Wood Street, Pittsburgh

 Wood Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., ca 1905 (Detroit Publishing Company).

Excerpt from a photo found on Shorpy.com.

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Thistle From The Sands

Thistle From The Sands, by Alphonse Mucha (1902, Mucha Museum, Prague)

Mucha regularly holidayed in the coastal province of Brittany in northwestern France, and referred to this panel as La Bretonne. The plant carried by the Breton woman is in fact not a thistle but a sea holly which flourished in coastal areas (www.muchafoundation.org).

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Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo (Stockholm, 18 september 1905 – New York, 15 april 1990)

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Roman City Wall

(photos by RfA, Rome 2006)

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Old Cows' Home

(photos: www.koeienrusthuis.nl)

Besides retirement homes for old horses there is also a retirement home for cows: Stichting De Leemhuis in Friesland. For several reasons the cows have escaped the trip to the slaughterhouse, sometimes because they are from a petting zoo, or the owner wanted his animal to live out his or her live.

(in Dutch)

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Omar Pasha Latas

Omar Pasha by Roger Fenton, 1855.

Omar Pasha Latas (1806-1871) was the skillful leader of the Ottoman (Turkish) forces during the Crimean War. He was born in present day Croatia. In 1854 he defeated 40,000 Russians at Eupatoria in the Crimea.

Colonel Simmons & Omar Pacha 

Colonel Simmons was the Queen's Commissioner at the headquarters of the Ottoman Army.

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Crown Prince Willem & King Willem

Sharpshooter competition in De Bilt, 1869 (W. van Dijk). 
The crown prince is standing behind his father (the bearded man in the middle). 

Prince Willem (born September 4th, 1840), heir to the throne, had big fights with his father King Willem III. He wanted to marry the Dutch countess Mathilde, but his father refused to approve the marriage because she was not foreign, or too low of nobility (or maybe he had an affair with her mother, making Mathile the stepsister of Willem).

This is the only known photo showing both father and son.

Prince Willem then went into exile in Paris, where he threw himself into a life of sex, drinking and gambling. He died at age 38 in his apartment at 19 Rue Auber, Paris (near the Opera), from a combination of typhus, liver complaints and total exhaustion.

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