This set of pictures from 1865 shows the hanging execution of the four Lincoln conspirators: David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt. Their deaths were a culmination of sorts of a nation ravaged by war, bitter conflict, and the dea…
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to ever walk on the moon, starting a new era on the space exploration. We’re often subjected to the standard shots taken by Buzz Aldrin of the grey, rocky surface with a few faceless spacemen st…
Conrad Schumann was immortalized in this photograph as he leapt across the barricade that would become the Berlin Wall. The photo was called “The Leap into Freedom”. It became an iconic image of the Cold War. Born in Zschochau, Saxony during the middle …
Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s. They were hunted for their skins, with the rest of the animals left behind to decay on the ground. Hides were prepared and shipped to the East…
During the Great Depression, millions of people were out of work across the United States. Unable to find another job locally, many unemployed people hit the road, traveling from place to place, hoping to find some work. A few of these people had cars, …
They are all wearing dance shoes so they are probably performers for a variety show. Since no one had decent air conditioning back then, practicing their acts outside on the roof was better than in a stuffy theater. Someone must have thought it'd make a…
Rat-catchers were employed in Europe to control rat populations. Keeping the rat population under control was practiced in Europe to prevent the spread of diseases to man, most notoriously the Black Plague and to prevent damage to food supplies. Today this…
Tens of thousands of soldiers, reservists, and other members of the military were arranged to form massive compositions. Although if viewed from the ground or from directly above, these masses of men would appear meaningless, when seen from the top of a…
Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the ocean liner Titanic struck an iceberg. Less than three hours later, she lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, having taken with her more than 1,500 of the roughly 2,200 people on board. The exact size of th…
Berlin after the War was a post-apocalyptic world. One of the largest and most modern cities in Europe was left a wasteland. There were vast piles of rubble everywhere. Other areas were rows of building walls with collapsed interiors — the skeletons of …
It’s amazing that this broadside ironclad was designed and built without the aid of computers. Someone put pen to paper and designed this. Then the parts were made by hand in some fashion or another. USS Galena was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad bui…
The Mangbetu people had a distinctive look and this was partly due to their elongated heads. At birth, the heads of babies’ were tightly wrapped with cloth in order to give their heads the elongated look. The custom of skull elongation called by the nat…
In 1936 Jesse Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. Nazi propaganda promoted concepts of "Aryan racial superiority" and depicted ethn…
These photographs show SUB 110, a German submarine that was sunk and risen in 1918. We can see the control room in the submarine, including the manhole to the periscope well, hand wheels for pressure gear, valve wheels for flooding and blowing, and air pre…
The gun players are WH Murphy and his assistant, of the Protective Garment Corporation of New York. By 1923, the Protective Garment Corporation of New York manufactured a lightweight vest for police use and they held a live demonstration in DC. The live…
The 21st century has arrived, and yet so many of the technologies people take for granted today look remarkably similar to visions that were sketched out on paper decades ago. That is not a coincidence. The years between 1958 and 1963 represent what man…
Dr. Harvey Cushing, renowned in part for Cushing’s Syndrome, was a pioneering figure in the field of neuroscience. He performed some of the earliest successful brain surgeries and was instrumental in advancing medical techniques. Above all, Cushing was t…
The 1980s saw the AIDS epidemic surge to catastrophic levels, leaving communities devastated and countless lives hanging in the balance. Across the U.S. and beyond, people were dying at an alarming rate, while others were gripped by fear of a mysterious dis…
As modern technology rapidly advances, jobs that once seemed like the stuff of science fiction are now becoming everyday realities. However, as new opportunities emerge, many roles that were once essential have faded into history. This list explores …
When it opened in 1909, the Queensboro Bridge featured the two longest steel cantilever spans globally at the time—spanning 1,182 feet from Manhattan to Blackwell's Island and 984 feet from Blackwell's Island to Queens. These impressive spans held the recor…