Starting from the 1890s, the famous Dutch impressionist painter George Hendrik Breitner (1857 – 1923) used his camera to record the everyday life in the streets of Amsterdam. He found photographs to be a useful tool for capturing fleeting conditions of …
At 240 feet (73 m) long by 62 feet wide (19 m) and reaching a height of 66 feet (20 m), the Great Sphinx is one of the largest statues in the world. Even the ancient Egyptians themselves were puzzled by the remote antiquity and purpose of the Great Sphi…
Although the birth control pill and other hormonal contraceptive devices are modern inventions, birth control forms have been around for thousands of years. The earliest known recordings of birth control methods date back to ancient Mesopotamia, around …
In this collection, creepy vintage photographs show anything from the primitive Halloween costumes of the past to Victorian-era portraits where something doesn’t feel quite right. Perhaps it’s grainy black and white, sometimes sepia feel to them. Or maybe b…
These stunning color postcards of Tunisia show its vibrant streets, spectacular architecture, and the everyday life of Tunisian people. Produced in 1899, the postcards were printed using the popular Photochrom technique invented by a Swiss printer in th…
These late-19th and early-20th century photographs show some of the last Maori women to wear the traditional Tā moko face marking before it was outlawed by British colonialists. Ta moko is the name for the permanent body and face marking by Maori, the indi…
Advertising has become an integral part of our socio-economic lives and it’s carefully designed to speak to the hearts and minds of consumers. It taps into our psyche, hopes, dreams, goals, and fears. In this article, we will flip through the pages of h…
The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a simple suspension bridge crossing the Capilano River in the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The current bridge is 140 meters (460 ft) long and 70 meters (230 ft) above the river. The bridge was …
Ladies, this is how you land a man in 1938-style. We always find these vintage “dating tips” for single women hilarious. Just think about it: “Don’t drink too much, as a man expects you to keep your dignity all evening. Drinking may make some girls seem cle…
The history of women's workwear tells a unique story about the events of the twentieth century and the changing role of women. The amount of control that women have had over their clothes depended largely on what type of job she had. In domestic service…
These rare pictures depict the final days of 400 years of Turkish rule over Jerusalem. In its long history, the inhabitants and rulers of the city of Jerusalem have changed countless times, from ancient pagans to Biblical Israelites to Byzantine Christi…
It’s 1918 and France was caught in the final year of World War I. American photographer Lewis Hine traveled across the country for the American Red Cross, documenting their work with refugees, orphans, and wounded soldiers. Lost for decades, his poignant w…
At the beginning of the 20th century, the shipping route across the Atlantic was extremely popular, driven by waves of European emigrants from all parts of Europe to the United States. Travel on these liners was not a recreational cruise but merely a me…
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…
Death has always inspired the living to create, to protect, to memorialize, and sometimes, to astonish. Across centuries and continents, the graves of the ordinary and the extraordinary alike have become canvases for human emotion, ingenuity, and occasional…
The acrid smoke hung thick in dimly lit basements across America's cities, where customers from society's highest and lowest rungs sought refuge in clouds of vaporized opium. These haunting photographs capture a shadowy chapter of American history when unde…
During the depths of the Great Depression, American cities witnessed mass expulsions that would tear apart families and communities for generations. Between 1929 and 1939, somewhere between 300,000 and 2 million people of Mexican descent were forced or pres…
In an era when a family of four is considered average, photographs of households with ten, twelve, or even twenty children seem almost unfathomable. Yet for most of American history, sprawling families weren't just common—they were the expected pattern of l…
At the far edges of the nineteenth-century world, the Arctic stood as both a lived homeland and a testing ground for human ambition. Long before explorers and photographers arrived with cameras and scientific instruments, Indigenous peoples such as the Inui…