On BibliOdysee: Victorian Infographics. Among them: Tableau De L'Histoire Universelle depuis la Creation jusqu'a ce jour (Table of universal history, from creation to today).

Click for large (3000 x 4128) scan on Flickr
This is a fold-out print depicting all of human history from the time of creation (4693 BC = Adam & Eve; the great flood [...]

Agence eureka is a wonderful blog with daily scans of vintage prints. Each image links to blow-ups on Flickr. This one from the late 1990s is a bit gruesome:

Click for a 2279 x 3355 pixel close-up.

The Saboteur is a new computer game, in which Sean Devlin, an Irishman in search of revenge, fights the baddies in the Paris of the 40s. It's historical nonsense but the backdrop looks pretty realistic.

In February 1948, Dmitri Kessel shot some pretty pictures of a wintry Paris. Here is one of them. Notice the light traffic — try that these days! Find more on Life (via Google).

From a French humorist magazine in 1929:

Dialogue between the two drinkers (liberally translated):
- That black musician is a born talent. He knew his calling when he was just two.
- You mean he already played the banjo then?
- No, but he was already black!
Click pic for bigger (Via Agence Eureka)

It can't be easy to be historically accurate and politically correct:

Call the smoke censors — Coco has a cigarette!
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is an upcoming French film directed by Jan Kounen. It was the closing film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film traces the affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky in [...]

Josh Gosfield built an entire media world of magazine covers, snapshots, advertisements and album covers of a fictitious 1960's singing star, Gigi Gaston. Charting her rise and fall, Josh creates a completely believable alter universe in which Gigi hangs out with the Beatles, is a paperdoll or appears startled by paparazzi flash. A painstakingly thorough [...]

Sad news from le Jardin des Plantes in Paris: Kiki is dead (but how old was he really?)

Kiki, a male giant tortoise, was brought to France fully grown from Mauritius in 1923. Kiki weighed 250 kilograms (550 pounds) and had to be moved around using a fork-lift machine. He was one of the biggest of [...]

These days they have EuroStar and RyanAir, but a long time ago Brits could swim to France: How a prehistoric 'super river' turned Britain into an island nation

Surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968, wiki) was a playful man, challenging conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal "art" and naming it Fountain. He was also fascinated with chess, and considered for a while becoming a professional player. In 1963 Duchamp posed with American writer Eve [...]

Sothebys is auctioning this photo by one of the most famous French photographers of the nineteenth century, Adrien Tournachon. It's called "Nadar: portrait of a cow" and dates from circa 1854. It should yield between 4,500 and 6,000 euros.

It looks like French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand (YAB for the initimi) found a lot of inspiration in [...]

Found on the blog with the longest name:

Un undated (probably fifties) photo of Edith Piaf who first discovered Yves Montand, then became his mentor and finally his lover.

If you've ever been on a French train you know this woman — or at least her voice
Her name is Simone Hérault, a blue-eyed fifty-something. She announces the arrivals, departures and instructions on all railway stations in France. Tough job? Not really. One day, she turned up in a studio, and recorded all the hours [...]

From the Celebrity Cutout Dolls challenge on b3ta.com:

Last week was the 169th birthday of Claude Monet, the founder of the impressionist movement in art. Digital artists were challenged to add modern elements to Monet's paintings. I particularly liked this one:

Many more here