A photochrom from the late 19th century showing two peddlers selling milk from a dogcart near Brussels, Belgium. Dog-drawn carts were prohibited in Great Britain in the early 1900s on animal welfare grounds, but some still exist in France and Belgium. The modern-day sport of carting involves large dogs pulling carts.

Image credit: Detroit Publishing Co.

A panorama of Dallas, Texas, April 1, 1913. Dallas, which was incorporated on February 2, 1856, is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States.

Photo credit: Johnson & Rogers

Polistes dominula, a species of paper wasp, a type of wasp that gathers fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct water-resistant nests that appear to be made of gray or brown papery material. The nests of most true paper wasps are characterized by having open combs with cells for brood rearing, and a petiole, or constricted stalk, that anchors the nest.

Photo credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

A photochrom of the base at Spitsbergen, Norway, from which S. A. Andrée launched his ill-fated 1897 Arctic balloon expedition, an attempt to reach the North Pole via hydrogen balloon, in which all three crew members died. They survived for three months after their crash, but their remains were not discovered until 1930.

Image credit: Detroit Publishing Co.

Hélène Dutrieu, shown here in her aeroplane ca. 1911, was the fourth woman in the world (the first from Belgium) to earn a pilot's license and reputedly the first woman to carry passengers and to fly a seaplane. Besides being a pilot, she was a cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, automobile racer, wartime ambulance driver, and director of a military hospital.

Photo credit: Bain News Service

Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's masterworks and as the name implies, uses a pearl earring for a focal point. The painting is currently housed at The Mauritshuis in The Hague. It is sometimes referred to as "the Mona Lisa of the North" or "the Dutch Mona Lisa".

Artist: Johannes Vermeer

A female Crescent Honeyeater (Phylidonyris pyrrhopterus). Native to eastern Australia and Tasmania, this species of honeyeater is found in dense forest and alpine habitats, as well as heathland, parks and gardens. Its diet is made up of nectar and invertebrates. The Crescent Honeyeater measures 14–17 cm (6–7 in) in length and weighs about 16 g (0.56 oz).

Photo credit: Noodle snacks

A 19th century cartoon from Punch showing men's and children's sea bathing swimsuits of the time. The caption reads, "Now then, Mossoo, your Form is of the Manliest Beauty, and you are altogether a most attractive Object; but you've stood there long enough. So jump in and have done with it!" Although swimwear from that era was quite modest, it was very common for men to swim naked when away from women in the UK.

Image credit: George du Maurier

A stitched panorama of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at dusk, with the North Shore Mountains behind, looking roughly north from the vicinity of Broadway and Oak Street. The bridges on the left of the image are the Granville Street Bridge (foreground) and the Burrard Street Bridge (background with through truss).

Photo credit: Matthew Field

A table d'hôte menu from 1893. A table d'hôte meal, literally "host's table" in French, is a multi-course meal with only a few choices, which is charged at a fixed price. The phrase originally meant literally a particular table, "a common table for guests at a hotel or eating-house". The meaning transferred thence to "a public meal served (at a common table) at a stated hour and at a fixed price". Eventually, the elements required for a meal where guests eat together, that is, at the same table at the same time, fell away so that the phrase persisted where only the fixed price element remained.

This menu was from a dinner given in honor of the conductor Walter Damrosch, whose autograph can be seen in the lower left.

The Dark Small-branded Swift (Pelopidas mathias) is a butterfly found throughout much of Southeast and East Asia, and as far as the Philippines. It is considered a pest to rice-growing cultures, although it is not as damaging to rice plants as Parnara guttata. Newly hatched caterpillars are especially voracious in eating young seedlings.

Photo credit: Laitche