How to be a Retronaut

If the past is a foreign country, this is your passport

Early tech
- Film
  - "Alice in Wonderland", 1903
  - "Fred Ott's Sneeze", January 1894
  - "The Gay Shoe Clerk", August 1903
  - 1888
  - Bloopers
    - Hollywood bloopers c. 1936
  - Colour film
    - "Colour on the Thames", 1935
    - "London in the Raw", 1964
    - "Temples of India", 1938
    - "The Serpentine Dance" c. 1899
    - "The Titfield Thunderbolt", 1953
    - Chicago Billboards, 1942
    - Colour footage of the A1, 1939
    - Deauville, 1912
    - Elvis, 1955
    - Israel, 1940s / 50s
    - Kodak 1922 Kodachrome test film
    - London's VE & VJ Day, 1945
    - London, 1920s
    - Roosevelt, 1941
    - Smalltown America, 1954
    - Soho, 1950s
    - St. John's Wood, 1940s
    - Venice, 1912
  - London streets, 1903
  - Mark Twain, 1909
  - San Francisco Earthquake & Fire
  - San Francisco's Market Street, 1906
  - Santa Claus (1898)
- Firsts
  - "The first motion picture"
  - "The world's first portable compact-disk player"
  - 15 World's Firsts
  - First Russian Pig in Space
  - The "first colour video"
  - The "first photograph" of New York
  - The "first SUV"
  - The first fake photographs
  - The first motorcycle, 1885
  - The first music video, 1895
  - The first photograph of a human
- Photography
  - Aerial
    - Aerial panorama of San Francisco in ruins
  - Colour
    - "Bound for Glory": America in Color from 1939-1943
    - A door left open, Monday 25th August 1913
    - Brighton beach, Saturday, June 16th, 1906
    - Christina O'Gorman, 1913
    - Colour photographs from a Square Dance, Oklahoma, 1940
    - Colour photographs of a bus in a crater, 1940
    - Colour photographs of Carnaby Street, 1968
    - Colour photographs of the Duke of Windsor, gardening
    - Cornwall, August 1913
    - Dorset, England, 1907
    - Dublin, 1961
    - England, 1913
    - England, 1928
    - European mountains, 1909
    - Fleet Street, London, 1:55pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in 1924
    - Flowers, 1910
    - Imperial Russia, 1909-1915
    - Janet and Iris Laing, 1910
    - London's "Peace Day", 19th July 1919
    - Nazi occupied Kharkiv
    - New York City, 1941
    - Objects, 1915
    - Oxford early summer 1924
    - Panoramic Tokyo, 1865
    - Paris, WWII, in colour
    - Rothschild Autochromes
    - Soho coffee bars, 1959
    - Umrao Singh Sher-Gil
    - WWII WASPs
  - High Resolution
    - Cincinatti, 1848, in hi-res
    - London, 1940s, in hi-res colour
    - London, 1950s, in hi-res colour
    - New York, 1940s, in hi-res colour
  - Stereo
    - 3D Ancient Japan
    - Amsterdam, 1940, in stereo colour
- Sound
  - "There'll Come A Time" - Arthur Pryor, 1897
  - Recording of Pope Leo XIII, 1903
  - Soundies
    - "A Little Jive is Good for You" - Martha Tilton
    - "A Zoot Suit" - Dorothy Dandridge
    - "Clink, Clink, Another Drink" - Spike Jones and His City Slickers
    - "Cow Cow Boogie" - Ella Mae Morse
    - "Got to be This or That" - June Barton
    - "I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me" - Peggy Mann
    - "In Old Shanty Town" - Johnny Long and his Orchestra
    - "Loch Lomond" - Martha Tilton
    - "Love Turns Winter to Spring" - Martha Tilton
    - "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi"
    - "This Love of Mine" - Cyd Charisse
    - "Your Old Grey Bonnet" - Ozzie Nelson
    - “Juke Box Saturday Night” – Glenn Miller Modernaires
The Retronaut
- Greetings from 1950s Wales
  - Friday
  - Monday
  - Monday #2
  - Saturday
  - Sunday
  - Thursday
  - Tuesday
  - Wednesday
- Retronautic bridegroom
- The Retronaut's daughter
- The Retronaut's holiday snaps
- Wood’s 100 Old Navy Rum “Christmas at sea” vintage photograph competition
- Wood’s “Christmas at sea” vintage photographs: entries
Time-crashes
- Future in the past
  - 1900AD
  - 19th Century Rescue Masks
  - 50 years of Japanese Concept Cars
  - A story about civil defence
  - Aliens in vintage postcards
  - Atomic-age Hollywood
  - Magic Highway 1958
  - Manga of the 1950s and 1960s
