Visby Ringmur

Visby is a Swedish town on the island of Gotland (between Sweden and Estonia). It is encircled by a medieval city wall, 35 feet high and more than 2 miles long.

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Casper van Wittel - A View of The Colosseum

Casper van Wittel, also known as Gaspare Vanvitelli, was born in Amersfoort in 1653. He married in Rome in 1697, and stayed most of his life in that city.

Officers and men of the 8th hussars

circa 1855: Officers and men of the 8th Hussars, the 'King's Royal Irish' during the Crimean War (1853 - 1856). Photograph by Roger Fenton.

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Pola Negri

Pola Negri (born Apolonia Chałupiec) was a Polish film actress who achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films between 1910s and 1930s. She had affairs with actors as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. She was one of the most popular Hollywood actresses of the era, and certainly the richest woman of the movie industry. (Photo date: 1923).

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Count Schimmelpenninck

The mayor of Amersfoort, count Schimmelpenninck, giving a speech in honor of the crowning of the new Queen in 1898 (at the central town square, the Pig Market).

Click for a high resolution showing all kinds of details.

Look at the dresses of the women, and the people hanging out of the windows. Also notice the sable of the count!

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Кёнигсберг

Кёнигсберг means Königsberg in Russian. First the pre-war situation, then the present site, showing the "House of the Soviets", built on the former site of Königsberg Castle. It has been described as the "ugliest building on Russian soil".

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Libbie Custer

Elizabeth 'Libbie' Custer, the wife of the famous general, in 1860/1865. She was a talented writer who wrote many articles and books praising the 'glory' of her husband...

Apple market

Totally unexpected remains of a mediaeval chapel have been found at the Apple market (Appelmarkt) in Amersfoort. All the old maps show the square without any buildings.

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Grafofoni

Grafofoni Columbia, 1920 Poster. Grafofoni is Italian plural for graphophones. The graphophone was an improved version of Thomas Edison's phonograph invented by the laboratories of Alexander Graham Bell. The trade name graphophone was used by the successor of the American Graphophone Company, Columbia Records as the name for their version of the phonograph. The name graphophone was used by Columbia into the 1920s or 1930s.

Nazi Autobahnen

The nazis planned several large highways (autobahnen) deep into Russia.

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Alphonse Mucha - The Moon

Alphonse Mucha – ‘The Moon’ (1902). From ‘The Moon and the Stars’ Series.

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Aigues-Mortes

Aigues-Mortes is a city in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea . Build in the 13th century to launch the crusades from there, the city is heavily fortificated with several gates and towers.

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St. Joriskerk

The central market square in Amersfoort, with the medieval Sint Joriskerk (Church of Saint George).

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China

At present there are troubles with the Uyghur people in Chinese Turkestan. China conquered this area some time ago and is now colonizing it (like they are doing with Tibet). Colonization is so 19th century...

China seems to be a large country, but in fact is a lot smaller. Like the old Soviet Union, China has conquered large states at her borders. When we subtract these from present day China we see the real form and shape of China. These states are:

• Tibet
• East Turkestan
• Inner Mongolia
• South Manchuria*

* Everybody knows about Tibet and to a lesser extent Turkestan. But South Manchura is not so well known. It has been split between Russia and China in 1860. In this map present day Russian Manchuria has been shaded light blue.

Beautiful Plant

I took a stroll throught the old inner city of Amersfoort. Everywhere these plants were visible. I want them too!

Tintype

In 1856 Prof. Hamilton Smith of Ohio patented a photographic method that came to be known as tintype. These one-of-a-kind images are made directly on a thin iron plate that has been coated with chemicals, exposed in a camera while still wet, and developed on the spot.

Because the plates are iron, not tin, the more proper term is ferrotype, but the photographs have been commonly called tintypes from the beginning. They are not quite as sharp an image as a daguerreotype, it does not have the crisp details. Also the results were often low quality.

Cheaper and easier to produce, the tintype allowed more people to have their portraits quickly taken. They became very popular and remained so into the 20th century until newer processes that could produce multiple images took over.

Maude Fealy - The Stronger Sex

Review of the play “The Stronger Sex” at the Victoria theatre last night by Miss Maud Fealy and her company:
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Miss Maud Fealy is an actress of a great deal of power. In person she is petite and attractive. Her voice is not strong, but is very pleasing and carries admitably. Her stage work is easy and dainty, and she leaves the impression upon the audience that she is living, not acting, her part.

- Victoria Daily Colonist, Tuesday, December 17, 1907 (Victoria, Vancouver island, Canada) -

Germany wins WWII

When Germany would have beaten Russia in the second world war a series of satellite states would have been created. Also the Crimean peninsula would have been colonized by German settlers (from south Tyrol).