This is troopship Queen Elisabeth. Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were used as troop transports during the Second World War. Their high speeds allowed them to outrun hazards, principally German U-boats, usually allowing them to travel without a convoy. …
Drill instructors perform a hygiene inspection to ensure recruits have adequately showered, shaved, and have no medical issues. This was done to make sure that recruits had no health problems that can affect them from training. Back then the recruits ha…
This photo at first was regarded by many editors as too disturbing to print, but later became one of the most famous images of the first Gulf War. This photo was taken by Ken Jarecke, his quote: "If I don’t photograph this, people like my mom will think…
Sideburns are patches of facial hair grown on the sides of the face, extending from the hairline to below the ears and worn with an unbearded chin. The term sideburns is a 19th-century corruption of the original burnsides, named after American Civil War ge…
Crossed rifles on the sand are a comrade’s tribute to this American soldier who sprang ashore from a landing barge and died at the barricades of Western Europe. Picture taken a few days after D-Day, on Omaha Beach. It had to have been after the artiller…
American Nazi Party Commander George Lincoln Rockwell, flanked by two members of the party, listening to Malcolm X’s speech at the Black Muslims meeting held at the Uline Arena. This is an amazing, very powerful shot. Not just from a historical point of…
The Flying Tigers are flying in close formation. Every pilot in that picture is looking at the airplane next to him and trying to maintain his position by maintaining the same view of his neighbor. The pilot in front looking at the camera plane is doing…
The FBI put him in a bulletproof vest, they weren’t going to take any chances after Lee Harvey Oswald. Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper on April 4, 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenness…
The Enola Gay was a bomber, named for Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who selected the aircraft while it was still on the assembly line. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircra…
The soldier is naked because he was probably ordered to strip to be sure that there wasn’t any weapon or explosive concealed. It was very rare for Japanese soldiers to surrender as it was deemed dishonorable. Those huge steel doors, and thick walls, must b…
Looking at who was around Da Nang around then, he must be part of 1/3 or 1/9 Marine Corp. This soldier just arrived. That's why he is still wearing a white t-shirt and is wearing clean fatigues and has a new-looking web belt. Some of the soldiers in Vie…
After spending more than five years in a North Vietnamese camp, Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is reunited with his family at Travis AFB, on March 13, 1973. Burst of Joy is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder…
At a time when censors used a heavy hand to keep the American public from knowing and seeing the carnage in the Pacific during World War II, this ground-breaking photograph of dead American soldiers confronted the American public for the first time with th…
The photograph is taken during a battle of Saipan that claimed the lives of 22,000 Japanese civilians – many by suicide – and nearly all 30,000 Japanese troops on the island. Of the 71,000 American troops who landed on Saipan, 3,426 perished, while more th…
This picture of Willie, Patton’s dog, was taken a few days after the General’s death as preparations were made to send home his effects. Cartoonist Bill Mauldin describes the moment: "Beside him, lying in a big chair was Willie, the bull terrier. If ever d…
Originally intended to prevent crime and drunkenness, it soon became clear that Prohibition did just the opposite, as illegal speakeasies became prevalent and bootlegging essentially led to the establishment of organized crime in the United States. Iron…
The nuclear test of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon was codenamed Trinity, but the atomic device was nicknamed The Gadget. The date of the Trinity test is usually considered to be the beginning of the Atomic Age. The gadget was an implosion-typ…
At a ceremony in Dearborn, Michigan, Henry Ford is presented with the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle on his 75th birthday. Henry Ford was the first American recipient of this order, an honor created in 1937 by Adolf Hitler. This wa…
The B-32 Dominator was a heavy bomber made for United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and had the distinction of being the last Allied aircraft to be engaged in combat during World War II. The B-32 Dominator was initially intended as insuran…
This detonation, known as the Baker Test, was part of Operation Crossroads in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held…