The history of Titanic, of the White Star Line, is one of the most tragically short stories ever. The world had waited expectantly for its launching and again for its sailing; had read accounts of its tremendous size and its unexampled completeness and …
These amazing photochrom postcards of New York City were procured by the Detroit Publishing Company and offer a spectacular view of the Big Apple in natural colors. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (unti…
The famous “whipped slave” photograph pictures the runaway slave Gordon exposing his severely whipped back to the camera of two itinerant photographers, William D. McPherson and his partner, Mr. Oliver. Gordon had received a severe whipping for undisclo…
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 according t…
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…
The idea of creating a monumental sculpture in the Black Hills was first suggested in 1923 by South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson, who had envisioned creating likenesses of famous Native American and American Old West personalities on a needlelike …
By the 1890s postcards were widely available throughout continental Europe. The postcards appealed to tourists looking for a souvenir of their travels abroad. Although travel was still largely limited to elites, it was becoming more accessible to the middl…
Remnants of the glorious Viking past are scattered throughout the countryside of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Particularly in Sweden’s Uppland province, there are thousands of stones carved with runic inscriptions dating from the Bronze Age up to modern ti…
These propaganda paintings show how North Korea views America and by association the West. They depict the alleged mass murder of Sinchon civilians between October and December 1950. The regime claims that around 35,000 people were brutally tortured and…
By the 1970s teenage pregnancies were recognized as a problem worldwide. The continuing apprehension about teenage pregnancy was based on the profound impact that teenage pregnancy could have on the lives of the girls and their children. Demographic stu…
Nothing says Italian food like pasta. Pasta is an integral part of Italy’s food history. Wherever Italians immigrated they have brought their pasta along, so much so today it can be considered a staple of international cuisine. Many school children were…
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…
As soon as the science of photography was perfected for use by the general public, artists and others began to manipulate the images. Photo manipulation was soon employed in numerous ways, as early photography had several limitations. Correct exposures …
TIME magazine decided to create a list of the 100 most influential pictures ever taken. They teamed up with curators, historians, photo editors, and famous photographers around the world for this task. "No formula makes for iconic photos," the editors said. …
From the days of catapults and trebuchets, military men have dreamed of the ultimate weapon that could smash an enemy’s wall, castle, or defensive stronghold. For a span of eighty-five years, that weapon was the railroad gun, large enough to do substantial…
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 poignan…
There are few words more closely associated with 20th-century South African history than apartheid, the Afrikaan word for "apartness" that describes the nation's official system of racial segregation. And though the discriminatory divide between whites …
In 1989, Michael Galinsky, then a 20-year-old student, took a month to traverse the U.S. Everywhere he went, he documented the same place: the shopping mall. The results are now an archive of a vanished world, simultaneously familiar and foreign, trivial a…
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Erected in the dead of night on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall (known as Berliner Mauer in German) was a physical division between West Berlin and East Germany. Its purpose was to keep disaffected East Germans from fleeing to the West. When the Berlin…