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History (Education)

Artist shows us what famous historical figures would look like in the modern world

Her historical knowledge and research puts AI art to shame.

via Royalty Now / Instagram

Artist's gallery shows us what historical figures would look like if they were alive today

One of the major reasons we feel disassociated from history is that it can be hard to relate to people who lived hundreds, let alone thousands, of years ago. Artist Becca Saladin, 29, is bridging that gap by creating modern-looking pictures of historical figures that show us what they'd look like today.

"History isn't just a series of stories, it was real people with real feelings. I think the work brings people a step closer to that," she said according to Buzzfeed.

Saladin has always loved archaeology and always wished to see see what historical events actually looked like. She uses her digital art skills to do exactly that.

She started her Instagram page after wanting to see her favorite historical figure, Anne Boleyn, in real life instead of artist's depiction.

history, historical figures, art, artists, paintings, portraits, abraham lincoln, shakespeare, anne boleyn, marie antoinette A contemporary painting of Anne BoleynBy English school - Public Domain,

"I wanted to know if she could come to life from the few pale, flat portraits we have of her," she wrote for Bored Panda. "I started the account to satisfy my own curiosity about what members of the past would look like if they were standing right in front of me."

This is no AI gimmick. Saladin, in addition to being a great artist, is also a student of history. She consults existing portraiture, reads letters, studies the period, and examines both life and death masks (wax or plaster facial molds) of her subjects. She understands period art, as well. In her recreation of Marie Antoinette, Saladin writes, "It’s pretty obvious how stylized 18th century French portraits are; the huge eyes, tiny noses, and pinched lips." Her image of Antoinette, then, needed some "facial correction." I'd like to see AI do that.

Her artwork has earned her over 375,000 followers on Instagram. "I always struggled with finding a true hobby, so this has been such a fun creative outlet for me," she said. "It's really cool to have found a hobby that combines my passions for both art and history."

Saladin does brilliant job at giving historical figures modern clothing, hairstyles and makeup. She also shows them in places you'd find modern celebrities or politicians. Her modern version of Marie Antoinette appears to be posing for paparazzi while her Mona Lisa is photographed on a busy city street.

Here's a sampling of some of Saladin's modern representations of historical figures.

King Tut

Genghis Khan

King Henry VII

Louis XV

Agrippina the Younger

Queen Nefertiti

Ben Franklin

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Marie Antoinette

Saladin's work has connected deeply with hundreds of thousands of online fans and followers. Her images have brought history to life in a way most of us have rarely experienced. There's something about seeing Abraham Lincoln in a dapper sweater with modern beard and hairstyles that makes him seem much more like a real person than any official portrait ever could.

Saladin began sharing portraits online years and years ago, but continues to this day. There's always more to discover, new ways to push her medium forward, and more history to unearth.

This article originally appeared five years ago. It has been updated.

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Joy

Obsessed cat dad builds an entirely feline-friendly miniature subway system with all the frills

Next stop, "Moonwatch Terrace.” 😻

Xing's World/Youtube

Can I go live in Cat Town, please?

We’ve all seen a lot of ingenuity come out of humans who wish to give their feline friends the best life possible—from custom aquariums to Wes Anderson-esque bedrooms to mini hotels. But a kitty subway? Now we’ve seen everything.

Astonishingly, it only took YouTube creator, cat dad, and DIY extraordinaire Xing Zhilei to build an entirely functioning, eerily realistic-looking subway system—complete with a working train, synchronized platform doors, signage with directions to places like “Moonwatch Terrace,” tunnels, and even a miniature escalator. Everything was meticulously designed to give his kitties as much of an authentic city experience as possible…save for maybe the constant train delays.

Watch below as a cat named Mr. Nice and his family set aboard as the subway’s first passengers. It truly feels like something out of a whimsical kid’s book.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Perhaps this amazing build shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. After all, Zhilei has built an entire Cat Town, one that features a Cybertruck, a spa, a supermarket, garage, bank, cinema, billiards hall, theater…just to name a few amenities.

This feline-centric passion project all began with creating a cat-size condo that offered his fur babies a taste of “luxury” that he never had. Considering that that initial home boasted an elevator that actually goes up and down, a light-up video doorbell, a sink with actual flowing water, and swanky interior decor, we’d say that mission is certainly accomplished.

