#history and literature

A cultural-scientific history of exercise.

The little-known story of Sarah Mapps Douglass and her consummate botanical paintings – the first surviving art signed by an African-American woman.

On this day in 1888, Vincent van Gogh cut off his own ear. (A century-some later, Joni Mitchell referenced his self-portrait in a self-portrait that became the cover of her album “Turbulent Indigo.”) Here is the stirring first-hand account of what actually happened that night from his best friend, Paul Gauguin. 

Cutting boards with centuries-old astronomical, botanical, and natural history art. Because why not. Proceeds benefitting The Nature Conservancy.

World Oceans Day with a 17th-century curio: The world’s first encyclopedia of marine life illustrated in color fused science and myth in that “here be dragons” way we’ve always had of filling the gaps in our knowledge — among the very real marine wonders was a drawing of a (very unattractive) mermaid.

On this day in 1930, the Bathysphere—William Beebe’s revolutionary spherical submersible—took its first test dive. Soon, expedition artist Else Bostelmannwaspainting deep-sea creatures human eyes had never seen and the human mind hadn’t even imagined.