If you are a U.S. citizen, don’t expect that dream to come true—the United States does not confer titles of nobility. It’s written into the Constitution. The National Archives has the details.
Posts tagged "history"
Image description: This relief is carved out of nine pounds of butter. Caroline Shawk Brooks created it in 1876 and it was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Learn more about this and other historic butter sculptures.
Photo from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Image description: A child touches the name of someone who died on September 11, 2011. The name is part of the memorial at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Find a name on the memorial.
Photo by Jin Lee. View more of Lee’s photos of touching moments at the memorial.
Image description: The Archivist of the United States recently posted this story about patents that you may not know:
You may think that the National Archives is an unlikely place to learn the secrets of Michael Jackson’s dance moves — but you’re wrong!
Within Record Group 241, Records of the Patent and Trademark Office, patent 5,255,452 gives us the secrets behind one move in particular — Michael’s “lean” as done in the music video, “Smooth Criminal.”
Learn more about Michael Jackson’s patent for “method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion.”
Fred Ott’s Sneeze
Video description
The earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture, the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, is a short film made by W. K. L. Dickson in January 1894 for advertising purposes. Often referred to as “Fred Ott’s Sneeze,” this is is one of the world’s earliest motion pictures and America’s best known early film production.
The star is Fred Ott, an Edison employee known to his fellow workers in the laboratory for his comic sneezing and other gags. This item was received in the Library of Congress on January 9, 1894, as a copyright deposit from Dickson.
