Displayed in the Harry Ransom Center, at the University of Texas in Austin, is the first photograph.

Taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French, 1765–1833) in 1826 or 1827, the photograph is entitled View from the Window at Le Gras, and it depicts the courtyard, trees and buildings of Niépce’s estate.

Niépce had been experimenting with a way to combine a method of printmaking using light and chemistry. At the same time, he wanted to use a camera obscura to capture direct views of nature.

From the Henry Ransom brochure:

After experimenting with paper, glass, and stone supports for various resins that hardened when exposed to light, Niépce began to use pewter plates in 1826. Sometime during that year or the next he coated his pewter plate with bitumen of Judea (an asphalt derivative of petroleum) and loaded it into a camera obscura looking out the window of his second-story workroom....

He called his invention "heliography," or sun-drawing...

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This address if the former location of Gowan's Antiquarian Bookstore, a store dealing in "Historical Americana". The proprietor was William Gowan, and the shop would often be visited by writers living in the area. Edgar Allan Poe was known to shop here while he was living at a boarding house in the neighborhood.

Herman Melville probably exchanged greetings with Poe here; they were acquainted through a mutual editor. Melville once purchased a copy of Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy here that his father had once owned.

He stated: "I bought this book more than four years ago at Gowen’s Store in New York. Today, Allan in looking at it, first detected the above pencil signature [A. Melvill] of my father’s; who, – as it now appears – must have had the book, with many others, sold at auction, at least twenty-five years ago. – Strange!"

Gowans, a Scotland-born American, might well be considered America's earliest complete bookman- he not only sold books to walk-in customers but issued at least one catalog a year between 1842 and 1870.

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Tom Cruise did his own stunts for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, swinging around outside across the windows of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai a.k.a the world's tallest building. I guess it's possible director Brad Bird, whose previous films (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, The Iron Giant) were all animated, had never heard of a green screen.

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Located about 30 miles east of the town of Truth or Consequences (great name) lies the "world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport"- Spaceport America (formerly known as the Southwest Regional Spaceport).

Yep, I used the word "spaceport". That's fun.

The spaceport was first purposed by a Stanford professor in 1990, and there were a number of politicians that secured funding and encouraged participation by outside commercial interests to solidify the prospects of this ambitious project (this was back when public servants still took pride in completing tasks).

The X Prize Cup was held here in 2003. In 2006, Virgin Galactic announced they would make their headquarters in New Mexico, and the spaceport's name was changed to Spaceport America (f**k yeah!).

While Virgin Galactic is the anchor tenant for the spaceport, the plan is for multiple space travel groups to use the facility. Current other tenants include the Rocket Racing League and Microgravity Enterprises, Inc.

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On April 6, 1844, Edgar Allan Poe arrived in New York City with his wife, Virginia, who was suffering from tuberculosis. Poe had left a successful post as the editor of the magazine Graham’s Magazine in Philadelphia, and was in New York City without a residence or income. His goal was to escape periodicals of "a nambypamby character" and establish his own magazine.

The family settled in a boarding house at the corner of Cedar and Greenwich Streets. Of the location, Poe said:

"The house is old and looks buggy. . . The landlady a nice, chatty old soul—gave us the back room on the third floor—night & day attendance—for 7$—the cheapest board I ever knew, taking into the consideration the central situation and the living...

Today, the corner is home to O'Hara's Restaurant and Pub.

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