Internet: Google Books

Things I've learned from Google Books:

• Goitre is also known as Derbyshire neck.
  
• Thomas Edison (in this 1908 biography) referred to difficulties in perfecting his inventions as "bugs". I thought I'd stumbled on a great etymological discovery but Wikipedia beat me to it.
  
• In 1863, "the dress of a base ball player should consist of light flannel shirt and trowsers, a flannel cap with a projecting visor of white enamelled leather, and canvas shows with spiked soles."
  
• There were 226 diarrhea-related deaths in Michigan in 1879 - but none in March.
  
• The word gossip derives from godsyb, an old word for godparent.