The picture shows a German cavalryman patrolling behind the front lines while carrying a steel lance. German lances were hollow tubes made of rolled steel, with a length of 3.2 meters they were usually made in three sections fitted together. It weighed …
After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Americans took on the task of occupying Japan and reforming the militaristic nation into a modern country that would never again threaten its neighbors. On 29 August 1945, MacArthur was ordered to exercise autho…
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 …
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…
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…
This 1917 field portrait depicts four soldiers wearing heavy fleece coats, steel helmets, and late model gas masks. The bitter 1917 winter was the coldest in living memory for soldiers on both sides of the front. Soldiers suffered from frostbite and exp…
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…
Argentina's 2-1 victory over England in front of 115,000 fans on June 22, 1986, is remembered entirely for the two moments from Maradona which would ultimately settle a contest simmering with political overtones. Four years earlier, Britain and Argentin…
The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, both a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an enclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East Germa…
The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building. Chrysler had already begun work on…
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…
Soviet soldiers openly sexually harass a passing German woman near the West Hall section of the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof central railway terminus. As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of the war, mass rapes took pla…
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 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…