If your memory is like a sieve, this new acquisition was meant for you. The title translated into English reads: Great Discoveries and Inventions Dated by Themselves. It is not entirely self-explanatory, which I suspect was deliberate on the part of the Parisian publisher Amedee Bedelet. ( A better translation might be “Great Discoveries and Inventions Each Depicting Its Date.”) This handsome oblong folio was issued as a volume in the series Science pour rire, which has to be translated into idiomatic English with a phrase like “Learn by Laughing.” The idea is the clever illustrations will trick you into memorizing useful facts in spite of yourself.
Let’s see if the concept works… Here, in chronological order, are some notable advances in the history of human progress (some selections could be debated).
Paper (graciously credited to the Chinese, but the French inventors are illustrated)
Gunpowder (monk Berthold Schwarz was not responsible as claimed in the caption)
Printing from moveable type (the date is much too early)
Tobacco
The Potato
The Lightening Rod (the invention of Benjamin Franklin)
The Daguerotype
