Browse historic photos of San Francisco with Old S.F.

by Jeremy Kressmann on

A photographer could spend weeks wandering around San Francisco – between the city’s dramatic natural setting, bright murals and colorful rows of Victorian homes, there’s a lot to see (and shoot).

As Gadling blogger Jessica pointed out recently, it’s also a city rich with history. In fact, photographers have been documenting this City by the Bay ever since the very first days the camera was invented. Now a website called Old S.F. lets you blend these two pursuits, displaying the city’s pleasing photography and rich history via an interactive map.

The story behind Old S.F. begins when resident Dan Vanderkam was looking at historic photos at the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection and came upon an image of his block that was identified with the wrong cross streets. The inaccuracy inspired him to start a searchable database, layered onto a Google Map of San Francisco to help others find them more easily. The rest, as they like to say, is history.

To start using Old S.F., just pull the sliders along the top to adjust the date the photos were taken (starting at 1850 and ending at 2000) and then click on one of the red dots to see images from that location. It’s a fascinating journey through some of San Francisco’s most famous (as well as its most intimate) landmarks – witness the chaos and destruction that followed the 1906 earthquake, or watch the elegant Golden Gate Bridge as its construction slowly creeps across the Bay. It’s your own personal time machine to San Francisco – and you’re holding the controls.

[Photo courtesy of army.arch]

Bletchley Park: see where codebreakers listened in on the Third Reich

by Sean McLachlan on


You’d never know by looking at the cluster of nondescript buildings that they were the scene of the single most important effort to defeat Nazi Germany. During World War Two, Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, England, was home to thousands of code breakers listening in on and analyzing German military transmissions. The site was so secret that its existence wasn’t revealed to the world until the 1970s.

It was here that the famous German Enigma and Lorenz code machines were broken, allowing the Allies to follow German troop, air, and naval movements. It’s impossible to say just how much this helped the war effort, but one intelligence historian, Sir Henry Hinsley, estimated it shortened the war by up to four years.

The work on Enigma was actually started by the Polish Cipher Bureau, which broke the Enigma code five weeks before the war started. They shared the information with their British and French counterparts. Although Poland was soon overrun, many Poles fled to the UK to continue the fight. The Poles also sent over a cloned version of the Enigma machine, which proved invaluable.

Of course the Third Reich continued to improve and change the Enigma code, but this early head start helped the Allies keep listening. The Polish machine was later used as the basis for the “Bombe”, a more sophisticated machine the British used to decipher Enigma transmissions. It’s shown above in this photo courtesy Tom Yates.

More than 12,000 people worked at Bletchley Park at some time during the war, the majority of them women. Cryptographers were recruited from universities as well as more unusual sources such as chess clubs. Basically anyone who had a knack for puzzles was considered desirable. In one famous incident, the Daily Telegraph hosted a contest to see who could solve their crossword in under 12 minutes. The fastest winners were offered a job.

Despite its obvious historic importance, the site has been struggling with funding for a long time. Now it’s had a change of fortune, with a £4.6 million injection courtesy the Heritage Lottery Fund and the listing of its Block C as a Grade II building, meaning it will be preserved for all time. Block C housed the massive library of punch cards used by Colossus, the world’s first programmable digital electronic computer. Colossus was used to analyze the sophisticated German Lorenz code.

Today most of the original buildings are open to the public and tell the story of the secret fight against the Axis powers. The original buildings house a wonderland of old tech, as you can see in the gallery to this article. The site also houses the National Museum of Computing and the Radio Society of Great Britain. Bletchley Park is within walking distance of Milton Keynes station, making it an easy day trip from London.

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Civil War shipwreck will become Florida’s next underwater preserve

by Sean McLachlan on


The wreck of a vessel that served in the Union navy during the Civil War is slated to become Florida’s 12th underwater preserve, Tampa Bay Online reports.

The USS Narcissus was a tugboat armed with two cannons that participated in the important Battle of Mobile Bay. Shortly after the war it sank in a storm in Tampa Bay, Florida. As it went under, its boiler exploded and killed everyone aboard.

The wreckage site was first examined in the 1990s and local archaeologists and history buffs set forth to make it an underwater preserve. This will allow divers to visit the site while granting official protection for it. Other underwater preserves are already popular destinations for scuba divers.

The wreck lies in only 15 feet of water and large sections of the boat remain visible, including the fatal boiler. This should make it an attractive spot for divers with a taste for history. The U.S. Navy owns the site and has asked the state to monitor it for any deterioration.

For more on Florida’s underwater preserves, check out the website Museums in the Sea.

Painting of the Battle of Mobile Bay courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Is the Colosseum crumbling?

by Sean McLachlan on

Economic instability, a change of government, and now this.

It looks like Italy’s most famous landmark, the Colosseum, may be crumbling. The Culture Ministry has launched an investigation after eyewitnesses spotted bits of stone falling off the Roman ruin on two different occasions in recent days.

An Italian shoe company has promised to restore the Colosseum with an ambitious 25 million euro ($34 million) project, but work won’t start until March.

If the reports are true, the Colosseum isn’t the only monument in trouble. Pompeii has suffered a series of collapses that has raised questions about the site’s management and has escalated into a major scandal. With Italian government deeply in debt and struggling with unpopular austerity measures, it’s doubtful if the glorious legacy of ancient Rome will receive much official funding in the coming fiscal year.

Photo courtesy Sebastian Bergmann.

Sandal Castle, Yorkshire, to host medieval battle on New Year’s Eve

by Sean McLachlan on


A castle in Yorkshire will be the scene of a reenactment of one of England’s most important battles.

The Battle of Wakefield, fought on December 30, 1460, will be reenacted by the Frei Compagnie. Members of the group will not only be fighting it out medieval style, but will also be displaying medieval arts and crafts and talking about life in the 15th century.

Sandal Castle has an intriguing history. The first castle here was built in the early 12th century in the Norman motte-and-bailey style. An artificial hill had the main house on top, surrounded by a wooden palisade. A larger enclosure and other buildings on level ground were also surrounded by a palisade and the entire thing was further protected by an encircling ditch. These castles were quick, cheap, and easy to make and were one of the ways the new Norman rulers of England suppressed the rebellious Anglo-Saxons. Like many motte-and-bailey castles, the wooden walls of Sandal Castle were later replaced with stone.

The castle’s main claim to fame came during the War of the Roses, when Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, made a bid for the throne. He gathered a great deal of support and fought the armies of Queen Margaret and King Henry VI. In 1460 Richard was at Sandal Castle with an army of a few thousand men when his enemies showed up with a much larger force. Richard’s army was beaten and he was beheaded. The House of York continued to fight, but it was the beginning of the end.

While the original battle was on December 30, the reenactment will be on New Year’s Eve from 1-3pm. For more on Yorkshire’s sights, check out our series Exploring Yorkshire: ghosts, castles, and literature in England’s north.

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.