Engine is the first known example of a Turing complete general purpose computer, incorporated "an arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory," with the plans finalized in 1837. Input would have been given in the form of punched cards, already a common component of industrial machinery at the time.

Unlike the above, this one has never been completed. Incomplete attempts have been made over the roughly 2 centuries the design has been kicking around, but none of them have got very far.

Also this thing:

Spoiler: The Tempest Prognosticator, AKA IRL Creature Logic (click to show/hide)

The tempest prognosticator, also known as the leech barometer, is a 19th-century invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

PTW

[Xantalos]

Oh mah goodness

[WealthyRadish]

I actually keep a text file saved to desktop with about 400 lines of records of bizarre shit I've found in late night research binges, and this thread sounds like the perfect place to get more. Sadly no pictures though. PTW.

[LordBucket]

Can you say one-man open-air helicopter where you stand above the blades?

Spoiler: 1951 HZ-1 Aerocycle (click to show/hide)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle


Also, it worked. Mostly.

Later they improved on the concept.

Spoiler: 1957 Hiller Flying Platform (click to show/hide)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee


Video of it in operation

Surprisingly smooth. And yet here we are 58 years later and I still don't have a jetpack.

[My Name is Immaterial]

And yet here we are 58 years later and I still don't have a jetpack.

The world needs another serious ground war to make tech like this viable.

[freeformschooler]

Can you say one-man open-air helicopter where you stand above the blades?

Spoiler: 1951 HZ-1 Aerocycle (click to show/hide)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle


Also, it worked. Mostly.

Amazingly, that looks almost exactly like today's quadcopters which are all the rage among RC hobbyists.

While on the topic of bizarre vehicles...

Spoiler: The Monowheel (click to show/hide)

Today, monowheels are generally built and used for fun and entertainment purposes, though from the 1860s through to the 1930s, they were proposed for use as serious transportation.

If only...

But really, would you want to ride in this? I would not! It looks outrageously deadly.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Hey, it's that thing from Revenge of the Sith.

[GiglameshDespair]

Can you say one-man open-air helicopter where you stand above the blades?

Spoiler: 1951 HZ-1 Aerocycle (click to show/hide)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle


Also, it worked. Mostly.

If that man fell he would be so, so dead.

[XXXXYYYY]

ptw

[Levi]

Can you say one-man open-air helicopter where you stand above the blades?

Spoiler: 1951 HZ-1 Aerocycle (click to show/hide)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle


Also, it worked. Mostly.

If that man fell he would be so, so dead.

If that man forgot to tie his shoelaces he would be so, so dead.   

[Itnetlolor]

Spoiler: 1920's Pod Racing (Motorcycle Chariots) (click to show/hide)

[nenjin]

The dominant theme here seems to be that all this stuff is dangerous as shit

[Redzephyr01]

Spoiler: 1920's Pod Racing (Motorcycle Chariots) (click to show/hide)

is that
is that a chariot being pulled by motorcycles instead of horses