The Bacidae – 1883

by Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (1847-1906)

In this painting, two soothsayers of ancient Greece, called Bacidae, study the entrails of a bird for signs of the future.

Vaudeville, 1880s – Unknown

Nintendo Was Founded 130 Years Ago

On September 23, 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai (koppaimeans “cards”) in Kyoto, Japan. Originally a playing card company, the company would go on to revolutionize video games forever.

A Nellie Bly Memorial Is Coming to Roosevelt Island

In September 1887, Nellie Bly assumed the persona of “insane girl” Nellie Brown to go under cover at the notorious women’s asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Her assignment: to tell “a plain and unvarnished narrative of the treatment of the patients therein.”

Upon her release, Bly wrote an exposé cataloguing the dire conditions faced by inmates, from freezing forced baths to solitary confinement in vermin-filled rooms and physical violence. This six-part investigation, initially published in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World but later released in a collection titled Ten Days in a Mad-House, catapulted the intrepid reporter to fame and brought much-needed attention to the plight of the mentally ill. 

The British Victorians who became Muslims

At the height of the Empire, a select band of British people renounced Christianity and converted to Islam. These are the stories of three such pioneers, who defied Victorian norms at a time when Christianity was the bedrock of British identity.

Artistic Family Humor