A lifelong tinkerer, Zhilei still had to learn many new skills to make this one-man dream a reality, from 3D modeling and printing to carpentry, welding, sewing, and painting, not to mention video editing skills in order to share his journey with all of us.

We all know the importance of pet enrichment, which provides a stimulating environment and activities that fulfill an animal's physical, behavioral, and emotional needs. Without it, our pets often aim to quell their anxiety and boredom with destructive behaviors. It goes without saying that Zhilei’s Cat Town takes it to the next level, and 99.9% don’t have the time, skills, resources, or space to accomplish such an impressive feat.

However (and luckily for us all), animals don’t need miniature subways in order to gain enrichment. There’s a whole wide world out there on the interwebs filled with simple, clever ideas. Adding in some cat-friendly greenery, DIY food puzzles, the whole “cat concrete” thing. It's real.

Still, next time we pet owners are getting a bit lazy and tossing a cat toy in a corner, maybe we’ll use these videos as inspiration to kick it up a notch.

To stay abreast of all the latest Cat Town updates, give Zhilei a follow on TikTok and YouTube.

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Music

They said there's no English rhyme for "silver." Eminem just obliterated the challenge.

Don't ever let them tell you anything is impossible.

By Scott Kinmartin - CC BY 2.0

Someone challenged Eminem to rhyme "silver," and he crushed the challenge without breaking a sweat.

It started with an innocuous Tweet from a popular account called UberFacts.

"There's no word in English that rhymes with 'silver'" the post read. For long-time English speakers, this isn't exactly news. We've been hearing about random words that seemingly have no rhymes for as long as we've been talking.

A user then decided to call in an expert to confirm whether this was actually true. So, they tagged rapper Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, in a post issuing a challenge: "You have 24 hours!" the user joked. If anyone could disprove the so-called fact, it would be him, the wordplay master himself who once rhymed "calm and ready" with "Mom's spaghetti."

eminem, marshall mathers, rap, hip hop, rhymes, english language, rhyming words, rhyme challenge, silver, purple, orange Slim Shady to the rescue. Giphy

Eminem himself responded a day later and completely obliterated the challenge:

"Silver

pilfer

kill fer

Gilbert's

still hurts

steel shirts

Bill Burr

milf word

off kilter

no filter

chill brrrr

feel burn

still slur

will stir

Trent dilfer

Val kilmer

Still third

shield her

he'll squirt

Steven Spielberg

Lil twerp

Wilshire

She'll purr

Kill birds

milk curd

feel worth

Real nerd

Stans documentary I liked your film sir," he wrote in his own post.

If you're familiar with his music, you can almost hear the post in his voice. You can imagine him ripping this off as a verse in one of his songs. You also immediately get the sense that he could have easily kept going, but chose to stop the list there. Point proved.

Oh, sure, you can come up with a list of more words with no rhymes: Purple, month, ninth, opus. Pretty sure Eminem will have no problem tearing the list to shreds.

Eminem's post went viral and was reposted nearly ten thousand times. Thousands of people commented to share their admiration for the hip-hop legend:

"And that's why he's the GOAT" one user wrote.

"He took silver and did a verse of Gold!" another added.

"Eminem can make any word rhyme with any other word," said another.

(Oh, and "pilfer" was right there in front of us this whole time, if you can believe it! Merriam-Webster even chimed in to suggest the little-known "chilver.")

Eminem is known as probably one of the best rappers of all time specifically when it comes to wordplay, rhymes, and clever lyricism.

In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper from 2011, Eminem shared a little bit of his approach. Cooper offered up the notion that nothing in English rhymes with "orange," and Eminem was actually almost offended.

"If you're taking the word at face value... nothing is going to rhyme with it exactly," he said, noting that the art is in twisting and contorting words and phrases. Thinking outside the box. Then, off the top of his head, he ripped off a short rhyme:

"I put my orange four-inch door hinge in storage and ate porridge with George."

Cooper asks him if he walks around all day thinking about rhyming words. "Yeah. All day. I actually drive myself insane with it," Eminem said.

