Books
Recommended Historical Reading List. (Temporary list - More books will be added). General World War I World War II Eastern Front: General Accounts Red Army German Army Barbarossa For Stalingrad/Leningrad Kursk …
Search Results for: early days of
Eiffel Tower Under Construction Through Rare Photos, 1887-1889
In 1889, Paris hosted an Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) to mark the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. More than 100 artists submitted competing plans for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars, located in central Paris, and serv…
Albanian Refugees Arriving in Italy: Photos and Stories, 1991
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…
Ruby Bridges, the First African-American to Attend a White Elementary School in the Deep South, 1960
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. …
Marilyn Monroe Performing for the Thousands of American Troops in Korea, 1954
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 …
Major General Horatio Gordon Robley with His Collection of Tattooed Maori Heads, 1895
Major-General Horatio Gordon Robley was a British army officer and artist who served in New Zealand during the New Zealand land wars in the 1860s. He was interested in ethnology and fascinated by the art of tattooing as well as being a talented illustra…
Rare Photographs of the Reichstag Fire Incident in 1933
The Reichstag fire came amid “a campaign of unparalleled violence and bitterness” by then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler, in advance of an approaching German election, and it turned a building that was “as famous through Germany as is the dome of the Capitol in W…
Nazi Rally in Buenos Aires Through Rare Photographs, 1938
Before the war Argentina hosted a strong, very-well-organized pro-Nazi element that was controlled by the German ambassador. In the spring of 1938, some 20,000 Nazi supporters attended a "Day of Unity" rally held at the Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires…
Mine Worker X-Rayed for Diamond Check in 1954
South African mineworkers being x-rayed before leaving the diamond mines. A trained radiologist like the one in the picture can easily identify even the smallest diamond, which a would-be thief might attempt to smuggle out of the mine in his stomach. Ea…
Lina Medina: The Youngest Confirmed Mother in Medical History, 1939
In 1933, Lina Medina was born in Ticrapo, Peru. At the age of five years, Lina was brought to the hospital by her parents who complained of abdominal extreme growth. The girl’s parents initially thought their daughter was suffering from a massive abdomi…
The Kovno Garage Massacre: Lithuanian Nationalists Clubbing Jewish Lithuanians to Death, 1941
In June and July 1941, detachments of German Einsatzgruppen, together with Lithuanian auxiliaries, began murdering the Jews of Lithuania. Groups of partisans, civil units of nationalist-rightist anti-Soviet affiliation, initiated contact with the German…
Iron Lungs for Polio Victims: Photos from the 1930s-1950s
In the early 20th century, polio was one of the most feared diseases in industrialized countries, paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children every year. A highly infectious disease, polio attacks the nervous system and can lead to paralysis, disabilit…
An Artist Painting a Picture of the Ruins of the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
One of the most appalling disasters that have ever been recorded in American history befell San Francisco in 1906 when an earthquake struck the Californian city on the early morning of April 18th. Modern analysis estimates it registered 8.25 on the Rich…
Boxers Covered in Blood: A Photo from 1913
This picture shows the end of a brutal boxing match between Ray Campbell and Dick Hyland. Take a look at the condition of the two fighters, battered, bloodied, bruised, and staring down at each other at the end of the fight. Boxing in those days was …
The Standoff at Checkpoint Charlie: Soviet Tanks Facing American Tanks, 1961
In October 1961, border disputes led to a standoff and for 16 hours the world was on the brink of war while Soviet and American tanks faced each other just 300 feet (100 meters) apart. In August 1961 Washington and its British and French allies had fail…
Omayra Sanchez: Young Victim of the Armero Tragedy in Colombia, 1985
On November 13, 1985, the Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Pyroclastic flows exploding from the crater melted the mountain's icecap, forming lahars (volcanic mudflows and debris flows) which cascaded into river valleys below. One lahar, consisting of th…
Rare Photo of the Trinity Explosion 0.016 Seconds after Detonation, 1945
On July 16, 1945, the United States became the first country to successfully detonate an atomic weapon, signaling the beginning of a new era in warfare and in politics. In the early 1940s, the U.S. government authorized a top-secret program of nuclear t…
Princess Diana Shakes Hands with an AIDS Patient Without Gloves, 1991
By the time of this photograph, AIDS might have been more widely understood, but people were still wary about how it was transmitted because it wasn't widely understood by the general public at the time. Princess Diana was a very important figurehead in…
Dr. Leonid Rogozov: The Soviet Surgeon who Removed his Own Appendix while Stranded in Antarctica, 1961
Leonid Rogozov was a Soviet general practitioner who took part in the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1960–1961. He was the only doctor stationed at the Novolazarevskaya Station and, while there, developed appendicitis, which meant he had to perfor…
Vladimir Lenin’s Last Photo in 1923: He had had Three Strokes at this Point and was Completely Mute
This last photo shows Vladimir Lenin in a wheelchair after suffering three stokes in the previous two years. By the end, he was paralyzed and completely mute. Beside him are his sister Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova-Ulyanova and one of his doctors A. M. Kozhev…