History

The free Popular Science archives includes the following "I'd Like To See Them Make" series from their January 1956 issue (page 116). An item you won't see in today's publications:

Popular Science has partnered with Google to offer their entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements.Read More

Record And Play Your Own Records With Gakken's Gramophone Kit

Gakken's Gramophone kit can play records of any size, using a bamboo needle to belch crackling analog goodness out of its nickel-plated iron horn. Playback speed and tone are adjustable, and the player is powered by a hand crank.

But the most fun part of the Gramophone kit is the ability to record your own music directly to vinyl.Read More

When a tree grows and something gets in its way, it occasionally consumes it. Here are a few extreme examples of hungry trees.Read More

The first telephones were a purely scientific endeavor, with little thought to aesthetics. The entire focus of these first creations was to come up with a replacement for the primitive telegraph. Alexander Graham Bell is credited with the invention of the first working telephone, though there is controversy over who actually received the patent first: Bell, or another inventor, Elisha Gray, who came up with a model using similar technology.Read More

The Harley-Davidson 1909 Model 5-D Twin motorcycle had the company’s first twin-cylinder engine (about $400,000)

Today, when you think of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle - chrome, a growling engine, sleek lines and comfort comes to mind. The first Harley-Davidson was a basic bicycle with an engine on it. It took years for Harley to acquire its reputation, perfection and celebrity status.Read More

Everything from beer & cigarettes to an entire car have been sealed in vaults for 50 to five thousand years

Seward, Nebraska Time Capsule

The official GWBR-certified “World’s Largest Time Capsule” is located in Seward, Nebraska. At that location sits a brilliant white pyramid below which is a 20' by 8' by 6' concrete vault housing a variety of seventies memorabilia including a new 1975 Chevy Vega and a leisure suit.Read More

Superimposed photos combine the present with the past

Superimposed Photo: Thomas Circle, Washington, DC

These clever superimposed photos align historical photos with today's actual surroundings by placing an old photo in front of the subject, then taking a picture of both.

For those lucky enough to have a box of early 20th century photographs - and even luckier to find the subjects still exist - it might be worth a drive to track down some of the locations to get some really cool and attention-getting photographs.Read More

Things You May Not Know About Cars

More at The Car Connection

The world's first voice recording dates back to 1860, more than 17 years before Edison's phonograph was invented

Thomas Edison's “Mary had a little lamb” on a sheet of tinfoil in 1877 wasn't the first recorded sound. A Frenchman named Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville was the first to record sound almost two decades earlier.Read More

The Search For a Frozen Camera Could Rewrite the History Books On Mt. Everest's First Climbers

[Mallory and Irvine in their camp preparing for their ascent]

In June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine left their camp just 800 feet from the summit of Mount Everest on a mission to be the first mountaineers to ascend the world's highest peak (29,035 feet). They were never heard from again. Whether either man reached the summit — almost three decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's historic 1953 climb — has been an open question for 85 years.Read More