An unauthorized photo of Stalin inside the Kremlin shows the very moment he was informed that the German armies had advanced in Kiev (August 1941). What you see here is a man who up until a few weeks before had absolute confidence in Plan A, and who now…
On the morning of April 2, 1954, Los Angeles Times photographer John Gaunt was lounging in the front yard of his beachfront home in Hermosa Beach when he heard a neighbor shout, “Something’s happening on the beach!” Instinctively, Gaunt grabbed his Roll…
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 …
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 …
In 1910, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott led a privately funded expedition to become the first people to successfully reach the South Pole. The expedition was Scott's attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, as well as carry out important s…
When an earthquake ripped through Santa Monica on March 10, 1933, the city was already in bad shape. The quiet community on the Pacific coast had prided itself in being socially elite and culturally refined, but that pride hadn’t stopped the Great Depre…
The early 1920s were the gilded age for the Ku Klux Klan, as many successful and powerful people were either openly Klansmen or sympathetic to the cause. The organization boasted a membership of 3 million nationwide, including prominent community leader…
These pictures show what was acceptable in the 1980s at Spring Break. Mostly from Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, these show a party scene that seems alien, the kind of en masse binge-drinking you could have before the intervention of social media. T…
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…
The events of 1942 were crucial in the way that World War Two played out. The first Americans arrived in England in January - 'Overpaid, oversexed - and in North Africa Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps began their counter-offensive, capturing Tobr…
In the 19th century, there were no real institutions to regulate the advertising claims of health products. In such a climate, a popular so-called “patent medicine” market flourished. Manufacturers of these medical products often made misleading claims …
At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, many close to the British royal family wanted the Queen Mother and her daughters, princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, then 13 and 9 years old respectively, to evacuate to Canada. But the Queen Mother refused. She …
The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of the Allied operations in and around Italy from 1943 to the end of the war. Following victory in the North African Campaign, there was disagreement among the Allies on the next step they should take. …
On March 27, 1964, at 5:36 PM, a megathrust earthquake occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The epicenter was about 10 km east of the mouth of College Fiord, approximately 90 km west of Valdez and 120 km east of Anchorage. Lasting f…
Decades after her death, Eva Braun, the long-time mistress of Adolf Hitler, remains a mysterious and notorious figure. This is the photographic life story of a woman who met Hitler as a teenager and, in the last days of the war, became the Führer’s wife…
Adolf Eichmann inspired Hannah Arendt's famous phrase ‘the banality of evil’. A career civil servant in Nazi Germany, he was put in charge of administering the ‘Final Solution’ and organized the seizure of Jews from all over Europe and their transportation…
Following World War II, pressures to recognize, challenge, and change inequalities for minorities grew. One of the most notable challenges to the status quo was the 1954 landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas which que…
Elvis Presley, the “undisputed King of Rock and Roll”, began his career in 1954 and became a national sensation in 1956 with the release of “Heartbreak Hotel.” He went on to captivate audiences with his unique musical style, provocative hip gyrations, a…
Annelies "Anne" Marie Frank (12 June 1929 – early March 1945) was just an ordinary Dutch girl from an ordinary family. The family happened to be Jewish, which is why terrible things happened to them. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her lif…
The Statue of Liberty, officially Liberty Enlightening the World, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and Gustave Eiffel, was a gift to the United States from the people of France in 1886. With a tablet inscribed with the date of America’s independen…