Hidden inside one of America’s most iconic academic libraries sits a collection that feels more like folklore than fact. At Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, thousands of rare texts rest behind a towering marble facade. Among them lies one of the most fascinating collections of early scientific imagination ever assembled: a major archive of medieval and Renaissance alchemical manuscripts.

In fact, scholars often refer to it as Yale’s “alchemy collection.” These manuscripts sit at the border of science, philosophy, and what we now call magic. They include handwritten works on alchemy, astrology, early chemistry, and natural philosophy. At the time, these fields overlapped as thinkers tried to understand and transform matter.

To understand their importance, it helps to go back before modern chemistry. During this period, alchemy shaped how people studied the natural world. Practitioners searched for ways to turn base metals into gold, create universal medicines, and decode nature’s hidden structure. As a result, the Yale manuscripts preserve this worldview in remarkable detail. They contain symbolic diagrams, coded recipes, cosmological theories, and experimental notes written in dense, often poetic language.

Much of the collection also reached Yale through major 20th-century donations and acquisitions that helped shape its rare book holdings. These gifts preserved fragile manuscripts that earlier generations often overlooked or scattered. Over time, they built one of the most important archives of early scientific and philosophical writing in the world.

Physically, the manuscripts live in the Beinecke’s striking six-story marble building. The design filters sunlight to protect delicate pages from damage. At the same time, it maintains a tightly controlled environment for preservation. Today, Yale has digitized many of these manuscripts, and anyone can view them online for free. What once stayed locked in elite libraries and private collections now opens to students, artists, and the public worldwide.

Ultimately, these texts reveal how people once made sense of the unknown. Alchemy did not focus only on turning lead into gold. Instead, it explored transformation in material, spiritual, and philosophical forms. Seen through a modern lens, the collection sits between belief and observation. It reflects a time when imagination and inquiry worked together rather than separately. In the end, these “books of magic” are not relics of irrationality. Rather, they are records of early curiosity, preserved in ink and parchment, still waiting to be read.

Inside Yale’s Beinecke Library lies a hidden collection of medieval manuscripts that blur the line between early science, philosophy, and what once felt like magic.

These rare texts reveal how alchemists once explored transformation through coded symbols, experiments, and spiritual ideas about matter and the universe.

Today, Yale has digitized much of the collection, allowing anyone to explore these once-secret manuscripts freely online.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library: Website | Instagram

All images via Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. 

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READ: Inside Yale University’s Fascinating Collection of “Magic Books” Making Sense of the Medieval World

Photo: Shaiith79/Depositphotos

Nearly everything in the supermarket today either comes with an expiration date or isn’t considered fresh for very long. That’s why it may be hard to believe but there is one natural product that, with the right conditions, can last hundreds, or even thousands of years—honey. Over the years, archeologists have come across pots of unspoiled, perfectly safe to eat honey in ancient Egyptian tombs. While hard to believe, this is the result of a very precise chemical balance that no other food item has.

Firstly, in its natural form, honey is very low in moisture, thanks to the bees flapping their wings to dry out the nectar they extract from the flowers. “Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like that, they just die. They’re smothered by it, essentially,” Amina Harris, executive director of the Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute at University of California, Davis told Smithsonian Magazine. In an environment with little to no water, there’s no place for something that could spoil the honey.

Honey is also acidic nature; it has a low pH between 3 and 4.5, which will kill off almost anything that attempts to grow on it. And anything that would potentially survive, wouldn’t stand a chance against honey’s ultimate power: hydrogen peroxide. This is thanks to the chemical processes that takes place within the bees’ stomachs. These creatures boast an enzyme known as glucose oxidase (GOx). When they regurgitate the nectar from their mouths to make honey, this enzyme mixes with the nectar, which is then broken into two by-products: gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide.