A young Marshall Mathers would read the dictionary even though he wasn't a "good student" academically. "I just thought, I want to have all these words at my disposal, in my vocabulary, at all times, whenever I need to pull them out."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Why are we so fascinated with a good rhyme?

You have to admit that reading or listening to Eminem's creative rhymes for "orange" and "silver" is oddly satisfying.

That's because rhymes, or even just rhythmic poetry, does something different to our brain than other forms of speech or prose.

"The brain's reaction to poetry indicates a deep, intuitive connection to verse, suggesting that appreciation of poetry is within our neurological structure," according to How Stuff Works.

We also perceive things that rhyme as 22% more true than statements that don't, which is why so many slogans and catchphrases utilize rhyming words. That also plays a big role in why music and song are so emotionally powerful, even when the lyrics are relatively simple.

Finally, it's really pleasing to our brains when we're able to predict words and identify patterns. That's a lot easier and more fun to do in rhyming forms like rap, song, and poetry versus prose and regular speech.

It's awesome to see an artist and master at work in Eminem's post and interview. It should inspire you to think outside the box and remember that, whenever someone tells you that something is impossible, the real art is in proving them wrong.

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Fatherhood

Magician creates the most fantastical 'glow room' for his daughters and you can too

"Their shadows stay on the wall!"

Photo credit: Canva

A magician performs a trick. A person is painted in glow-paint.

It's become pretty cheesy to utter things like, "There's magic everywhere," (especially if you creepily whisper it.) However, if you happen to be lucky enough to visit magician Justin Flom's home, it's literally true. Every single square foot of his home seems to be magical, which is pretty fortunate for his young kids. Truly, their dad's imagination knows no bounds.

A few months back, Upworthy's Heather Wake covered the "wildest house tour" ever, wherein we see Flom's fever dream of a home in a video presented by his wife. Wake describes "the toilet paper wall in the bathroom (cause why not?), a 'cozy' loft made of netting above the stairs for the kids, and a 'Dr. Pepper passageway' that leads to a hidden door in the wallpaper that opens to their Blockbuster-fied movie room."

The house has become a recent viral sensation again, as Flom's sister has now made her own personal video from her point of view. She seems especially dazzled by the disco room, the hidden door INSIDE the foam pit, and yes, the glow-in-the-dark room.

In pushing the boundaries of whimsy, Flom recently shared a new clip on TikTok where we see him pouring what looks like oxidized phosphorous into a painting tray. When applied to the wall, the green, glowing paint makes it look as if he's created his very own Aurora Borealis within the walls of his home. In a voiceover, Flom shares, "This room glows in the dark and you can leave your shadow on the wall."

We then see Flom's daughters helping create the, ahem, magic. He continues, "The glow-on-paint goes on clear and I give my daughters special flashlights so they can draw on the wall…with light."

As if that wasn't cool enough, he says, "It's done, and I'm showing you right now, the glow room, hidden behind our tunnel of doors." We then see five different doors being opened, including a red door, what looks like a Cookie Monster door, a brick wall door, and a final door that resembles the spiral of a safe. Once inside, he says to the girls, "Doesn't look like anything, right? The wall looks normal, doesn't it? But wait. Ready?"

They nod. "On the count of three, we're gonna turn out the lights and this room is gonna glow. You ready for it? Three. Two. One…!" Flom turns out the lights, and, as promised, the walls glow in a bright Oz-like green. What happens next is like scenes from a Pixar film or perhaps Wicked: When they press their bodies against the green wall, they make a shadow that remains as though it has been painted on by the finest artist. Then, on top of their OWN shadows, they can create whatever they'd like using plain old lights as their brushes.

Once one gets over the absolute awe of it all, it's hard not to wonder…how was this possible? We turn to the comment section, which first showers Flom with compliments. One person writes, "I want to do this with my adult money." Another, "The childhood I wished I'd had."

green phosphorous, green glow, glowing, lights A gif of the Northern Lights Giphy, Yatri design

Just a tiny scroll down, and a TikToker seems to have found the paint. "Is it the Risk Reactor glow paint?" Though they note it's expensive ($400), many agree it's worth it. Someone asks, "How do they get the shadow off the wall?" Another responds, "You cover the area, shine a light, and the bit that's covered doesn't glow."

