As a result of World War I, the Polish lands were severely destroyed, and the population was poor. The widespread poverty, supply problems, and high prices led to the establishment of the Warsaw Municipal Supply Facilities (Miejskie Zakłady Zaopatrzenia Warszawy/MZZW). The task of the MZZW fleet was to ensure the supply of food and essential goods to the poorest social groups. Thus, the municipality bypassed intermediaries and their high margins. The articles were distributed through a network of municipal stores.

The article describes the history of the buildings at 8 Łazienkowska Street, erected over a hundred years ago, now no longer extant. It was one of the first facilities built by the Capital City of Warsaw shortly after regaining independence. The described complex of buildings was designed from scratch, as the first such facility in Warsaw, meant only for trucks and not for horse traction vehicles. The second owner of the described development was the Municipal Tram and Bus Company, which took over the depot along with the rolling stock. The change of ownership was caused by the seemingly unrelated crash of the New York Stock Exchange. Before the war, Warsaw buses were parked there, the fleet of which was growing rapidly. The defensive war in September 1939 and the occupation removed buses from the streets of Warsaw. After the war, the depot – destroyed in 45% during the Warsaw Uprising – was rebuilt, becoming a symbol of the new socialist Poland. Following the example of the cities of Soviet Russia, with the help of their specialists and trolleybuses, the same service was launched in Warsaw. The depot became the first public transport base to be rebuilt after the war. A trolleybus network plan for the city of Lublin was created within its walls. Before the buildings were demolished, it was once again briefly a bus depot, and, in the end, it played a somewhat important role in the construction of the Łazienkowska Route, becoming the construction base No. 5 for the aforementioned investment.

The author analyzes the relations between scientific societies and universities in Poland in the interwar period. The source material is the Yearbook “Polish Science. Its Needs, Organization, and Development” published by the Józef Mianowski Fund in the years 1918–1947. An investigation of the relationships between scientific societies and universities offers excellent opportunities for interpreting the scientific activity in the Second Polish Republic. The connections between scientific societies and universities involved the centers for propelling scientific thought, where university chairs or scientific society committees played the leading role. Sometimes the works of non-university experts were important. The analysis of the material collected in the “Polish Science” also points to many other professional organizations (associations of professors, associate professors, or assistants). Many universities had societies supporting them. Gaining social support for universities was extremely important at the time.

The article analyzes the Polish language nomenclature of types, construction parts and equipment of vessels recorded in the 16^th-century printed dictionaries with the Polish component. In addition, the text reviews the current state of research and discusses the sources in view of the terminology in question. The excerpted source material has been listed in three tables.

The article presents a comprehensive view of the origins, technical characteristics and functioning of the Siedlce-Bologoye railway line. This railway, with an impressive length of 1.100 km, was built in the years 1902–1907 as a connection between the lands of the Kingdom of Poland and the governorates of central Russia in order to ensure the efficient transport of troops and their supplies given the anticipated war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The work aims to illustrate to what extent the assumptions of the construction promoters were confirmed and how it was used in particular periods.

The activity of Christfried Kirch (1694–1740), son of Gottfried Kirch (1639–1710), the first astronomer of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences, has not yet received much attention in historiography. Christfried Kirch’s astronomy education – beginning with the studies with his father, to the unfulfilled plans of visits to the observatories in England and France – culminated in his acceptance as an observer of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences on October 8, 1716. The article aims to present the development of Christfried Kirch’s career and his efforts to achieve the position once held by his father in the Society of Sciences in Berlin.

The article presents the biography of Edmund Goldzamt, an architect whose scientific biography has not been told yet. Born in 1921 in Lublin, educated in the USSR, he returned to Poland in 1952. Despite his modest design achievements, he played a significant role in the Stalinization of Polish cultural life. The ideological theses he developed (drawing on Soviet guidelines) were the driving force in introducing the doctrine of socialist realism in Polish architecture and urban planning. In addition, Edmund Goldzamt was a longtime theoretician and educator; he lectured at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology and had a scientific career at the Polish Academy of Sciences. After 1956, he revised his ideological views and devoted himself to research on the social determinants of architecture and urban planning.

