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…
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 mos…
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…
There are only two known photos in existence taken inside the US Supreme Court while in session. The Supreme Court of the United States does not allow cameras in the courtroom when the court is in session, a policy which is the subject of much debate. …
Shortly after the revolution, the new Cuban Castro visited the United States in 1959 at the invitation of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Since taking power in January 1959, Castro had infuriated the American government with his policies of n…
The South Fork Dam was built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to provide water for the operation of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Though the dam had been built accordin…
Throughout the 1950s, dead rotting whales toured around Europe to promote the declining whaling industry after World War 2. The story began in Trondheim, Norway, in 1952. A mysterious and as yet unidentified organization harpooned three fin whales off t…
In 1914, German photographer August Sander captured a now-famous photo titled “Young Farmers” which is also known as "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance”. Upon first glance, it may look like a simple snapshot of three nicely dressed young men walking…
These photographs of Belle Époque Venice were processed and colored using the Photochrom process. The Library of Congress' page on the photochrom process explains it: "Photochrom prints are ink-based images produced through 'the direct photographic tran…
In May 1915, Italy attacked Austria-Hungary along the Isonzo River and in the Trentino, hoping to conquer territory which it believed to be rightfully Italian. Unlike the larger-scale battles, this battle was dictated by the landscape of the sizable mounta…
In response to the Great Depression during which unemployment, poverty and the effects of the Dust Bowl ravaged the States in the 1930s, Farm Security Administration (FSA) was established by government to provide loans to farmers, facilitate the removal of…
On September 16, 1920, as hundreds of Wall Street workers headed out for lunch, a horse-drawn wagon parked in front of J. P. Morgan Bank — the world’s most powerful banking institution. Inside the wagon, 100 pounds (45 kg) of dynamite with 500 pounds (2…
Genevieve Naylor was born in 1915 in Springfield, Massachusetts. She attended Miss Hall's School and later, at age 16, the Music Box, an art school, where she studied painting. It was at the Music Box that Genevieve met Misha Reznikoff, her teacher. Two y…
These two pictures are shown side by side in the Andrei Pozdeev Museum. The museum caption reads: "(Left) The artist Eugen Stepanovich Kobytev the day he went to the front in 1941. (Right) In 1945 when he returned”. This is the human face after four years …
It’s hard to believe it, for a brief period of 6 years, it was possible to mail a baby or small child through the U.S. Postal Service. Yeah, you heard it right, it was legal to mail a baby in the United States and it happened more than once and by all a…
The 1.5 million Union and perhaps 600,000 Confederate veterans were very visible members of post-war society. For one thing, they dominated political offices in both the North and the South. Most U. S. presidents during this period had fought for the Un…
The outbreak of war in 1914 left many Belgians homeless and penniless. Germany invaded Belgium on its way to France, sending hundreds of thousands of Belgian refugees fleeing for their lives. The number of people who fled the country from 1914-18 was ap…
The R100 airship was built as part of a British government programme to develop airships to provide passenger and mail transport between Britain and the countries of the British Empire, including India, Australia, and Canada. Originally, it was proposed…
For hundreds of years, Sami people harnessed reindeer and strapped on Nordic skis as a way to travel across vast snowy expanses. Skijoring ("ski driving") is still popular in all Scandinavian countries. Reindeer races are still held in Tromso, Norway; I…
These street pictures of the City of a Thousand Minarets capture the rapid growth and transformation of Old Cairo at the turn of the 20the century. The foundations of Cairo were laid in AD 969 by the Fatimid dynasty, but the city’s history goes further …