  - Mercedes Benz SSK "Count Trossi"
  - Monsanto "House of the Future"
  - Nuclear toys
  - Pub of the future 1965
  - Soldier of the Future 1959
  - Space-age Christmas c.1973
  - Spacelander electric bicycle, 1946
  - The Dazzle-Ships of WWI
  - Victorian Artificial Arm
  - Victorian Star Trek
  - Visions from “Popular Science”
- Future in the present
  - Google 2024
  - Postcards from the Future
- Past in the present
  - "Cloud of Unknowing" - Gorillaz
  - "I Wanna Be Your Man" - Willy Moon
  - "Know Where You Stand" History Channel Ads
  - "Le Costume Historique"
  - "Photo of Britain in the Ice-Age"
  - "The Swing", 1767
  - Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia
  - Augmented Reality Panoramas
  - Biblical scenes in Google Earth
  - Classic photographs in Lego
  - Doom of Obsolete Coastal Fort, 1924
  - Facebook updates for historic events
    - Facebook updates for historic events (Part 1)
    - Facebook updates for historic events (Part 2)
  - Fragiles Fabulae
  - Hidden at the Museum of London
  - iVictrola
  - Man removing shirt, 1450
  - Messerschmidt sculptures, 1700s
  - Michael Jackson vs. Egyptian Statue
  - Native Americans in colour
  - SatNav c.1930
  - USB Typewriters
  - Vintage typewriter stickers
  - Woman in a chicken suit, 1910
  - WWI cross-dressing
  - WWII paper planes
- Present in the past
  - "The Young Man's Book of Amusement", 1854
  - 78rpm graphics
  - Anachronistic Internet Ads
  - Anatomy illustrations from Edo-period Japan (1603-1868)
  - Apple Mac in Mad Men
  - Avatar for Atari
  - Contemporary ruins
    - "The Village that Died for England"
    - Abandoned amusement parks
    - Abandoned Russian Medieval Wooden House
    - Apocalypse in miniature
    - Demyanskoe, East Prussia
    - East End shopfronts, 1988
    - Ghost-station Tube maps
    - Secret Moscow Cosmonaut Dept.
    - Ukrainian airfield
  - Contempory Memento Mori
    - Aged Barbie
    - Aged Superheroes
    - And Vinyly
    - Bugs Bunny's skeleton
    - Tweety-pie's skeleton
  - Darth Vader by Monet, 1875
  - Dubai through an 1857 lens
  - Google by post
  - Gropec*** Lane
  - Hollywood Premakes
  - iPad in 2024: A Space Odyssey
  - iPods in 1977
  - Italian Police Motorbikes, 1953
  - Living Insignia, WWI
  - Ming Dynasty beer-cans
  - Planets and Wormholes
  - Porcelain Pistols
  - Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
  - Retrofuturs
  - Steampunk
    - Steampunk laptop
    - Steampunk Stormtrooper
  - Superheroes in history
  - The Georgian iMax
  - The internet as vintage Penguins
  - Twitter c.1935
  - Victorian Infographics
  - Victorian Star Wars
  - “Modern Renaissance” & “Celebrity Time-Travel”
- Random Time-crashes
  - "Its a Marshmallow World"
  - "Ophelia" in Hackney and Lego
  - "The Prisoner", 1967
  - 7+17+70
  - Antique Beat
  - Banksy
  - Christian Dior in the USSR
  - Collodion Iron Man
  - Dali and Disney's "Destino"
  - Flashback
  - Mad Men vs. Coronation Street
  - Ronald Reagan and James Dean 1954
  - Serafinowicz vs. Philosopher
  - Star Wars in the Silent Age
  - Star Wars Time-crashes
  - Star Wars Vintage Travel Posters
  - Steam motorcycle, 1947
  - The Blickling Hall clock
  - The Bowder Stone
  - The Soviet "Hobbit"
  - Travels in Imaginaria
  - Tron on Penny Farthings
  - Tudor Pinhole Camera
  - Victorian Delorean
  - We Are All Animals
Time-debris
- 5000-year-old chewing gum
- 90-year-old newspaper house
- Abandoned City Hall Subway stop now visible to tourists
- Argos Catalogue 1976
- Hatch the Tudor dog
- Ice-Age flute
- Lennon and McCartney: the last known photograph
- London's oldest statue
- Mozart's skull
- Notting Hill Gate Tube posters c. 1956-1959
- Paris flat unopened for 70 years
- Pontins Summer Brochure, 1972
- The Cabinet of Sarah Hare
- The Roman road-map
- World's oldest living things
Time-dislocation
- Abbey Road -1
- Albert Memorial allotments, 1941
- Blueprints to the Eiffel Tower
- Construction of the Eiffel Tower
- Massed troops, WWI
- The Birth of the Ark Royal 1950
- USSR, 1953
Time-distortion
