Seven Elements That Have Changed the World (38 page)

44.
Flip it, but don’t clip it. Newton’s invention lives on today.

45.
And the biggest man-made hole on earth is … Bingham Canyon gold and copper mine, Utah.

46.
A farmer spotting a golden nugget in the mud was the origin of this gaping hole. Sierra Pelada gold mine, Brazil.

47.
Silver smelting in the sixteenth century: in Agricola’s
De re metallica
.

48.
Watching over a silver mountain: Madonna in Potosí

49.
The British calotype (1844) …

50.
… and the French Daguerreotype (1838), the first photograph to show a human being.

51.
Say cheese: the beginnings of popular photography (
c
. 1910)

52.
My attempt at a misty Venice from my window.

53.
A five-year-old takes a shot at photography. My mother impatiently posing for my Brownie Box, Singapore, 1953.

54.
‘Still photographers are the most powerful weapon in the world’: a defining image of the Vietnam War, February 1968.

55.
Auschwitz, 1945. A name and a horror no one must ever forget.

56.
Personal memories preserved in Persian silver boxes.

57.
The camera never lies. But does it? The case of the Vanishing Commissar.