23 Fascinating Documents Collected From History

1.

The Negro Motorist Green Book’. A guide book that listed all the places that welcomed black travelers in segregated America. Published from 1936 through to 1964

2.

Copy of original bill of sale for slaves, in Charleston, South Carolina 1833

3.

Al Capone’s fingerprint card, before 1947

4.

Dinner menu from the R.M.S. Titanic from 14 April 1912, the night before it famously struck the fatal iceberg

5.

Kurt Cobain’s Suicide Note

6.

The “From Hell’ letter written by a person who claimed to be the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. Sent with a parcel containing half a human kidney to George Lusk, chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Hoax letters were sent by journalists or people trying to incite fear. This letter is regarded by many scholars to be genuine. October 16, 1888.

7.

Darwin’s Children Drew All Over the ‘On The Origin of Species’ Manuscript (c. 1860)

8.

The actual check, for $7.2 million, issued by the United States to Russia for the purchase of the territory of Alaska, August 1868.

9.

Civil War Draft Letter, Providence, RI, 1863

10.

RMS Titanic Lunch Menu

11.

Hitler’s 1920 doodles when coming up for the NAZI party symbol

12.

Letter sent to the Metropolitan Police claiming to be from Jack the Ripper, 1890

13.

Page from a CIA Counter-intelligence Interrogation manual, July 1963

14.

Receipt for Aphex Twin’s first synthesizer (Yamaha DX100)

15.

A One Hundred Dollar Confederate States of America banknote, Issued during the American Civil War, December 22, 1862

16.

United States Department of the Interior advertisement offering ‘Indian Land for Sale’, 1911

17.

A page of William Shakespeare’s handwriting

18.

Schindler’s List. April 18, 1945

19.

Boarding pass for Titanic, 10 April 1912

20.

German election ballot, 1938: “Do you approve of the reunification of Austria with the German reich accomplished on 13 March 1938 and do you vote for the list of our Führer, Adolf Hitler?”

21.

Encrypted World War II message found in a fire place strapped to the remains of a dead carrier pigeon. Sent in 1944, discovered in 2012