This delicate dance of components has also earned honey a place in the medical realm for millennia. Thanks to its antiseptic quality, there are records of it being used to treat burns and cuts in Sumerian clay tablets that date back to approximately 2100–2000 BCE. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians employed medicinal honey often, preparing ointments to treat skin and eye diseases. At the same time, they treated it with the utmost reverence, as honeybees were thought to have originated from the tears of their sun god Re.

Understandably, these chemical miracles don’t work on their own, so likely the most important element for its near-supernatural preservation is keeping it in a sealed container. The more industrial one found in supermarkets will keep its alluring quality thanks to a heating and straining process that removes all particulates, while the more artisanal one may still crystalize. But as long as it is sealed, it is good to go. That’s why, always make sure your pot of honey has been closed properly, and who knows? It may become an archeological treasure to be excavated by future civilizations in a few thousand years.

Sources: The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life

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READ: Honey Found in 3,000-Year-Old Ancient Egyptian Tombs Is Still Safe To Eat

A 2,000-year-old inscription by Cikai Korran.

Deep within the desert cliffs of Valley of the Kings, where Egypt’s most powerful rulers were laid to rest, the walls of ancient tombs hold more than painted gods and sacred hieroglyphs. it turns out that later visitors carved quieter, less formal lines directly into the stone. At first glance, these markings seem incidental. Look closer, and they begin to tell a very different story, one that stretches across continents and centuries.

Recent research reveals nearly 30 inscriptions written in Tamil-Brahmi, along with traces of Prakit and Sanskrit. These markings point to South Asian travelers who reached Egypt around 2,000 years ago. By this time, Roman authorities governed Egypt, and the once-sealed burial ground had shifted into a place of curiosity and exploration. Visitors moved slowly through the tombs, taking in their scale and symbolism, and they left behind small but lasting impressions of their presence.

One name appears again and again, etched into the stone: Cikai Korran. His inscriptions appear across five separate tombs. In some cases, he repeated his name, as if to ensure no one would miss it. One inscription translates simply to, “Cikai Korran came here and saw.”

Maritime trade routes linked South India with Mediterranean lands, carrying spices, textiles, and precious goods into Roman Egypt. Red Sea ports acted as gateways for exchange, yet these carvings suggest movement that transcended commerce. The individuals who left their names were travelers, observers, and participants in the human experience of connection and curiosity.

Some inscriptions hint at specific identities, possibly envoys or figures linked to South Indian political networks, emphasizing that these ephemeral acts of recording were also acts of presence within a larger, enduring world.

What lingers most is the deeply human quality of these marks. Builders designed the Valley of the Kings to eternalize royalty and preserve the grandeur of pharaohs. Yet it is these smaller inscriptions that feel immediate, intimate, and astonishingly alive. A name scratched into stone records a fleeting moment, a transient experience that outlived the individual who inscribed them. However small, some traces left behind carry stories across centuries.

Graffiti carved by Indian travelers in the Valley of the Kings captures a moment of witness that has endured for 2,000 years.

Twenty of the inscriptions, including this one, were written in Tamil.

Ancient Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in Egypt reveal how fleeting human presence can become lasting historical evidence.

Sources: Tamil Brahmi inscriptions found in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings shed light on ancient trade links, ‘Cikai Korran came here and saw': Visitors from India graffitied dozens of Egyptian tombs 2,000 years ago, 2,000-year-old inscriptions found in Valley of the Kings offer fresh insight into Indian presence in Ancient Egypt, This Traveler From India Graffitied His Name on Five Ancient Tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings 2,000 Years Ago

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Ingo Strauch. All Images via Ingo Strauch and Charlotte Schmid.

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READ: 2,000-Year-Old Graffiti Tags From an Ancient Traveler Discovered in Five Egyptian Tombs

Last month, London-based Forum Auctions sold an eight-volume survey of 19th century India for £42,000 (about $56,800), exceeding pre-sale estimates by more than £34,000 (about $45,662). The remarkable hammer price reveals an increased appetite not just for early photography, but for documentary projects that contend with complicated moments in history. In this particular case, that moment in time is the British colonization of the Indian subcontinent.

