When the Irish talk about the “Land War,” they have in mind either three phases of anti-landlord agitation in the late nineteenth century, or, more narrowly, the first of these phases, which lasted from 1879 until 1882. The movement emerged during a sev…
These incredible vintage photos show how one of the world's greatest engineering feats was created in 1906-1915 to bring water to New York City. In 1905, the city's newly established Board of Water Supply launched the Catskill Aqueduct project, which wo…
In 1972, the United States federal government, which was looking to document living conditions among Native American communities, employed the services of photographer Terry Eiler to visit the south-west of the country and give an outsider view into the li…
Tina Turner (born November 26, 1939, Brownsville, Tennessee, U.S.), was an American-born singer who found success in the rhythm-and-blues, soul, and rock genres in a career that spanned five decades. Widely referred to as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she r…
These stunning photographs show how New York City looked like in the 1880s and 1890s. The images depict the streets of the city that never sleeps, the hustling crowds of Manhattan, swimmers at Coney Island, and people’s everyday life. The photographs, t…
These color pictures of the vibrant landscapes and towns of Switzerland were created using the Photochrom process, a technique that colorizes monochrome images with precision. While the prints may deceptively look like color photographs, but in fact, ar…
Victorians were known for their conservative way of life, but these portraits show that many men of that era were unafraid of showing affection. The provocative black-and-white 19th-century images show men posing in surprisingly intimate embraces. They …
These late-19th and early-20th century photographs show some of the last Maori women to wear the traditional Tā moko face marking before it was outlawed by British colonialists. Ta moko is the name for the permanent body and face marking by Maori, the indi…
The crinoline appeared on the fashion scene in the mid-1800s and took its name from the French word crin (“horsehair”), a stiff material made using horsehair — and "linen." A crinoline (hoop) is defined as a framework consisting of round/oval circles (s…
Grant Wood‘s “American Gothic” shows the images of a man and a woman standing in front of a small wooden house. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 20th-century rural Americana while the man is adorned in overalls covered by a suit ja…
In May 1985, as one of the first measures under the new general secretary of the Communist party, Michael Gorbachev, the last big Soviet-style campaign was set in motion, a campaign to curb alcohol consumption. It was a forceful and ruthless campaign, w…
The image of Las Vegas that emerged in the 1970s was one that would take decades to shed: a tacky tourist trap with aging casinos, cheap restaurants, and showrooms filled with performers whose careers were on their last legs. With a few exceptions, investme…
The Maya people have been called many names over the years, such as “the mysterious Maya” and “the magnificent Maya,” and many scholarly books have been written about this ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Many years before European explorers came to t…
The boy and girl looked toward the camera. They were just old enough to understand the task assigned to them: to stand very still, with arms linked, and direct their gaze to the contraption in front of them. Isaac was eight and Rosa, six. How two former…
These future fantasy collectible cards were published by the German company Echte Wagner in the first half of the 20th century. Originally Echte Wagner made margarine, and it made a lot of trade cards that were distributed all over Central Europe. In 19…
These vivid color photographs of Ireland were produced as tourist mementos and postcards using a technique called Photochrom. The collection features the main cities of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Waterford alongside the main tourist attractions of the day. …
Jayne Mansfield (born in 1933) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer best known for her bombshell curves and film roles during the 1950s and 1960s. A sex symbol while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Mansfield was known for her well-publ…
There has always been great interest in domesticating and training zebras as riding and harnessing animals. In the 1760s, French naturalist Buffon believed that zebras could replace horses and there were rumors in Paris that the Dutch had already trained a…
Raquel Welch (born Jo Raquel Tejada in 1940) is an American actress and sex symbol who took the worldwide media by storm after the 1966 release of a movie poster featuring her natural assets in a wild and woolly prehistoric bikini. She was the oldest of thr…
The samurai were a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms. The word first appeared in a document of the Heian period; before that time such people had been called mono-no-fu or bushi. Mono means ‘thing’ and fu means ‘man’; that is, men who dea…