History in Bogdan Nawroczyński’s life and work manifested itself in three ways: 1. in his personal life, when he made history as a participant in the 1905 school strikes, 2. in his works serving as a research source in the fields of history and education, and – most importantly – 3. in his own research on the history of pedagogical thought. By highlighting the humanistic aspect of pedagogy as, first and foremost, a broadly defined study of humanity, Nawroczyński called attention to the need to place pedagogical research in the historical and sociological context. He saw it as necessary for pedagogy to become a fully-fledged academic field.

The article is devoted to the artistic setting of Stanisław Staszic’s (1755–1826) burial place, for which his main heir, the Warsaw Royal Society of the Friends of Sciences (TKWPN), was responsible. The inspiration to raise this topic was the discovery of two previously unknown Jakub Tatarkiewicz’s designs of Staszic’s unrealized neoclassical tombstone in the collections of the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (AGAD). However, the projects were never commissioned by TKWPN but were the sculptor’s proposal. By analysing the relationship between these artistic projects and the initiatives concerning Staszic’s tomb which stemmed directly from the Society (a big raw stone as memorial), the article highlights the problem of TKWPN’s participation in creating the posthumous cult of its long-time president and most important benefactor. The TKWPN’s seemingly paradoxical reluctance to glorify Staszic by means of traditional (artistic) forms of commemoration can be interpreted as a logical action calculated to benefit the Society’s image. Therefore, focusing on this single aspect of the posthumous cult of Staszic, directly related to the TKWPN, this article refers to the image-building policy of this institution, and thus to the ways of building its social status. At the same time, it tackles the issue of the prestige of science and scientific patronage as a new (from the early 19th-century perspective) form of public merit.

During the Second World War, the State Zoological Museum in Warsaw (PMZ) suffered severe losses. Many workers were killed, and parts of the zoological and book collections were stolen by the Germans as early as 1939. The Museum became an important centre of the resistance movement, as it became a storage for weapons, explosives, and chemicals used for sabotage. Despite the repressions, the Museum employees tried to continue their work under the occupation and developed a modern model for the functioning of this institution to be implemented after the war. In the archives of the Museum and Institute of Zoology, a folder was found containing the documentation of the surveys conducted in 1941–1942 on the organisation of work and the future structure of the PMZ. This article presents the first analysis of these documents, which turned out to be a valuable source of information on the functioning of scientific institutions during the occupation, as well as on the history of the PMZ itself.

The inventions of the electromagnetic telegraph and the railroads significantly accelerated communication in time and space. It greatly influenced the way time was expressed and forced a change of centuries-old patterns and habits. It became necessary to gradually move away from local times (the average solar times of individual places) to the uniform time in the scale of entire countries, and then to the zone time. This process began in the 1830s on the railway and a few years later in the telegraph service, developing in parallel and in conjunction with the railroads. Initially, individual railway authorities adopted the same railway time on their networks (usually the capital time of a given country or the directorate’s headquarters). From 1884 until the first decade of the 20th century, culminating in the early 1990s, they gradually switched to zone time. Its introduction improved the work of railways, increased traffic safety, and made it easier for passengers to find their way around train timetables. Almost in parallel, since the mid-1860s, the process of switching from a twelve-hour count to a 24-hour count of time on the railways took place.

In the rich literature devoted to time in its various aspects, few studies focus on the issues of organizing the measurement and expression of time on railways, and there are virtually no studies relating to railways in the present-day Polish lands which at the time operated under three different state authorities. The work aims to collect and systematize the facts that contributed to the process of introducing the 24-hour zone time on Central European railways and to present this process in the context of the world railways.

The article presents the figure of Maria Twardowska née Skirmunt (1858–1907), researcher of the Lithuanian flora, promoter of natural science, author of articles on botany, and social activist. Twardowska was one of the first women to conduct independent research on the Polish/Lithuanian flora. She published in ‘Wszechświat’ and ‘Pamiętnik Fizjograficzny’. She kept scientific contacts with Polish botanists – Edward Janczewski, Józef Rostafiński, Władysław Dybowski, and Antoni Rehman. She is the author of the herbarium, which was in the collection of the Poznań Society of Friends of Sciences until the Second World War.

Gottfried Kirch (1639–1710) was an astronomer born in Guben, the maker of calendars and the author of ephemerides. He owed his fame to the discovery of the Great Comet of 1680, and he gained prestige as the first astronomer of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences. The article summarises the current state of knowledge about Gottfried Kirch and presents his astronomical and calednariographic activity at various stages of his life, via the lens of the stays in Langgrün, Lobbenstein, Leipzig, Coburg, Guben and Berlin (Dorotheenstadt).

The article offers a new perspective on Stanisław Siedlecki’s biography through visual history, with a particular emphasis on film history. The connections between Siedlecki’s life and the cinema can be grouped in three sections: 1. films starring Siedlecki, 2. films by Siedlecki and 3. films about Siedlecki. The film Do Ziemi Torella (To Torell Land) represents the pre-war period; the post-war period is marked by Siedlecki’s collaboration with Jarosław Brzozowcki on the making of Skroplone Powietrze (Liquefied Air) and Wieliczka – both from 1946. In the International Geophysical Year 1957/1958, Siedlecki led the Polish polar expedition, during which the visual material was created. He appeared in all three ‘roles’ (as a co-writer, protagonist, and consultant) in Jarosław Brzozowski’s film W Zatoce Białych Niedźwiedzi (In the Polar Bear Bay). He consulted polar films until the early 1990s. There are also two film biographies (portraits) of Siedlecki by Wanda Rollna and Iwona Bartólewska. The analysis of this material has also shed new light on the visual narration of the Polish polar expeditions in the 20th century.

From the perspective of the deaf, the silent movie era was the golden age of cinema. The emergence of a sound film cut the deaf audiences away from cinematic entertainment, but they made attempts to regain it despite new circumstances. One way to share sound films was with title cards “like in a silent movie”, which were used by an American deaf former actor, Emerson Romero, whose Hollywood career was interrupted by film soundtracking.

Based on the concept of media/technology ecology and the example of title cards prepared by Romero, I put forward the thesis that in the new technological environment, outdated solutions generate new cultural and social practices, gain new users, meanings, and values. This happens regardless of their actual effectiveness, as exemplified by Romero’s cards. Even though the films made available with their help were not very popular with deaf audiences, in retrospect, they have been considered the seeds of the deaf audiences’ victory in the fight for full participation in audiovisual culture.

The article presents the Survey of the Samsonów complex from 1809, with a historical commentary. The document contains information on the condition of the mining and metallurgy industry, with particular emphasis on blast furnaces in Samsonów and Szałas, fryers, ore supply, organisation of miners’ work, supply of wood for charring, and organisation of charcoal production.

Gottfried Kirch (1639–1710) developed the screw micrometer to observe the occultation of οTauri by Saturn on January 7/17, 1679. The news about the instrument was not published immediately. The device was popularised by his calendar for 1696. The article presents preliminary findings concerning the dissemination of knowledge about this invention and responds to the claim that it was the most widely used micrometer in the German-speaking lands in the first half of the 18th century.

The article describes the phenomenon of instrumental power in the third modernity. The work aims to define the theoretical framework of the third modernity and the new paradigm of exercising social control through instrumentalism. These concepts come from the works of Shoshan Zuboff and raise the issue of contemporary social relations in a globalised society.