Titled The People of India: A Series of Photographic Illustrations…of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan, the collection encompasses hundreds of photographs from colonial India compiled by John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye in the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Rebellion. The volumes depict “different tribes, castes, religions, rulers, craftsmen, tradespeople, [and] beggars” throughout the country, making it one of the most ambitious 19th-century surveys from India, according to the lot description. The prints within can also be attributed to several photographers who worked across British India, including Willoughby Wallace Hooper, James Waterhouse, H.C.McDonald, Shepherd & Robertson, and Benjamin Simpson, among others.

Nearly 200 years later, The People of India still stands as a technological achievement, offering a glimpse into early documentary daguerreotypes. More than this, though, the volumes are a searing reminder of ethnographic imperialism and the racial taxonomies that governed colonial rule. Taken throughout the 1850s and 1860s, these photographs are filtered through British understandings of race, positioning their subjects not as individuals but rather as curiosities from an inferior population. Cataloging these various cultural groups in such a way only “othered” them further, transforming them from humans and into objects of study. The result is a collection that asserts English dominance, governance, and ideology, solidifying their occupation of the region.

“The collection was developed following nearly a century of violence and turmoil within this region between local populations and British representatives,” the Smithsonian Institution writes of the project. “The social and political relationships detailed here are inextricably related to the complex realities of international trade and the history of the British administration of colonies.”

Aside from this, what distinguishes The People of India is the fact that it’s largely complete. It contains 480 albumen prints and is apparently only missing one plate in vol. 6. The original decorated cloth bindings were generally retained, and the prints are all meticulously mounted on thick paper with printed caption labels. “[It’s] rare to find such a complete set,” Forum Auctions writes, as comprehensive photographic collections from the 1860s and 70s are uncommon on the market.

The People of India was included as Lot 50 in Forum Auctions’s “India” sale. The online auction comprised maps and drawings of Afghanistan, vintage accounts about India and the surrounding region during British colonization, and postcards from the early 20th century. The objects hailed from the late Malcolm Yapp, a professor of the modern history of Western Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

To learn more about The People of India and the auction, visit the Forum Auctions website.

A photographic survey from 19th-century India sold for nearly $57,000 at a recent auction, far exceeding pre-sale estimates.

Titled The People of India, the survey gathers hundreds of photographs from the 1850s and 60s, offering a critical glimpse into British colonialism throughout the Indian subcontinent.

All images via Forum Auctions.

Sources: Watson (John Forbes) & John William Kaye. The People of India: A Series of Photographic Illustrations…of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan, 8 vol., 480 mounted albumen prints, 1868-75; The People of India A Series of Photographic Illustrations, with Descriptive Letterpress, of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan. 1868; 19th Century Photographic Survey of India Far Sells for Nearly $57,000

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READ: Photographic Survey From 19th-Century India Snags Nearly $57K at Auction

 

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In 2019, amateur metal detectorist and café owner Charlie Clarke was searching for treasure in a field in Warwickshire, England. He ultimately unearthed what he calls his “once in a lifetime—no, one in 30 lifetimes” find: a heart-shaped pendant celebrating the royal marriage between Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Now, seven years after Clarke’s discovery, the British Museum has successfully raised the money needed to purchase the 16th-century artifact, ensuring it will be displayed for decades to come.

Dubbed the Tudor Heart, the 24-carat gold pendant features an enameled clasp shaped like a hand, a 75-link chain, and several symbols indicative of its royal origins, including a red and white Tudor rose, a pomegranate bush, and the initials “H” and “K.” Unfurling across the pendant’s golden face is also a banner, engraved with the old French word for “always.”

“The Tudor Heart has the word ‘tousiors’ on it,” Dr. Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, told the Times. “That phrase is poignant as the heart will now always be in a public collection, saved for generations to come and made possible by extraordinary support.”