Luckily, there is a cute, wacky video on YouTube that gives us an actual step-by-step on making your own glow wall, should you want one. YouTuber UV Black Lights uses what he calls a "blinds thing" type surface and illustrates that first you want to "clean the surface" really well. Then, using "glow in the dark phosphorescent paint," he shares, "All you have to do is just paint."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

For this tutorial, he demonstrates that he's using the Wildfire paint brand and recommends two or three coats over a primer (if one has the patience). We then get a chyron AND a voiceover exclaiming "three hours later," followed by a shot of the surface hung up, "all dried and ready to go."

Once the sun goes down (since he's presenting this experiment in his garage), he explains, "So what we're using here is just a little laser. It doesn't need to be black light. All you have to do is have some kind of light source." (Remember, Flom used tiny flashlights.)

He then shows off shadow art, similar to Flom's earlier video. Beautiful, majestic, and best of all? Doable!

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Movies

'Wicked' author reveals subtle clue in 'The Wizard of Oz' that Glinda and Elphaba were friends

"I fell down onto the ground laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together."

Public domain

Gregory Maguire was inspired by a line in the original 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, "How did they come up with that idea?" The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don't always know where their ideas come from, so It's a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse's mouth. It's often not what you would expect!

If you've watched Wicked and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

The hit movie Wicked is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West written by Gregory Maguire. It says a lot about how powerful the story is that it has succeeded in so many different mediums and continued to find new audiences that connect with it.

While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origins of the two witches from "The Wizard of Oz"—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda's friendship popped into his head.

wizard of oz, wicked, wicked for good, wicked movie, wicked musical, wicked novel, gregory maguire, art, artists, writers, authors Ariana Grande as Glinda in the "Wicked" film Giphy

Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter's farm in Cumbria, England (Potter was an author and illustrator who created Peter Rabbit) and thinking about "The Wizard of Oz," which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

"I thought 'alright, what do we know about 'The Wizard of Oz' from our memories,'" he said. "We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

"There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke [Glinda] comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton [The Wicked Witch] is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, 'I might have known you'd be behind this, Glinda!' This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda's first name? They have known each other. Maybe they've known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together."

Maguire must have thought the idea of Glinda and The Wicked Witch attending college together was absurd at the time. What a kooky idea! But he pursued it nonetheless and, well, the rest is history.

wizard of oz, wicked, wicked for good, wicked movie, wicked musical, wicked novel, gregory maguire, art, artists, writers, authors A photo of author Gregory Maguire.By Jeremy Goldstein/Flickr CC BY 2.0

In "Wicked," Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it's the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.

Watch his explanation and inspiration here:

Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the "Wizard of Oz" characters in the first place.

"I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: 'Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?' I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime.

"I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad," he said.

"I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times. But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye."

Authors and artists—and their ideas—help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and "Wicked" is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we're seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

The second Wicked film, For Good, hits theaters in November 2025.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This story originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Fatherhood

Dad and daughter relationships perfectly explained in 10 paintings

The bond between dads and daughters is amazing.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

It's hard to truly describe the amazing bond between dads and their daughters.

Being a dad is an amazing job no matter the gender of the tiny humans we're raising. But there's something unique about the bond between fathers and daughters. Most dads know what it's like to struggle with braiding hair, but we also know that bonding time provides immense value to our daughters. In fact, studies have shown that women with actively involved fathers are more confident and more successful in school and business.

You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? I'll just let these images sum up the daddy-daughter bond.

A 37-year-old Ukrainian artist affectionately known as Soosh, recently created some ridiculously heartwarming illustrations of the bond between a dad and his daughter, and put them on her Instagram feed. Sadly, her father wasn't involved in her life when she was a kid. But she wants to be sure her 9-year-old son doesn't follow in those footsteps.

"Part of the education for my kiddo who I want to grow up to be a good man is to understand what it's like to be one," Soosh told Upworthy.

There are so many different ways that fathers demonstrate their love for their little girls, and Soosh pretty much nails all of them.

Get ready to run the full gamut of the feels.

