In this article, we’ve collected a few rare photographs from the 1870s taken by Shinichi Suzuki (1835-1918) who photographed Japan for a foreign newsmagazine called The Far East. After his lumber family business was destroyed by a tsunami in 1854, Suzuk…
For thousands of years, warships were built of wood and powered by human muscles and the wind. Gunpowder carved the first niche for chemical energy and machine-made materials, but successfully mounting and using cannons aboard ships still required vast amo…
During the Second World War, the United States government encouraged the American people to participate in scrap drives, a way for everyone to contribute to the war effort. By recycling unused or unwanted metal for example, the government could build ships…
These amazing color photos of Belfast capture the shipyards, the lively streets, the everyday life, the fashion, and document a city worlds away from the one we know today. The pictures were taken by documentary and Press photographer, Bert Hardy, who's be…
Winter brings a unique set of risks and challenges for firefighters ranging from mild inconvenience to extreme danger. When temperatures reach below zero degrees, the battle is against the elements and the flames. Everything moves slower in extreme cold…
Pennsylvania’s rich coal mining history dates back centuries to the late 1700s and boomed between 1870 and 1930. The pictures collected in this article were taken by John Collier, an Office of War Information photographer, and capture the gritty life of miners…
On a lazy Sunday afternoon in September 1942, photographer Marjory Collins wandered around New York City’s Central Park capturing a series of incredible images. The amazing and quasi-candid shots show families, friends, kids, lovers, and sailors enjoying a sun…
These mugshots of Auschwitz guards were published by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance and you can see the evils that run the deadliest concentration camp of the Second World War. The full database contains over 25,000 records that cover person…
These images of Greenland, taken by the Danish physician and photographer Krabbe, focus on the way of life and the inhabitants (Danish Greenlanders and indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people) of this isolated Arctic area. The homes and boats of the Greenlande…
Fidel Castro was an accomplished high-school athlete who was named Havana’s outstanding schoolboy sportsman in 1943–44. He excelled in track and field (in the high jump and middle-distance running), baseball, basketball (playing for the University of Havan…
The flight attendant occupation took permanent shape in the 1930s as “women’s work,” that is, work not only predominately performed by women but also defined as embodying white, middle-class ideals of femininity. As the nascent commercial aviation indus…
The history of Titanic, of the White Star Line, is one of the most tragically short it is possible to conceive. The world had waited expectantly for its launching and again for its sailing; had read accounts of its tremendous size and its unexampled comple…
In the mid 19 century, a variety of men had staged pictures of themselves taken at work, from artisans and clowns to engineers and preachers; they chose to have their lives represented by the day-to-day activities of their occupations. Subjects indicated t…
In 1920, the southeastern part of Europe was a miserable place. The endless wars, beginning with the First Balkan War in 1912, continuing with World War I in 1914-1918, and other ethnic conflicts, had disrupted countless lives. The American Red Cross ha…
A few years before being commissioned by the tsar Nicholas II to photograph the Russian Empire in color, photographer Prokudin-Gorsky set off on an expedition to what is now Uzbekistan to observe a rare solar eclipse. The long trip to Uzbekistan failed …
The bizarre amphibious four-wheeled vehicle called Rhino was designed by the Greek-American inventor Elie Aghnides. In the 1940s, Aghnides was watching a tractor laboring through New York City's Central Park and figured he could combine the stability of a …
These amazing photochrom postcards of New York City were procured by the Detroit Publishing Company and offer a spectacular view of the Big Apple in natural colors. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (unti…
These rare photographs from the National Library of Ireland capture gorgeous portraits of the people of old Ireland in magnificent detail. The last decades of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th were a period of colossal change that ended up wi…
In the final winter of World War II, the eastern German city of Dresden was reduced to rubble, killing tens of thousands and sparking a bitter debate over whether the attack was justified. Dresden was the capital of the state of Saxony, situated on the …
These interesting candid photos were taken on the roof of the D. B. Loveman & Company department store in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. The photographer was Charles Gustavus Walline who himself worked at the department store. His subjects were his cow…