To help imagine longer temporal perspectives, a giant clock ticking every ten seconds was built in Texas in 1999. This is a chapter of the virtual exhibition “Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands”—written and curated by historian Nina Möllers.

In this chapter of their virtual exhibition “‘Commanding, Sovereign Stream’: The Neva and the Viennese Danube in the History of Imperial Metropolitan Centers,” the authors examine the dynamic landscapes of the Neva and Danube Rivers, the ways they determine people’s lives and are also modified to secure people’s needs and protect them from flooding.

In this chapter of their virtual exhibition “‘Commanding, Sovereign Stream’: The Neva and the Viennese Danube in the History of Imperial Metropolitan Centers,” the authors discuss how the growing population required a lot of food and fish was significant part of the city dwellers’ diets. Social stratification led to the clear division between fish commodities for the wealthy and those for poor citizens, though some kinds of fish could be popular among all dwellers, regardless of social differences.