But the artifact isn’t only relevant in its craftsmanship or unexpectedly affectionate message. It also offers a critical glimpse into the early years of Henry VIII’s rule, especially during his marriage with Catherine. In fact, the Tudor Heart is the only surviving piece of jewelry linked to the couple’s nearly 24-year-old union, which stood as the longest of the king’s six marriages. According to Rachel King, curator of Renaissance Europe at the British Museum, the pendant marked one of Britain’s most significant discoveries from the Renaissance period in more than 25 years.

“Thanks to Charlie’s find, we can actually hold this history in our hands for the very first time,” King remarked last year.

Following his find, Clarke reported the Tudor Heart under the Treasure Act 1996, which grants English museums and galleries the opportunity to purchase and subsequently display important historical objects before they head to public auction. It didn’t take long for the British Museum to throw its hat in the ring, setting a fundraising goal of £3.5 million (about $4.8 million) in an effort to acquire the pendant for its permanent collection. The total sum will be split between Clarke and the owner of the land on which the artifact was found.

Once it launched its fundraiser in October 2025, the British Museum received £1.75 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £500,000 from the Julia Rausing Trust, £400,000 from the Art Fund, £300,000 from the American Friends of the British Museum, and funds from about 45,000 people. By Valentine’s Day of this year, the museum had reached its £3.5 million target.

“The fact that 45,000 members of the public have got behind this and donated money to keep it in the country on public display shows the enthusiasm for this object—it really is unique,” Cullinan said during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today program. “I think this is such an important part of our history. Very little survives around the marriage of Katherine of Aragon to Henry VIII. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported our campaign.”

The British Museum hopes to officially feature the pendant in its collection later this year.

First discovered in 2019 by an amateur metal detectorist, the Tudor Heart has been purchased by the British Museum for £3.5 million.

 

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The 16th-century artifact is the only surviving piece of jewelry linked to king’s nearly 24-year-old marriage with Catherine of Aragon.

Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1540–1547. (Photo: Google Arts & Culture, Public domain)

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout, 1525. (Photo: Radikal / Portraits of Kings, Public domain)

Sources: A Metal Detectorist Unearthed This Heart-Shaped Tudor Pendant. Now, the British Museum Has Raised Millions to Put It on Public Display; Henry VIII ‘Tudor Heart’ pendant saved by British Museum; British Museum to keep pendant linked to Henry VIII; Museum appeal to save pendant linked to Henry VIII; Metal detectorist unearths Tudor gold pendant linked to Henry VIII in Warwickshire; Britain's greatest treasure finds: everyday discoveries reshaping history; The Tudor Heart appeal

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The New Reich Chancellery's Courtyard of Honor in 1939. The main entrance was flanked by Arno Breker’s two bronze statues Die Wehrmacht and Die Partei. (Photo: German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons, CC 3.0 Germany)

During the 20th century, several countries around the world grappled with fascism and its eventual ramifications. But fascism was far from simply an ideological or political system—it was also grounded within cultural artifacts. A recent video essay by IMPERIAL explores exactly that, revealing how art and architecture were both manipulated by dictators, such as Hitler and Mussolini, to exert control over their respective countries.

Fascism’s visual language traces its roots back to two art movements, namely Romanticism and Futurism. The former contended with a longing for the past through sublime, naturalistic compositions, while the latter focused on agility, movement, and a boundless future defined by machines, strength, and violence. When taken together, both movements complement one another and the fascist project perfectly: one looks backward to glorious empires, and the other looks forward to a radical new order. In fact, Italian futurists like Filippo Tommaso Marinetti were some of Mussolini’s first supporters, maintaining that the dictator could propel Italy forward through technology and warfare.

Aside from futurism’s bold, provocative aesthetic, Rome also figured strongly into Mussolini’s agenda. “Rome is our reference, it is our symbol or, if you wish, our myth. We dream of a Roman Italy, that is wise and strong, disciplined and imperial,” he remarked in 1922. Hitler was equally enamored by ancient Rome and Greece, believing that both had reached the highest stage of culture and civilization. This idolization resulted in an explosion of Neoclassicist architecture in Italy and Germany alike, a physical reminder of antiquity and its alleged purity, monumentality, and grandeur.

