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In fiction, the planet Mars, fourth from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in at least 5,000 works, portrayed differently as planetary science has advanced. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as it became clear there is no life on the Moon. Mars then was a setting for utopian fiction. The War of the Worlds (1897), H. G. Wells's novel about an invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, had a major influence on science fiction. After 1900, life on Mars was often depicted as decadent, as in Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom series. Exotic life appeared in stories like Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey". Later in the 20th century, Mars colonization became a popular theme, as it became clear Mars is lifeless, though some works, like Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, feature native life. Terraforming Mars became a major theme in works like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, and some works depict an initial expedition to the planet. (Full article...)

The Architect's Dream is an 1840 oil-on-canvas painting created by Thomas Cole for the New York architect Ithiel Town. Cole incorporated pieces of architecture from Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Gothic styles in various parts of the painting, having himself done some architecture work previously. Cole finished the painting in only five weeks and displayed it in the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition that year. Town refused to accept the painting, claiming that it was "exclusively architectural". The Architect's Dream is now in the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio.

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Cover of a translation of Arthur C. Clarke's The Sands of Mars

Grant's Tomb

Ali Bongo Ondimba

Cartoon depicting Jack the Ripper as a phantom stalking Whitechapel