Every story on OPS is a story a contributor heard from someone else. These stories have been overheard and misheard, told and re-told and sometimes refined over time.
"Our interests extend to the wondrous, the curious, the singular, the esoteric, the arcane, and the sometimes hazy frontier between the plausible and the implausible." a whacky collection
"Historiophoty" is Robert Rosentstone's term for our representing history visually and filmically; in contrast, according to White, is "historiography," representing history verbally, in prose.
narrative+history+pictures+encyclopedia; "safe, fast and fun way to learn the real story behind historic events, famous people, heroic exploits, legends, disasters, movies, plus topics of current and general interest"
a science game: "a virtual Darwinian aquarium .. you initiate a primordial soup, and .. check up on what Virtual Mother Nature is up to - about every 15 min. (or every few days)"
a very large historical archive, often from advertising, "to provide for all levels of possible viewer a visually orientated taxonomy of the ways in which pictures are used to tell stories." unique collection, also useful for many other purposes