- "Remember" for Mary
- "Stour Valley and Dedham Village" (1815/2010), John Constable
- "The Collapsing Wall", 1940s / 2024
- 100 years of Hovis
- 27-year-old picnic
- 500 years of women in Western Art
- Anna and Richard Wagner, 1900-1945
- Canadian Veterans Memorial
- Chiswick High Road, 1982 / 2024
- Construction
  - Construction of Nelson's Column
  - Construction of the Statue of Liberty
  - Construction of the Tyne Bridge
  - Construction of Tower Bridge
- Crayola colour chart, 1903-2010
- Earl's Court Farm, 1867
- Four sisters, 25 years
- Heathrow Airport, 1935
- Jamie Livingston's Polaroids
- Larry Page's Google Business Card c.1998
- Method of wrapping carrier pigeons
- Once upon a time in Afghanistan
- One family, 30 years
- Rush hour, Waterloo Station, 1970
- Shooting Gallery, 1936-2009
- The "Ziggy Stardust" phone-box, 1972-2009
- The Brixton Zebra
- The day Niagara Falls ran dry
- The longest photographic exposure
- The longest time-lapse video
- The Lucky Swastika
- Time Magazine, 1923-2009
- Time-lapse from space
- Time-lapse with giant robot
- Twin Peaks 20 years later
- World's tallest buildings c.1884
Time-fusion
- Age Maps
- Anne Frank: then and now
- Ghosts of…
  - Amsterdam
  - Auschwitz
  - Buenos Aires
  - Cherbourg
  - Leningrad
  - Macclesfield
  - Newcastle
  - the Blitz
  - Toronto
  - World War II
- Looking into the past
- Stepping into the past
- The Kodak building
- What year is this?
  - What year is this? #1
  - What year is this? #2
  - What year is this? #2: answer
  - What year is this? #3
  - What year is this? #3: answer
  - What year is this? #4
  - What year is this? #4: answer
  - What year is this? #5
  - What year is this? #5: answer
  - What year is this? #6
  - What year is this? #6: answer
  - What year is this? #7
  - What year is this? #7: answer
Time-grabs
- "A Room to let in Old Aldgate"
- "When They Were Young"
- 19th Century America
- Alfred Steiglitz's Clouds
- Bablake School, Coventry, 1955-57, by Alan Hails
- Chicago Night Clubs, 1970s
- Children, 1905
- Girl on a tricycle, Ireland, 1900
- High Command, 1944
- Hyde Park, London, May 1944
- Jacques Henri Lartigue
- John Bulmer's North
- London Blackout, February 1944
- Market Day, Oxford, 1968
- Neptune's Certificate
- Nightingales and bombers
- Paris, 1910-1914, by Eugene Atget
- Photobooth animations
- Portraits, 16th Century, by Holbein
- Portraits, F. Holland Day
- Smiling
  - Smiles of old Japan
  - Smiling Queen Victoria
  - Smiling Victorians
- Soviet Lithuania, 1960s & 1970s
- The "Colinne", 1967
- The Jokers, 1959
Time-replicas
- Brand-new 18th century shirts
- Brand-new Batmobiles
- Brand-new Big Trak
- Brand-new kisses to remember
- Brand-new medieval castle
- Brand-new medieval humours
- Brand-new Smalltown, USA
- Brand-new Victorian man
- Brand-new WWII
- Historic Action Figures
- Retronautic Rest Home
Time-travel
- "Photograph of a time-traveler"
- "Present" - Michæl Paukner
- "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells
  - "The Time Machine" Comic
  - "The Time-Machine" in Lego
- "Time-traveler" in 1928 Chaplin Film
- Apothecary Whom
- Awkward 80s photos
- Back to the Future iPhone App
- Dr Evermore & the Forevertron
- Echo Park Time-travel Mart
  - 10 Time-travel Mart products
  - 5 Time-travel tourism ads
- Hakan Nordkvist, time-traveler
- Hang this up in your time-machine
- ICANHASTIMETRAVEL
- Mark Wallinger's TARDIS
- The Knitting Clock
- Time-machine guitar effect pedal
- Time-travel map
- Tom Swift's Retroscope

Amsterdam, 1940, in stereo colour

These images were sent to How to be a Retronaut by Arjan den Boer of ABC Media Weblab. The original stereo colour slides were taken by Bernard Eilers and are in the Amsterdam City Archives Collection.

1 comment to Amsterdam, 1940, in stereo colour

Nigel

December 22, 2024 at 8:37 pm

Ah, splendid! Reminds me of my ViewMaster collection. The earliest I have is probably early 1950′s. I don’t have that many and of course you need a viewer to look at them. This technique is like ViewMaster for the unaided eye! Well done!