In Berlin, for instance, the New Reich’s Chancellery was flanked by two sculptures produced by the dictator’s official state sculptor, Arno Breker. The statues were known as “the Army” and “the Party,” both of which observed everyone that approached the building.

“Like in Rome, these statues weren’t just decoration,” IMPERIAL says. “They were ideological tools, broadcasting a clear message about the kind of body, the kind of citizen, that fascism sought to produce.”

Beyond this, Hitler and Mussolini both spearheaded urban projects designed to recall imperial Rome: Germania and the EUR district, respectively. In the EUR district, the Square Colosseum combined modernist design with ancient influence, assuming a harsh, geometric silhouette that, unlike the Colosseum or other examples of classical Roman architecture, signified dominance while towering over passersby. Here, ornament has been stripped away in favor of something sharper—and more intimidating.

“Fascism wasn’t just about the domination of the present,” IMPERIAL continues. “It was about creating a legacy, a grand historical narrative where the state never fails, even when the leaders themselves are long gone.”

Neoclassicism, of course, exists in several other contexts, including democracies. But, unlike their fascist counterparts, these architectural forms are less rigid and are scaled differently, creating a more welcome rather than menacing environment. After all, aesthetics are a form of control.

“Fascist aesthetics created a reality in which the state was ever-present, always powerful, always sacred,” IMPERIAL concludes. “Art and architecture flattered your image of the state and gave rise to pride, if you were of a patriotic persuasion. If you were not, fascist design threatened and constantly reminded you of just how very small and powerless you really were.”

To learn more, watch the full video below.

Art, design, and architecture have always played pivotal roles in reflecting culture and defining eras in history.

The Square Colosseum, also known as the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, in Rome. (Photo: Katalin Bán via Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0)

A recent video by IMPERIAL explores how art and architecture were manipulated by Hitler and Mussolini in order to exert control over their respective countries.

IMPERIAL: YouTube | Patreon

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READ: How Fascist Dictators Used Art and Design To Evoke a Sense of Power and Authority

I own a globe that could have only existed for 6 months in 1939 pic.twitter.com/IL6Slm4bOX

— DJ Branham (@DJBranham) December 30, 2025

The 20th century was a tumultuous time in history. Two World Wars happened, among many other conflicts. Centuries-old empires fell, and new countries came to be. Keeping up to date with these changes was slower than it was now, and information became obsolete as developments continued. A perfect example of this is a globe shared by X user DJ Branham, which, given the countries and territories it displays, was only accurate for six months in 1939.

The globe depicts some major changes in Europe. Germany’s Nazi regime had recently annexed Czechoslovakia and the Klaipėda Region in Lithuania. However, the Free City of Danzig, in modern-day Poland, appears free. This city-state fell to the Germans on September 1, 1939. According to Neatorama, given the borders of each country at the time, the globe must date between March 16 and July 31, 1939.

Found at Plains Antiques in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the globe also shares insights into other parts of the world. The province of Hatay, today a southern region of Turkey, was under the control of French Syria. This suggests the globe was created before July 29, 1939. Meanwhile, Palestine was under British rule as a League of Nations Mandate. The X user says that the globe also features Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, that existed from 1932 to 1945.

Globe makers surely tried their best to keep up with the changes, or even made a statement by choosing whether to recognize new borders and denominations. Still, it was a noble labor that needed keeping up with news in a time when access to it was more limited. By staying up to date—even when their work became inaccurate in a matter of months—they paint a picture of how the world looked at one point. More than a vintage collectible, this is a priceless historical document.

Sources: What Was the Brief Period When This Globe Was Accurate?

