If the Lumière Brothers... (Mozart Minute 01)

...had finished their invention 200 years earlier, I could have used original footage of James Cook, Joseph II, Catherine the Great, Danton and Mozart instead of just filming their clothing.

...The delivery of Houghton’´s letter didn’t cause them a great deal of concern. As there was no official mail service between Africa and England, Banks and Beaufoy instructed Houghton to write a promissory note on the back of the letter. He promised to pay whoever delivered it to London five pounds…. Five pounds was an unbelievable sum for delivering a letter. It was, for example, the same amount the German Kaiser paid his court musician for ten days of service, a 34-year-old composer by the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
From: Anthony Sattin: “The Gates of Africa, Death, Discovery and the Search for Timbuktu,” 2003