In Japanese the circular guard above the handle of a sword is known as a "tsuba", and they became important symbols for samurai in medieval and early modern Japan. Browse images of a wonderful collection from 1916 here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/photographs-of-japanese-sword-guards-1916

Book of John Leech's cartoons for Punch, the Victorian satirical magazine: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/pictures-of-life-and-character-from-the-collection-of-mr-punch-1887

#OnThisDay in 1921, several thousand white citizens and authorities began to violently attack the Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Karlos K. Hill investigates the disturbing photographic legacy of the Tulsa race massacre: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/photographing-the-tulsa-massacre-of-1921

Born #onthisday in 1819, the American poet Walt Whitman. Nina Murray looks at the translators through which his poems were experienced in Russia, a country hugely influenced by his work: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/walt-whitman-in-russia-three-love-affairs #otd

Bernard Sleigh’s Anciente Mappe of Fairyland, originally published in 1917, is a stunning six-foot-long map that depicts the worlds of various myths, fairytales, and folklore on one single landscape: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/an-anciente-mappe-of-fairyland/

“So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between House of Have and House of Want, progress is not real” — Henry George, Poverty & Progress, 1879 https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/progress-and-poverty/

The story of Shen Nong, born of a princess and heavenly dragon, and teacher to the ancient Chinese of agriculture and herbal medicine: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-legend-of-the-divine-farmer @ExploreWellcome

The teenage diaries of Queen Victoria — born #onthisday in 1819. The excerpts included in the 1912 book span from 1832, when Victoria was 13, to 1840, the same year that she married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at the age of 20: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/queen-victoria-s-teenage-diaries-1912 #otd

Happy #WorldTurtleDay! Here's a kind turtle helping a monkey out with a ride, from the Lights of Canopus, a 19th-century Persian version of an ancient Indian collection of animal fables. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/illustrations-from-the-lights-of-canopus-1847

Born #onthisday in Edinburgh in 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Watch a rare filmed interview with him from 1927 in which he speaks about his greatest literary creation, Sherlock Holmes, and his work in spiritualism: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-interview-1927 #OTD