During the final days of the war, a platoon of machine gunners entered a Leipzig building looking for positions to set up covering fire points that would protect foot soldiers of the 2nd U.S. Infantry advancing across the bridge. Two members of the plat…
The fall of communism in Albania taking place in the early 1990s gave way to a major economic collapse (with severe food shortages) amid widespread political and social unrest in the country. This incited many Albanians to try to leave the previously se…
The originally seven-car imperial train was intended for the heir of the throne Nicholas Alexandrovich (the future Nicholas II). It was built in 1894-1896 in the Main Car Workshops of the Nicholas Railway Line. And although the train was designed to acc…
These remarkable photographs provide probably the only surviving images of veterans of the Grande Armée and the Guard actually wearing their original uniforms and insignia, although some of the uniforms have obviously been recut by tailors of the 1850s. …
Private Heath Matthews’ face is covered in blood as he awaits medical attention for his superficial lacerations. The blood, combined with the weary and astonished expression on the young soldier’s face, effectively portrays the terror of war. The pictur…
This is a Soviet propaganda banner on the frontline in Uhtua, Northern Karelia. It reads: "Finland is out of bread, but the war is not over yet". The long-distance photo was taken on June when the Finnish-Soviet front had stabilized for the most part into …
Stanley Forman was early for his shift at the Herald American on April 5th, 1976 and he decided to head out to an anti-busing demonstration at Boston City Hall that another journalist was already covering. It was already two years into a desegregated sc…
Although the photo was probably staged, it does show anthropologist Frances Densmore sitting with Mountain Chief of the Blackfoot Indian tribe, while he interprets a song in Plains Indian sign language. The photo was taken for the Bureau of American Ethnol…
This photograph was taken three days after the Normandy beachhead was established, on June 9th, 1944, and shows the colossal scale of the operation to transport men and material for the liberation of Europe. The landing ships are putting cargo ashore on…
By definition, a midget submarine is less than 150 tons, has a crew of no more than eight, has no onboard living accommodation, and operates in conjunction with a mother ship to provide the living accommodations and other support. The Japanese Navy buil…
During the Communist Era in Romania, huge massive Soviet-style apartment buildings were built everywhere. In the city of Alba Iulia, they were planning a majestic boulevard but realized one of those ugly monsters got in their way. The solution? They spl…
Herbert List was a German photographer, who worked for magazines, including Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Life, and was associated with Magnum Photos. He traveled regularly between Greece, Italy, and Paris until the outbreak of World War II, when he settl…
It all began in May of 1987. Mathias Rust was fed up with the Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union so he planned to create an "imaginary bridge" to the East. He left Uetersen in his rented Reims Cessna F172P D-ECJB, which was …
During the Second World War, Balham underground station was one of many deep tube stations designated for use as a civilian air raid shelter. At 20:02 on 14 October 1940, a 1400 kg semi-armor piercing fragmentation bomb fell on the road above the northe…
Carl Akeley, considered the father of modern taxidermy, was not only a taxidermist but also a naturalist, sculptor, writer, and inventor. Best known for the Hall of African Mammals that bears his name at the American Museum of Natural History in New Yor…
The picture was taken in Vukovar in 1992 and the people in the photo are most likely ethnic Serbs. The reason is that Vukovar came under the control of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) back in November of 1991. At that point, most ethnic Croats fled the…
In 1932-1933, at the worst point in the Great Depression years, unemployment rates in the United States reached almost 25%, with more than 11 million people looking for work. Farmers who had lost their land and homes to foreclosure as a result of the Du…
A historical demonstration in 1887 showing the weight of the central span of a bridge being transmitted to the banks through diamond-shaped supports. The central "weight" is Kaichi Watanabe, one of the first Japanese engineers who came to study in the U…
On the road to Civil Rights, even children became public figures, such as six-year-old Ruby Bridges, who integrated an all-white elementary school in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. Ruby was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, to Abon and Lucille Bridges. …
Amon Leopold Goeth (German: Amon Göth) the villain of the movie Schindler's List, was born in 1908 in Vienna, Austria. At the age of 24, he joined the Nazi party. In 1940, Amon Goeth became a member of the Waffen-SS. He was assigned to the SS headquarte…