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READ: This Rare Vintage Globe Was Only Accurate for Six Months in 1939

Close-up view of the Worthyvale Ogham stone in Cornwall, England, showing linear notches used to record ancient Celtic language. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

In an age when technology is used to resurrect forgotten worlds from fragments of data, a team of linguists is turning the clock back nearly 2,500 years to do something equally ambitious: piece together the scattered remains of ancient Celtic speech into the first comprehensive dictionary of the Celtic languages spoken in Britain and Ireland.

Led by Dr. Simon Rodway at Aberystwyth University, the project brings together linguists, historians, and classicists with a shared ambition to recover languages that have largely vanished from the written record. Supported by a multi-year research grant, the team is gathering every surviving trace of ancient Celtic vocabulary into a single scholarly reference.

Unlike well-documented classical languages, like Latin or Greek, ancient Celtic languages left few written traces. What remains is a mosaic of evidence. Place names and personal names appear embedded in Roman and Greek text. Stone inscriptions carved in the Ogham script offer brief glimpses of language in use. Even curse tablets, thin sheets of lead inscribed with pleas for supernatural justice, preserve raw and intimate examples of everyday speech.

Roman bureaucratic documents, such as letters, administrative records, even military correspondence, also hold tantalizing glimpses of Celtic vocabulary. Together, these traces allow linguists to reconstruct patterns of meaning, sound, and usage from languages long thought irretrievably lost.

Because so few of the original Celtic texts survived, the team anticipates their finished dictionary will contain just around 1,000 words. While modest in size, each entry carries substantial weight. Each entry, carefully sourced and contextualized, promises new insight into the languages that gave rise to modern Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, and Breton.

By comparing ancient words across regions and sources, researchers hope to clarify how many distinct Celtic languages once existed and how they interacted with other tongues spoken in prehistoric Britain and Ireland. The findings may reshape long standing theories about migration, cultural exchange, and linguistic diversity in early Europe.

The dictionary will also tackle longstanding questions about linguistic diversity in prehistoric Britain and Ireland. By bringing together data from disparate sources, researchers hope to evaluate theories about languages that predated or coexisted with early Celtic forms, which is a critical step toward understanding how ancient linguistic landscapes shaped evolution of speech in these islands.

In bringing together these centuries-old inscriptions, classic texts, and obscure lexical traces, Rodway and his team are doing more than preserving words. Each reconstructed word restores a fragment of human experience, from belief and conflict to daily life and identity. In giving structure and meaning to these remnants, the project allows ancient Celtic voices to be heard again, not as echoes or footnotes, but as a language system once fully alive

For centuries, ancient Celtic languages survived only in fragments. Now, researchers are carefully gathering those pieces into a single, long overdue record.

Detail of an Ogham inscription carved into stone at the Dunloe Ogham site, County Kerry, Ireland. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0)

Stone inscriptions offer a rare window into how Celtic languages once sounded. The finished dictionary may be small in size, but each entry restores meaning to a culture that has long gone unheard.

Ogham stones at Kilcoolaght East, County Kerry, Ireland, bearing early Celtic inscriptions carved along the stone’s edge. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Source: First ancient Celtic languages dictionary of Britain and Ireland underway

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Photo: Camille Gilbert via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Before Walt Disney, the internet, and entertainment as we know it today, Victorian-era children had the phenakistoscope. The name has origins in the Greek word phenakisticos and means “deceiver of the eye.” This ingenious pioneer of animation featured a spinning disk that, when moved, created the illusion of fluid movement, thanks to the evenly spaced slits around the edges.

The phenakistoscope was invented independently by two separate physicists, Joseph Plateau and Simon von Stampfer, around the same time between 1832 and 1833. However, its polysyllabic pronunciation isn’t very fun to say, and it has gone by alternative names throughout its history, such as the fantascope or stroboscopic disks.

The animation device is used by facing the disk at a mirror and looking through the slits while it spins at the reflection. These slits create pauses between the frames, so you can't follow the picture, and the illusion is kept up. Done properly, your brain should be tricked into believing the subject is truly moving.

