The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926)

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Die Aben­teuer des Prinzen Achmed, or The Adven­tures of Prince Achmed, lays fair claim to being the ear­li­est ani­mat­ed fea­ture film in exis­tence. If we do grant it that title, it beats the next con­tender by more than a decade. While Prince Achmed came out a cen­tu­ry ago, in 1926, Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs, whose pro­duc­tion was…

Rome in 1890 Captured in Color Photographs: The Colosseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain & More

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For almost two hun­dred years, Eng­lish gen­tle­men could not con­sid­er their edu­ca­tion com­plete until they had tak­en the “Grand Tour” of Europe, usu­al­ly cul­mi­nat­ing in Naples, “raga­muf­fin cap­i­tal of the Ital­ian south,” writes Ian Thom­son at The Spec­ta­tor. Italy was usu­al­ly the pri­ma­ry focus, such that Samuel John­son remarked in 1776, per­haps with some…

Behold the First Realistic Depiction of the Human Face (Circa 25,000 BCE)

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In 1894, archae­ol­o­gist Édouard Piette dis­cov­ered the “Venus of Brassem­pouy,” oth­er­wise known as the “Lady with the Hood.” Unearthed in south­west­ern France and dat­ing to around 25,000 BCE, this carv­ing rep­re­sents the ear­li­est real­is­tic depic­tion of a human face. The figure’s fore­head, nose, and brows are care­ful­ly carved in relief, as is the hair,…

The Greatest Double Agent Ever: How a Spanish Chicken Farmer Became the Most Important Double Agent in WWII

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Juan Pujol Gar­cía was one of the rare indi­vid­u­als whose par­tic­i­pa­tion in World War II made him a Mem­ber of the Order of the British Empire and earned him the Iron Cross. He gained that unlike­ly dis­tinc­tion in per­haps the riski­est of all roles in espi­onage, that of a dou­ble agent. Despite ulti­mate­ly work­ing for the Allied cause, he cre­at­ed an elab­o­rate fic­tion­al per­sona — com­plete with an invent­ed spy net­work oper­at­ing across Great Britain — who pro­fessed loy­al­ty to the Nazi cause. Not only did Pujol get this char­ac­ter plugged into the real Ger­man intel­li­gence sys­tem, he also got him on its pay­roll, receiv­ing what came to the equiv­a­lent of more than $6 mil­lion in today’s U.S. dol­lars for sup­ply­ing infor­ma­tion — infor­ma­tion that ulti­mate­ly con­tributed to the Axis’ loss of the war.

The sto­ry of how this chick­en farmer from Barcelona became the most impor­tant dou­ble agent of World War II is told in the ani­mat­ed Pri­mal Space video above. Unlike many of the spies his­to­ry has remem­bered more clear­ly, Pujol did­n’t begin his espi­onage career in […]

How Fritz Lang’s Metropolis Created the Blueprint for Modern Science Fiction (1927)

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A vast, mis­er­able pro­le­tari­at squan­ders its days in mean­ing­less toil. Soci­ety is under the con­trol of ultra-wealthy busi­ness mag­nates. In order to paci­fy the under­class, the rul­ing class pins its hopes on a tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tion: arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Wel­come to the year 2026, as envi­sioned in Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis. When the film pre­miered, not long after…