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…
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…
The Battle of Ciudad Juárez marked the end of the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. It was fought between federal forces loyal to President Porfirio Díaz and rebel forces of Francisco Madero. Diaz's 34-year dictatorial rule met with much opposition…
The pretty ankle contest" appear in the early 1900s as special shows within women’s beauty competitions. Contestants would have to stand behind a curtain to conceal their bodies, so that all that could be seen was below the knee - legs clad in thick stocki…
Before the they walked on the moon on July 20, 1969, the Apollo program astronauts trained in Flagstaff, a small city nestled in a forest of ponderosa pines at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, Arizona’s tallest mountains. In fact, all 24 astronauts who…
Originally the idea for a flight expedition over Mount Everest was proposed in 1918 by a British mountaineering physiologist, Alexander Kellas in his journal “The Possibility of Aerial Reconnaissance in the Himalaya.” As a skilled mountaineer and expert…
When the Germans and their allies invaded Southeastern Europe, a large number of civilians (over 40,000) escaped from their homelands. Many fled all the way across the Mediterranean, hopping from island to island in search of shelter and safety. The British…
In the 1950s, the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) – that part of Germany which had been the Soviet Occupation Zone in the post World War Two division of Germany – was threatening to bleed dry, as one in six people fled, usually in search of work und…
A Spanish engineer and aeronautical pioneer, Juan de la Cierva, developed the original “autogiro”. Its name was derived from the self stabilization accomplished by a four-bladed horizontal screw turned by wind produced in the sky. In addition to the nam…
By the time the sun rose in New York City on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first and second waves of American troops had come ashore under heavy German fire on the beaches of Normandy. Working under the command of General Eisenhower, an armada of 5,0…
The 1889 World Fair in Paris was symbolically important, since the year 1889 marked the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, and the Fair was announced as a celebration of the event. It attracted more than thirty-two million visitors. The most f…
After centuries of isolation and several unsuccessful attempts by the Western nations at opening Japan to international relations and trade, the United States Navy sent Commodore C. Perry in 1853 with a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor…
The Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC) is responsible for the technology, research, development, engineering, fielding, and sustainment of U.S. military's food, clothing, shelters, airdrop systems, and Soldier support items. Construction on the resear…
This card was used by police in the Soviet Union to identify different nationalities by facial phenotypes. Originally it was developed by a group of Soviet criminologists based on various mugshot collections. The exact date is unknown, however, based on…
In 1942, shortly after the US entry into the war, the Navy established a special group called the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit to document and publicize its aviation activities. The main purpose of this photographic unit was to promote the recruitme…