Established in 1919, the Poznań Province covered almost entirely the former Prussian Poznań Province (Provinz Posen) and initially comprised 118 cities, which decreased to 101 in 1938. On the eve of World War I, as many as 80 out of 129 cities had gas in Provinz Posen, and nearly 1/4 of them were supplied with gas from miniature gasoline gas plants. In the wake of World War I and immediately after its end, most small gasoline plants and numerous coal gas plants were shut down and eventually permanently closed down. In total, almost all gasoline and one acetylene gas plant (19 in total), as well as five coal plants, went bankrupt in the Interwar period. Of the latter type, there was a plant in Czempiń, which was shut down only around 1938, after the town was electrified. Ujście is another addition to the list, as it ceased to supply gas from Schneidemühl (Piła) in the mid-1930s. Ultimately, in 1939, gas was used in 43 out of 101 cities in the Province, which was also due to the fact that some of the gas-supplied cities had been moved to the Pomeranian Province a year before. In the Interwar period, several key factors influencing the gasworks in Greater Poland can be observed: the aforementioned liquidation of many gas plants and the transition from gas to electricity in many cities; reconstruction and relaunching of some coal gas plants; and – finally – modernization, combined with optimization of technological processes and expansion of existing gas plants. In the case of several cities, i.e. Międzychód, Nakło nad Notecią and Strzelno, the problem of communalization of plants owned by private German companies should also be noted, as well as Polish-German cooperation in terms of gas supply to the Polish Ujście gas plant from Schneidemühl (Piła).

The study aims to compare suicide poisoning and poisons used to commit suicide in the 1930s and today. The focus is on autopsy protocols from 1930–1939 and 2010–2019 collected at the Forensic Medicine Institute in Krakow. In the years 1930–1939, there were 184 cases, 65 of which were among men and 119 among women. The most common poisons were corrosives, accounting for 69 cases, 43 were carbon monoxide, 24 were drugs and narcotics, 17 were heavy metals, and the remaining 31 were other substances. Of the 138 suicide poisonings in modern times, 96 were committed by men and 42 by women. The most common poisoning was multi-drug poisoning – 62 cases. Opioids, benzodiazepines, neuroleptics and antidepressants were the most frequently chosen substances today. Fatal intoxications with drugs/new psychoactive substances (NCAs) were observed in 28 cases, while other substances were used in the remaining 17. The conducted analysis showed a significant decrease in suicidal poisoning with the use of corrosive substances and gases, while the percentage of drug overdoses is systematically growing. Poisons used for suicide purposes in the 1930s left macroscopic changes that could be instantly noticed during the autopsy. The fact that drugs that are currently used most often do not leave such changes may justify the dynamic development of forensic toxicology.

Mateusz Siembab, Andrzej J. Wójcik, Zarys dziejów huty żelaza w Ząbkowicach (1763–1794), Instytut Historii Nauki im. L. i A. Birkenmajerów Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Warszawa 2020, ss. 215.

The article is a review of Zarys dziejów huty żelaza w Ząbkowicach (1763–1794) [Outline of the history of the ironworks in Ząbkowice (1763–1794)] by Mateusz Siembab and Andrzej J. Wójcik. The content of the work was subjected to critical analysis, confronting it with the findings of other authors. Information on industrial plants in the Siewierz center was compared with the data for selected facilities in the Old-Polish Industrial District. A similarity was found between the two industrial centers, both in technical and organizational terms.

Herbst K.-D., Biobibliographisches Handbuch der Kalendermacher, cz. 1, Einführung und Verzeichnisse, Jena 2020 (Acta Calendariographica – Forschungsberichte, t. 9), ss. 407.

Herbst K.-D., Biobibliographisches Handbuch der Kalendermacher, cz. 2, Kalendermacher Achalm – Heldvader, Jena 2020 (Acta Calendariographica – Forschungsberichte, t. 9), ss. 501.

Herbst K.-D., Biobibliographisches Handbuch der Kalendermacher, cz. 3, Kalendermacher Heller – Reinstein, Jena 2020 (Acta Calendariographica – Forschungsberichte, t. 9), ss. 501.

Herbst K.-D., Biobibliographisches Handbuch der Kalendermacher, cz. 4, Kalendermacher Reisacher – Zorawsky, Jena 2020 (Acta Calendariographica – Forschungsberichte, t. 9), ss. 504.

Herbst K.-D., Biobibliographisches Handbuch der Kalendermacher von 1550 bis 1750, www.presseforschung.uni-bremen.de/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=Startseite [dostęp 18.03.2021].

The article discusses the publications of Klaus-Dieter Herbst, crowning nearly twenty years of his research on early modern calendars. These unique works are presented in two versions: in the ninth volume of a series titled Acta Calendariographica – Forschungsberichte, published in 2020, and the website that has been systematically updated since 2014. The printed version includes an introduction to calendar matters (Part One) and a three-part biographical and bibliographic dictionary, devoted to the calendar makers, their career paths, family relationships, and calendar and publication achievements. The article outlines the specifics and structure of this publication, pointing to the ingenious solutions employed there and interesting problems raised.