Old USSR Christmas cards with cosmonauts. The greeting in Russian, с новым годом, means “Happy New Year.” You can see more cosmonaut Christmas cards here.
Science Fiction
Camille Flammarion’s Telephonoscope
I’d like one of these, a “Telephonoscope.” As described in Camille Flammarion’s 1894 novel “La Fin du Monde” (The End of the World). Flammarion is known as one of the fathers of science fiction, an “astronomer, mystic and storyteller” who was “obsessed by life after death, and on other worlds, and seemed to see no … Read more
Off On A Comet
Illustration from 1877 edition of Jules Verne’s novel “Off On A Comet” (Fr. title “Hector Servadac”). It’s a strange story in which a comet crashes through the Earth and carries away part of the Mediterranean and surrounding land, plus a few people. They ride the comet for two years until its orbit takes them back by the Earth, at which point they contrive to escape the comet and return home.
In the chapter of this illustration, Hector Servadac and his servant, not yet aware that they’re riding on a comet, discover that they can jump very high because of a loss of gravity.