Early phenakistoscopes showcased fun subjects like people dancing, frogs jumping, or other amusing scenes. It was followed by the zoetrope in 1865, which was a cylinder with slits along the sides. Now, we have all of them at our fingertips, figuratively, as we don't have to be the ones spinning them. But they are entirely DIY-able and may be a way to show off your animation skills or keep kids off phones at least a little bit longer.

The phenakistoscope is a paper disk with evenly spaced slits to give the illusion of movement when spun.

Detail of the “Athletes, boxing” phenakistoscope in motion. (Photo: Eadweard Muybridge via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

The slits are meant to be looked through as the spinning disk is reflected in a mirror to give your brain a pause between frames.

Animated Phenakistiscope/Phantasmascope disc by Joseph Plateau, manufactured by Ackermann and co. (Photo: Joseph Plateau via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

These devices entertained Victorian children and showcased dancers, animals, athletes, and more, and can even be created at home.

Animated Phenakistiscope/Phantasmascope disc by Joseph Plateau, manufactured by Ackermann and co. (Photo: Joseph Plateau via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Want to make your own phenakisticope? This video will show you how.

Source: The 1830s Device That Created the First Animations: The Phenakistiscope

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Photo: DenisSmile/Depositphotos

Although more than a century has passed since the sinking of the Titanic, the tragedy continues to rattle new generations who learn about it. When the 1997 movie Titanic came out, viewers grasped the size of the disaster on the big screen; they saw what was then the largest passenger ship in the world disappear beneath the surface as passengers fought for their lives. Now, a museum exhibit offers a new approach by giving visitors the chance to feel just how cold the water was on the night of the sinking.

The Titanic, which met its fate on the early morning of April 15, 1912, had over 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, of whom nearly 1,500 died. Out of the 700 survivors, as many as 81 are believed to have been pulled from the water. On top of injuries from the wreck, the frigid temperature of the northern Atlantic Ocean resulted in many losing their lives to hypothermia. According to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, the water was 28°F—just below freezing, but kept liquid by the high concentrations of sea salt.

To illustrate this fact, the Titanic Museum installed an exhibit that allows visitors to put their hands inside a container with 28ºF water. Multiple videos capture visitors trying their best, but giving up just a few seconds later. Those who held a little longer reported feeling a burning sensation on their hands.

“Hypothermia is a medical emergency when your body loses heat faster than it can produce it. As your body temperature drops, your heart, brain, and internal organs cannot function. Without aggressive resuscitation and rapid rewarming, you will ultimately not survive,” Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician, told CBS News. At 30 degrees below zero, it can set in about 10 minutes.

The Titanic Museum also provides other insightful experiences around the sinking of the Titanic, such as boarding a lifeboat and seeing printed materials from the original ship. To learn more and get tickets, visit the Titanic Museum website.

The Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, has an exhibit that allows visitors to experience just how cold the water was on the night the Titanic sank.

@drunkladyadelaide Titanic Museum #titanicmuseum #titanic ♬ original sound – Lady Adelaide

The water was 28ºF— just below freezing, but kept liquid by the high concentrations of sea salt.

@zabbbeyyy Super cool part of the museum #titanicmovie #titanic #titanicmuseumattraction #titanicmuseum #feeezingcold #interesting #uniquefacts #titanicwreck #bransonmissouri #bransonmo #bransonvacation #thingstodoinbranson ♬ original sound – Zabeth Chang | Lifestyle

Multiple videos capture visitors trying their best, but giving up just a few seconds later.

@rmt2017 #fypシ゚viral #fyp #fypシ #titanicsinking #titanicmuseum ♬ original sound – Renesmé

Those who held a little longer reported feeling a burning sensation on their hands.

@courtt.knee0 #titanic #1912 #fyp ♬ original sound – ꨄ

Sources: Titanic Education Guide; How long can a person survive in sub-zero temperatures?

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READ: Titanic Museum Exhibit Invites Visitors To Feel How Cold the Water Was When the Ship Sank