In 1878, a few years before Charles Darwin died of a mysterious tropical disease, a letter arrived on his desk. It was a letter from a fan.

When William Herschel peered into his homemade telescope on another March night in 1781, he was looking for double stars.

Picture this: a tiny West Australian town on the edge of the world. A pub, nearly empty. A PR man with an unpaid motel bill, a beer, and an idea.

Open up your Instagram on any given day and you'd be forgiven for assuming we've always wanted to pump up our peaches and fill out our lips.

It was sometime near 1860 when American lightning rod salesman James Spratt watched a pack of stray dogs devour long-life sea biscuits on the docks of Liverpool, England.

A boy—nineteen, arrogant, French—watches the sky. “The blue sky,” he declares, “is my first artwork.” He turns to his friend and offers him the earth and its riches. He turns to his other friend and gives him the air. Himself? He takes the sky.