1. Dads can do it all. Including hair.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork A father does his daughter's hairAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

2. They also make pretty great game opponents.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork, chess A father plays chess with his daughter All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

3. And the Hula-Hoop skills? Legendary.

parenting, dads, daughters, fathers, art, artwork, hula hoop A dad hula hoops with his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

4. Dads know there's always time for a tea party regardless of the mountain of work in front of them.

A dad talks to his daughter while working at his deskAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

5. And their puppeteer skills totally belong on Broadway.

A dad performs a puppet show for his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

6. Dads help us see the world from different views.

A dad walks with his daughter on his backAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

7. So much so that we never want them to leave.

a dad carries a suitcase that his daughter holds ontoAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

8. They can make us feel protected, valued, and loved.

A dad holds his sleeping daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

9. Especially when there are monsters hiding in places they shouldn't.

A superhero dad looks over his daughterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

10. Seeing the daddy-daughter bond as art perfectly shows how beautiful fatherhood can be.

A dad takes the small corner of the bed with his dauthterAll illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

This article originally appeared nine years ago.

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Art

Japan's 'rice paddy art' blends modern technology and ancient crops to make living artwork

It's just different varieties of rice planted for just the right perspective.

Wikimedia Commons contributors

Rice paddy art in the village of Inakadate, Japan

When you think of Japanese art, you might picture woodblock prints, calligraphy, meticulously sculpted bonsai trees, or other traditional art forms. But a new art form has sprung up—quite literally—in Japan that blends the ancient with the new, much to visitors' delight.

If you travel out to Inakadate village in the northern part of Japan’s large island of Honshu, you might come across a massive, living piece of art that you can only truly appreciate from above. “Rice paddy art,” known as tanbo art in Japan, are massive land "paintings" created using only different varieties of rice for the shapes, colors, and shading.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The Inakadate area is known for its rice production and has been growing rice for over 2,000 years, but like many rural areas, it was beginning see a decline in population and economic viability in the later 20th century. According to Japanese snack maker Sakura, in the early 1990s, an Inakadate village employee named Koichi Hanada came up with an idea to create art in the rice fields using ancient rice varieties with purple and yellow leaves. He had seen elementary school kids planting them as part of a rice cultivating experience and thought it could help draw tourism to the area.

The idea has evolved into a full-blown tourist attraction. The first exhibition of rice paddy art was held in 1993 and has been held every year since. For the first few years, the art was quite simple, but gradually grew more complex. In 2003, the Mona Lisa was created, but it was noted that when viewed from above she looked a little chubby. That’s when computer modeling came in.

Fixing the perspective via computer design allowed for more elaborate, realistic rice paddy art to be created. Now, over 1,000 volunteers come together each May to plant the rice to create the artwork designed on the computer. And the designs are undeniably impressive.

I mean, look at this:

rice paddy art, tanbo art, inakadate village, japan, rice paddy View of 2012 rice paddy artwork titled “Hibo Kannon and Acala”.Wikimedia Commons contributors

Rice paddy art has spread from Inakadate village in Aomori prefecture to other rice-growing areas of Japan. The tanbo art in Gyoda was certified by the Guinness World Records as The World’s Largest Rice Paddy Art in 2015, and it's only gotten more impressive since then. Today's rice paddy artwork is often centered around popular anime and manga characters.

In October of 2023, the rice paddy artists of Gyoda created a 3-D rice paddy art by only harvesting the rice around the characters' faces, creating an even more mind-blowing effect, albeit temporary. The 3-D image was viewable for just about a month.

The impermanent nature of rice paddy art is part of what makes it so intriguing for people to see. Tourists from around the world come to see the living artwork and view it from tall buildings and observation towers.

Rice has been such an important part of the Japanese diet that it's sometimes called the essence of the culture. In fact, the word for cooked rice—gohan—is the same as the word for "meal" or "food." Japan's humid climate and mountainous topography with an abundance of water make it an ideal place to grow rice, and while rice consumption in Japan has been declining for some years, most Japanese meals still include it.

Of course, Japan is not the only country that grows rice; rice is certainly a staple in dozens of other countries as well. Even rice paddy art has made it's way to other countries, including China, which has developed its own traditions around the practice in some areas.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Communities coming together to create art for others to enjoy is always heartwarming, and to see the evolution in how one person's idea has grown into a blend of high-tech innovation and low-tech communal planting is cool for us all to see.

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