During the early twentieth century, Howard Carter, a British Egyptologist, excavated for many years in the Valley of the Kings—a royal burial ground located on the west bank of the ancient city of Thebes, Egypt. When Carter arrived in Egypt in 1891, he …
This is Afghanistan of 1950s and 1960s. Lots of people would think that they will see pictures of a wild, underdeveloped and medieval country with life conditions worse than now. Think again. Fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for c…
Dressed in their finest suits and ties with their top hats cocked towards the camera, these men and women seem to be posing for expensive portraits. But behind their tidy appearances are guilty eyes that hide some of the most sinister crimes policemen of t…
These photos taken by Johannes Hähle depict the civilian population of Kharkov under occupation by Nazi Germany (all pictures are taken in October and November 1941). As a member of Construction Battalion 146, Hähle participated in the invasion of Franc…
On 2 October 1940, Ludwig Fischer, Governor of the Warsaw District in the occupied General Government of Poland, signed the order to officially create a Jewish district (ghetto) in Warsaw. It was to become the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. All…
The Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection features color photographic surveys of the vast Russian Empire made between ca. 1905 and 1915. In those years, photographer Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian E…
Recommended Historical Reading List. (Temporary list - More books will be added). General World War I World War II Eastern Front: General Accounts Red Army German Army Barbarossa For Stalingrad/Leningrad Kursk …
In 1889, Paris hosted an Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) to mark the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. More than 100 artists submitted competing plans for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars, located in central Paris, and serv…
The originally seven-car imperial train was intended for the heir of the throne Nicholas Alexandrovich (the future Nicholas II). It was built in 1894-1896 in the Main Car Workshops of the Nicholas Railway Line. And although the train was designed to acc…
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…
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 German o…
This picture might look like marketing material based on the way she's holding the gun, but that’s a common shotgun technique. In the 1970s this was considered the proper way to shoot a shotgun at close range. As we can see in the picture, the stock goe…
The photo depicts a South Vietnamese mother fleeing through a river. She and her four children were forced to leave their village, Qui Nhon, near Quinbonso. The U.S. Air Force had asked all inhabitants to evacuate the village because the Vietcong had been …
The photograph was taken by Alice Seeley Harris, the man's name is Nsala. Here is part of her account (from the book “Don’t Call Me Lady: The Journey of Lady Alice Seeley Harris”): He hadn't made his rubber quota for the day so the Belgian-appointed o…
If it seems like today’s kids have gotten “softer” compared to the kids decades ago, perhaps it’s because playgrounds have gotten softer as well. Thanks to state laws and personal injury lawyers, the landscape of the typical playground has changed a lot…
In the wake of JFK’s assassination, people around the world mourned and tried to come to terms with John F. Kennedy’s death. Many found solace in the stoic Kennedy clan. Led by the dignified and unbreakable Jackie Kennedy following the family adage of “…
The Reichstag fire came amid “a campaign of unparalleled violence and bitterness” by then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler, in advance of an approaching German election, and it turned a building that was “as famous through Germany as is the dome of the Capitol in W…
It's Friday, the 13th of April, 1945. A few miles northwest of Magdeburg there was a railroad siding in a wooded ravine not far from the Elbe River. Major Clarence L. Benjamin in a jeep was leading a small task force of two light tanks on a routine job …
This interesting picture, taken in 1919, shows employees of the New York Central Railroad at a celebration in Victory Way, showing off a pyramid of recovered German helmets in front of Grand Central Terminal. There were over 12,000 German Pickelhaubes on t…
Leonid Rogozov was a Soviet general practitioner who took part in the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1960–1961. He was the only doctor stationed at the Novolazarevskaya Station and, while there, developed appendicitis, which meant he had to perfor…