I didn't know I needed a robot until five minutes ago when I found this one, designed circa 1770s by Swiss-born watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz.

It can be *programmed* to write short messages with a pen!!
"But crammed inside is an engineering marvel: 6,000 custom made components work in concert to create a fully self-contained programmable writing machine."
Some people's brains work on a whole different level.
I'm sure this thing starts moving, screaming and walking in the middle of the night though.

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More from @marinamaral2

8 Feb
Colorized by me: Court of the Hotel Ponce de Leon, St. Augustine, Florida, circa 1905.

The hotel was the first of its kind constructed entirely of poured concrete, and one of the first buildings in the country wired for electricity from the onset.
The original building and grounds of the hotel are today a part of Flagler College.
Original by Detroit Publishing Co.
Read 6 tweets
6 Feb
From the Wellcome Collection: During the second half of the 19th century, the belief spread that the phenomenon of 'skin writing' was linked to hysteria. Here a female patient at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris has had her diagnosis 'dementia praecox' "written" on her back.
Female hysteria was once a common medical diagnosis for women, which was described as exhibiting a wide array of symptoms, including anxiety, shortness of breath, fainting, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, irritability...
... loss of appetite for food or sex, (paradoxically) sexually forward behaviour, and a "tendency to cause trouble for others". Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for hundreds of years in Western Europe.
Read 5 tweets
6 Feb
Colorized by me: The pens at Ellis Island, Registry Room (or Great Hall), circa 1902/19013. These people have passed the first mental inspection.

From 1892 to 1924, approximately 12 million immigrants were processed there under federal law.
Original by Edwin Levick
The first inspection station opened in 1892 and was destroyed by fire in 1897. The second station opened in 1900 and housed facilities for medical quarantines as well as processing immigrants. After 1924, Ellis Island was used primarily as a detention center for migrants.
Read 7 tweets
5 Feb
Sutherland Macdonald was Britain's first professional tattoo artist. By 1889 he was already operating a tattoo parlor in London.
And he was not messing around!
"Macdonald, who started off using hand tools and then graduated to an electric machine that he patented in 1894, had his share of celebrity and aristocratic clients. He's said to have tattooed several of Queen Victoria's sons, as well as the kings of Norway and Denmark."
Read 7 tweets
5 Feb
Colorized by me: French soldiers in a trench during World War One. Crêtes des Eparges, France, February 1916.
At the end of the war on November 11, 1918, the French had called up 8,817,000 men, including 900,000 colonial troops. The French army suffered around 6 million casualties, including 1.4 million dead and 4.2 million wounded, roughly 71% of those who fought.
Read 7 tweets
4 Feb
The Battle of Karansebes was a deadly battle fought by the Austrian army... against itself (in a combination of alcohol and miscommunication).

At some point during their drinking, a group of infantrymen came across the cavalrymen...
The infantry soldiers wanted to join the party but were denied.
This started an argument which turned into a fistfight and escalated into a brawl. Everything took a turn for the worse when a shot was fired during the fight.

The shot was heard by the sober Austrian soldiers who were inside the town of Karansebes.
Read 6 tweets

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