Some pictures stick with you.

These are the ones from last week which have stuck with me.

The ‘city room’ of the New York World newspaper, c. 1900.

A reader noted the man in front looks like Raymond Burr’s character in “Rear Window (1954).”

Getting hot dogs before the baseball game at Ebbets Field, 1920s.

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Germany has hanged eight military officers found guilty of involvement in Claus von Stauffenberg’s plot to assassinate Hitler with an explosive device on July 20.

In a quick trial whose outcome was preordained, it was revealed that Von Stauffenberg had brought explosives into Hitler’s presence on two previous occasions but had not detonated them when SS Chief Heinrich Himmler had failed to join the meetings.

As Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid another visit to Allied lines in Northern France, seventeen thousand London women and children left the city for northern locations to avoid the German ‘robot bombs.’

Canadian and British troops have mounted a new offensive against heavily defended German positions south of Caen and are now less than ten miles from the city.

American forces have liberated Le Mans and two US spearheads are within one hundred miles of Paris.

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To be called a clown is no compliment.

Like the silly circus performer, a clown turns ordinary actions — like watering a flower in a pot — into something exaggerated and often grotesque, while engaging in dangerous actions — like walking on a tightrope — with nonchalance.

As Shakespeare, whose clowns were called ‘fools,’ put it, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

I can’t tell you which politician was first called ‘a clown,’ but these days, you hear it all the time.

But clowning has a rich tradition.

And the term means different things in different contexts.

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The old children’s nursery rhyme conjures up happy, hopeful sentiments.

And, across recent American history, merchants and others have used the term ‘starlight’ to bring in customers.

Take a look at these pictures.

1869 advertisement for “Starlight Bess” tobacco.

The luxurious Starlight Car of the Colorado Midland Railroad Company, the first rail line across the Colorado continental divide, shown in 1890. The line connected Colorado Springs, Leadville, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction.

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The 19th century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson had this to say about bathtime:

"People who wash much have a high mind about it, and talk down to those who wash little.”

Hmmm… he has a point.

Below, some old pictures on the topic.

The North Beach Bath House, Santa Monica, California, 1900.

Tears at bathtime in this immigrant’s tenement home, 1905.

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These old pictures were taken on Memorial Day, 1925, in Manhattan’s “Sixty Years After” parade.

There, two hundred Civil War veterans marched for a mile up Riverside Drive alongside other veterans, military hardware and bands.

The youngest were in their late seventies.

Some wore their old uniforms.

Some carried torn scraps of old battle flags.

Some walked with the help of flag-waving grandchildren.

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Some pictures stick with with you.

These are the ones from last week which have stuck with me.

Martin Luther’ room in Wartburg Castle, where he translated the New Testament into German in the 1520s.

The National Mall in Washington, D.C., in this Mathew Brady photo dated 1865, but believed to have been taken two years earlier. It’s a sea of trees with the Smithsonian Castle in the center and the Capitol Building in the distance.

A bison hunting party in Denver, 1873. Note the size of the bullets on these guys’ belts and the bison heads on the floor.

The men’s sitting room at a New York state mental hospital, c. 1910. This is what is meant by the phrase ‘warehousing the insane.’

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The American First Army has crossed the Selune River in its drive south, out of Normandy towards Paris, and has entered the Brittany region of northern France.

Almost seventy thousand Germans have been taken prisoner in France since D-Day eight weeks ago.

In intense fighting near Percy, Negro truck drivers joined their white American counterparts, wielding long-bladed pocket knives.

“Their very appearance scared the daylights out of the Krauts,” said a colonel. “Now, when they see [a Negro], they run like Hell.”

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Martin Luther’s room in Germany’s Wartburg Castle, where, in 1521, he translated the New Testament into German, shown here in 1900.

General Grant leans over to examine a map held by General Meade at this “Council of War” held in Massaponax Church, Virginia, on May 21, 1864.

Lincoln’s funeral procession passes Grace Church, in lower Manhattan, April 25, 1865.

Fifth Avenue Easter Parade, c. 1912.

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It isn’t much to look at: short, stubby, and somewhat difficult to grow.

But this little tree is a survivor.

When glaciers covered most of the continent during the last Ice Age, a few of these trees survived in sheltered micro-habitats along the continent’s southeast coast.

In 1765, King George III’s Royal Botanist and his son discovered them growing along the banks of the Altamaha River in Georgia.

These men had traveled extensively throughout the Colonies documenting native plant life and they had never seen this tree growing anywhere else.

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