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…
In February 1954, actress Marilyn Monroe traveled to Korea to entertain the American troops. She performed a quickly thrown-together show titled Anything Goes to audiences which totaled over 100,000 troops over 4 days. The tour was also a chance for …
The invention of the cannon in the 12th century revolutionized warfare, and soon after, this powerful weapon found a horrifying use – executions. Cannons became instruments of torture, with condemned prisoners strapped to their muzzles and blasted to pieces…
Dressed in what would look to us like very conservative swimwear today, the women were being arrested for defying a ban on wearing their ‘brief swimsuits’ in public. In the early 1900s, modesty laws were very strict and required most women to wear long …
Viktor Bulla's photograph of hundreds of children wearing gas masks was not meant to be ghoulish, a commentary on war or lost innocence, but rather exemplified a reason for pride — the country was blessed with well-trained, well-equipped and obviously cour…
World War I caused the death of millions of combatants and civilians, while countless soldiers suffered from injury and disfigurement. Perhaps the most disheartening were facial injuries, as soldiers had to not only deal with the physical loss, but also…
The first monarch to be crowned after India’s independence from British colonial rule, the Queen visited India on three occasions. The first of those visits came in 1961 when she and her husband Prince Phillip toured the country’s biggest cities like Mu…
“Wait for Me, Daddy” is an iconic photo taken by Claude P. Dettloff on October 1, 1940, of The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles) marching down Eighth Street at the Columbia Street intersection, New Westminster, Canada. Pictured …
Portrait of a young Soviet prisoner of war in a steel breastplate SN-42, made of 2mm steel (.08") and weighing 3.5 kg (7.7 lbs), captured by Finnish troops during the Finnish-Soviet Continuation War. A testament to the breastplate’s effectiveness, the y…
The Statue of Liberty was completed in Paris in June 1884, presented to America by the people of France on July 4, 1884. The copper statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tab…
Private First Class Kerry Nelson, an American M48 tank gunner of the 3rd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, in Vietnam's 'Iron Triangle' during the Vietnam War. The squadron was tasked with securing Route 13, a strategic road north of Saigon, whic…
During the Victorian era of the 1800s, Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt threw open the Gates of Egypt’s history for the Europeans. At that time, mummies were not accorded the respect that they deserved from the European elites and in fact, mummies could be …
The name for the bikini design was coined in 1946 by French engineer Louis Réard, the designer of the bikini. He named the swimsuit after Bikini Atoll, where testing on the atomic bomb was taking place. Fashion designer Jacques Heim, also from France, r…
Chased by youth armed with clubs, this woman is fleeing from a "death dealer" whose left leg can be seen at the left-hand edge of the photograph. The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive massacres of Jews living in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), per…
On 24 July 1967, during a state visit to Expo '67, General Charles de Gaulle, president of France and a hero of the 20th century, proclaimed from the balcony of Montréal's City Hall a sentence that would change the history of Canada: “Vive le Québec libre”…
The old and the new in one picture. You can really see the direction warfare was going; only they didn't know it yet. For the first few months in the war, the French Cuirassiers still wore breastplates and plumed helmets. Soldiers being stuck in the old…
A death mask is a mold taken from a person's face after they have died. Death masks may be mementos of the dead or be used for the creation of portraits. Wounded in France three months before his death, Rommel’s death mask shows evidence of the injuries…
This picture might look like marketing material based on the way she's holding the gun, but that’s a common shotgun technique. In the 1970s this was considered the proper way to shoot a shotgun at close range. As we can see in the picture, the stock goe…
The Russian word used in the original title, "физкультурники", is now usually translated as "gym teachers", but at the moment of the parades meant "sportsmen/bodybuilders or athletes". This is a legacy of Stalin era propaganda parades to promote physica…