Math: 1835

A great variety of multiplication tables were mentioned, extending, in some cases, as far as 1,000 times 1,000: these were computed and printed at enormous expense and labour by the English Board of Longitude, the French Board of Longitude, and by the Prussian Government.

Since there weren't calculating machines, doing repetitive or complex numerical calculations was extremely time consuming. To make things faster, people would use mass-produced, printed mathematical tables. But there were problems, especially with tables that were new, or had to be updated often:

The lecturer next proceeded to furnish proofs of the extensive errors by which all existing tables were at present vitiated, and observed, that from the chances against an error being detected, it might reasonably be assumed, that for every error actually detected, a multitude of undetected ones must exist. In a single page of one set of nautical tables, he showed about fifty errors: in other sets of tables, a single individual had detected in some five hundred, and in others one thousand errors.

 Imagine a world where even math was iffy!

--From Arcana of science and art--

Car reviews: 1835

They performed a road test:

I find on this hard road the wheels are severely tried; but this road, hard as it is, has been of inestimable value to me in regard to experience, pointing out, with unerring certainty, where more strength is wanting.

Reported on reliability:

The crank shaft severed at a bad part of the bad pavement in Finsbury-square a day or two after she commenced running; but this was replaced, and the carriage started the next morning at the usual hour, and has ever since continued at work, with the omission of only one journey...

On mileage:

The consumption of coke has hitherto been from 8 to 12 lbs. a mile, and about 100 lbs. of water for the same distance.

And safety:

We have, up to this time, carried nearly 4,000 passengers in perfect safety.

--From Arcana of science and art--

Travel books: 1836

--From The friend of Australia: or, a plan for exploring the interior--

Going on vacation to the type of places we go today would be grounds for writing a book in 1836. But this book isn't even about that; it's someone theorizing about how people might be able to explore the places we go on vacation!

Purple

What a beautiful color!

World opinion: circa 1680

I answered, that foreigners were no other way concerned in the quarrels of their neighbours, than to see who could or would assist them...

--From History of his own Times--

Listen to it at your own peril.

Bromance: 1609

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

From Shakespeare's Sonnets--

Oh, the things one man writes to another man, and then publishes.

Symmetry: 1794

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

--From Songs of Innocence and of Experience--

There's something about symmetry that can make even mundane things seem extraordinary.

Boy wearing a dress: 1659

How dainty! All part of a traditional upbringing.

Hacked emails: 1659

...observed where the secretary laid some letters of advice, on which he saw he relied most, and getting the key of that cabinet in his hand to seal a letter with a seal that hung to it, he took the impression of it in wax, and got a key to be made from it, by which he opened the cabinet, and sent over some of the most important of those letters.

--From History of his own Times--

Should have used encryption technology, like a cipher.

Dance Music: 1651

Sounds kind of like electronica!

Nuclear deterrent: 1651

As to the cavalier party, he was afraid both of assassination and other plottings from them. As to the former of these, he took a method that proved very effectual: he said often and openly, that in a war it was necessary to return upon any side all the violent things that any of the one side did to the other. This was done for preventing greater mischief, and for bringing men to fair war: therefore, he said, assassinations were such detestable things, that he would never begin them: but if any of the king's party should endeavour to assassinate him, and fail in it, he would make an assassinating war of it, and destroy the whole family: and he pretended he had instruments to execute it, whensoever he should give order for it. The terror of this was a better security to him than his guards.

--From History of his own Times--