In actuality, the DeSoto stopped conquistadoring in 1961, due in large part to the 1958 recession, from which sales failed to recover. That year, DeSoto sales were 60 percent lower than those of 1957. In addition, Ford introduced a new mid-price competitor with the Edsel, which seemed intimidating at the time–but we all know became a symbol for an utter commercial failure. But long live the memory of the DeSoto!
Miss Dolly turns 72 today. In the words of my sister-in-law: If you don’t like Dolly, I don’t want to know you.
Archibald Leach would have been 114 today. Ain’t he a kick in the head?
1945 seems like a long time ago, but 1845? Rare is it to find an image dating so far back, and rarer still to see joy and mirth on the faces of the subjects (from Edinburgh ale, no less!), rather than that still, posed dread they usually exude.
To the right is Scottish photographer David Octavius Hill (including himself in this portrait of merriment). On the left is James Ballantyne, who designed the windows in the House of Lords, and Dr. George Bell smugly sits in the center, one of the founders of the “Ragged Schools” for destitute children. Sláinte!
*The American postman’s creed: “”Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”
Per wikipedia, it actually derives from a quote from Herodotus’ Histories, referring to the courier service of the ancient Persian Empire:
It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.
— Herodotus, Histories (trans. A.D. Godley, 1924)
I Don't Get It 