The Oldest Dated Book

May 11: The world’s oldest dated book, the Diamond Sutra, was published “by Wang Jie on behalf of his parents on the fifteenth of the fourth moon of the ninth year of Xian Long” — this day in 868.

Fly-Buy

SkyMall vol. 1, no. 1 Fall, 1903   This is your captains speaking: These are exciting times indeed. With the advent of controlled, powered, and briefly sustained heavier-than-air human flight, men, women, and children will be able to travel distances of up to 250...

Grahame and the Open Road

May 10: On this day in 1907 Kenneth Grahame wrote the first of a series of letters to his son, Alastair, telling the stories that would become The Wind in the Willows.