Aerial warfare was by no means a First World War invention. Balloons had already been used for observation and propaganda distribution during the Napoleonic wars and the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870-1871. Planes had been used for bombardment mission…
At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of both industrial and military significance. A number of military units were located nearby, the most important of which was the headquarters of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's Second General Army, which comm…
In the spring of 1940, an emboldened Germany asserted itself as a modern conqueror of nations, successfully invading and occupying six countries in fewer than 100 days. On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark, which capitulated in a mere six hours. At…
On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above a wind-swept beach in North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Three more flights were made that day with Orville's brother Wilbur piloting t…
This is a photograph of an East German soldier helping a little boy cross the newly erected Berlin Wall the day it was built. A boy who'd gotten left behind in the chaos of people fleeing and families caught on different sides of the border. The soldier…
In 1973, the US Army started testing possible designs for an anti-tank grenade. Commanders in Europe had asked for some sort of ordnance for destroying tanks in close quarters. If Warsaw Pact troops had invaded, NATO soldiers could have found themselves…
By 1945, the Japanese had suffered an unbroken string of defeats for nearly two years in the South West Pacific, the Marianas campaign, and the Philippines campaign. In June, after more than 80 days of fighting, Allied forces captured the Japanese islan…
Thirty vivid, oversize black-and-white photos from the Library of Congress show Detroit in the 1940s. Full-screen scenes show vintage vehicles, fashions, hairstyles, the Crowley-Milner department store, Cunningham's drugs, a streetcar, Chrysler's tank a…
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. The crisis was unique in a…
This is Afghanistan of 1950s and 1960s. Lots of people would think that they will see pictures of a wild, underdeveloped and medieval country with life conditions worse than now. Think again. Fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for c…
Czeslawa Kwoka, age 14, appears in a prisoner identity photo provided by the Auschwitz Museum, taken by Wilhelm Brasse while working in the photography department at Auschwitz, the Nazi-run death camp where some 1.5 million people died during World War II.…
In late January 1910, following months of high rainfall, the Seine River flooded Paris when water pushed upwards from overflowing sewers and subway tunnels and seeped into basements through fully saturated soil. The waters did not overflow the river's b…
World War II brought momentous change to America's Chinese community. For decades, the Chinese were vilified in America, especially in California, the center of the U.S.'s anti-Chinese feelings. The Chinese had initially come to California for the Gold …
In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superi…
Dressed in their finest suits and ties with their top hats cocked towards the camera, these men and women seem to be posing for expensive portraits. But behind their tidy appearances are guilty eyes that hide some of the most sinister crimes policemen of t…
These vintage photographs capture a timeless energy and diversity that is characteristic of the sleepless streets of New York City. The recently discovered antique portraits showcase the city in the midst of the 1950s, as seen through the Rolleiflex len…
"Politruk" (political commissar) Alexey Yeremenko (220th Rifle Regiment/4th Rifle Division) encouraging his men to counterattack against German positions moments before being killed, in the village of Khorosheye, near Woroschilowgrad, today Luhansk, Ukrain…
The Germans, as the only colonial power amongst the Central Powers, used plenty of African soldiers of their Schutztruppen in the African theatres of war, but they had never planned to deploy these troops in Europe and would not have been able to do so dur…
The Minneapolis Morning Tribune obituary says Ga-Be-Nah-Gewn-Wonce (variously known as Kay-bah-nung-we-way, Sloughing Flesh, Wrinkled Meat or plain old — well, really old — John Smith) was reputed to be 138 years old when he died. Whatever his precise a…
Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda is the most famous of the so-called Japanese holdouts, a collection of Imperial Army stragglers who continued to hide out in the South Pacific for several years after World War II had ended. An intelligence officer, Onoda had been…