Charles Darwin Turns 200

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882), the English naturalist who put forward the idea that species evolve through a process he called natural selection.

Darwin, and his ideas, have been at the center of heated debate since he published his first works on natural selection in the late 1850s.

Here are a few articles that I found in the Chicago Tribune from 1872. Even within that one year, there seems to be a change in the way the paper talks about Darwin and a recognition of breadth of his influence.

A January 1872 article about Darwin and Francis Ellingwood Abbot, a US philosopher and theologian who was a spokesperson for "free religion." The tone of the article suggests that the Tribune doesn't approve or Darwin or Abbot.


Another article (from February 1872) linking Darwin and Abbot. This one details a meeting of the "Boston Radical Club" where Abbot and others engage in "lively discussion" of Darwin's ideas.


This November 1872 article describes the progress of Darwinism in religious, social and scientific circles.


Here, also in Novemeber 1872, the Tribune discusses the application of natural selection to changes in fashion.


And in this November 1872 review and discussion of Darwin's "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals," the Tribune adds their own examples to those provided by Darwin.


Here's the Tribune's report on Darwin's death from page 3 of the in 21 April 1882 edition.

World War 2 Trucks

PAKOPAKIS is a Footnote member who seems to have an interest in World War II era US military vehicles made by International Harvester.

As of this post, PAKOPAKIS has uploaded 146 great photos. Here are a few interesting examples:

The Battleship Potemkin at Odessa

The other day, while looking through some newspapers, I came across a few interesting articles related to the Russian battleship Kniaz Potemkin.

This one from The Atlanta Constitution has a great info graphic with the story:

Here's an illustrated story from The Chicago Tribune:

And here's a story with a report from the Ukrainian city of Odessa:

I started a Footnote Event Page about the Potemkin incident and added these documents to it. I'll add some details to the timeline soon.

If you are interested in the Potemkin and would like to add to the page, please do.

Hower Slote House and Fort Freeland

mmpt39 is writing a great Footnote Topic Page about the Hower Slote House and Fort Freeland.

The page provides a nice history of the place, the people and the preservation efforts and includes some wonderful pictures, maps and other documents.

Toy Prices in 1901

Just in time for your last minute Christmas shopping, chris found this ad from the 1 December 1901 Atlanta Constitution listing prices for toys, clothes and a little something for everyone on your shopping list.

$1 in 1901 was the equivalent of about $26 dollars today.

Teacher Salaries in 1904

Here's another nice find by Chris:

This comes from the August 1, 1929 edition of the the Alma Signal, a Kansas newspaper.

Some Remarkable World War II Photos

It's amazing what a plane can go through and still keep flying.

This morning I was looking through some photos on the site and came into a section of photos taken in England of planes that had been damaged on missions, but still returned to base.

Here are a couple of examples:

Then I came across this one:

I did a little research and found a Missing Air Crew Report for this plane (one member of the crew was killed) and then found Footnote Pages, created from the Social Security Death Index, for the pilot, Lawrence DeLancey and the navigator, Ray Ledoux. I added a few web links and some stories about this amazing event to their pages.

Here's the first image in the section of battle damaged planes in England. You can browse through the collection using the filmstrip at the bottom to look at other images.

You can view all the World War II Airforce images for free.

Happy Halloween

Chris started this Footnote Page for Halloween. It's open to posting, so if you have something spooky in your shoebox, feel free to add it.

148 Years of New York Times Presidential Endorsements

Here's a nice feature on the New York Times' website that chronicles the presidential candidates they've endorsed over the years and links to PDF copies of the original endorsements.

The list begins with the 1860 race that brought Abraham Lincoln to the White House and ends with this year's endorsement of Barack Obama.

Popular Uploads

Back in March, gengal called Footnote to tell us about an 1864 newspaper illustration of "Rebel Barbarities in Texas" that she had recently had scanned on a large format scanner. She wanted to add it to Footnote, but the image was so big that she wasn't able to upload it to the site. Fortunately for us, she lived pretty close to the office and was willing to bring it in on a disc so that we could put it up on the site.

I'd forgotten about it, but today, as I was looking at the list of popular uploads for this week, I saw the image sitting there in second place. Thanks again to gengal for going the extra mile to get this great image on the site.

While I was looking at the list, I also noticed that ruthcalhounbaker1951 uploaded a variety of pictures in September that have been quite popular this week. You can see a list of images that ruthcalhounbaker1951 has uploaded here.
The rest of the popular list is filled out with a combination of regulars like ldrew and bgill and relative new comers like norskmom.

Thanks to everyone for your contributions.