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…
It was the eighth night of Chanukah in Kiel, Germany, a small town with a Jewish population of 500. That year, 1931, the last night Chanukah fell on Friday evening, and Rabbi Akiva Boruch Posner, spiritual leader of the town was hurrying to light the Menor…
In both World Wars, the most distinctive feature of the German army uniform was the item that has come to symbolize German militarism in even the remotest corners of the world – the helmet, the Stahlhelm. Here, on a table set up outside a steel helmet f…
Towards the end of World War II, U.S. intelligence officials were afraid that the German dictator would flee Germany by assuming a disguise. By 1944 the world identified the man largely by his trademark toothbrush mustache and oily side-slicked hair, so…
Vasily Blokhin is recorded as having executed tens of thousands of prisoners by his own hand, including his killing of about 7,000 Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre in spring 1940, making him the most prolific official executioner in record…
It’s interesting to see the range of emotions displayed by these men: anguish, defiance, stoicism, acceptance, and fear, the third one from the left is even smiling. The execution took place during the Bloody Sunday in Bydgoszcz, Poland, 1939. Bloody Su…
According to Chapman he actually had the gun in his pocket when this photo was taken, but he chickened out. He hung around in front of the Dakota getting his nerves up until John and Yoko came home later that night. Chapman waited outside Lennon's apart…
Two Ukrainian askaris peer into a doorway past the bodies of Jews killed during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The original German caption reads: “Ukrainian askaris used during the operation”. During WWII, the Germans used the term “aska…
Despite being targeted by law enforcement across the globe at the start of the 20th century, opium and opium dens were prevalent fixtures in east Asia, the United States, and Europe up until the mid-1950′s. In this photograph, opium smokers in Singapore…
Executions of Kyiv Jews by German army mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) near Ivanograd, Ukraine. The executioner appears to be standing over the body of an already executed person. The gun barrels of other executioners are visible at the left-hand …
In the summer of 1911, the American archaeologist Hiram Bingham arrived in Peru with a small team of explorers hoping to find Vilcabamba, the last Inca stronghold to fall to the Spanish. Traveling on foot and by mule, Bingham and his team made their way…