The winter of 1952 was bone-chilling enough for the Imjingang River to freeze over, a river in northern Gyeonggi-do Province that flows down and across the middle of the Korean Peninsula. At the time, the peninsula was still at war, as the Korean War ha…
Stanley Forman was early for his shift at the Herald American on April 5th, 1976 and he decided to head out to an anti-busing demonstration at Boston City Hall that another journalist was already covering. It was already two years into a desegregated sc…
Soviet soldiers openly sexually harass a passing German woman near the West Hall section of the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof central railway terminus. As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of the war, mass rapes took pla…
Leonard Siffleet, an Australian commando during World War II, served in the M Special Unit of the Services Reconnaissance Department. While on a mission in Papua New Guinea, he was captured by partisan tribesmen along with two Ambonese companions. They w…
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…
A shell shocked soldier in a trench during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette during the Somme Offensive in September 1916. His eyes express the madness of the war. The soldier looks like he has gone insane from what he has seen. At that moment in time eve…
The head of Poland Józef Piłsudski died on May 12, 1935. His funeral was made a few days later in Warsaw. But in Berlin, there was a service for Piłsudski ordered by Adolf Hitler. In the picture, you can see Adolf Hilter during the service for Piłsudski…
The photo was taken directly after Yamaguchi stabbed Asanuma and is seen here attempting a second stab though he is restrained before that happens. Otoya Yamaguchi was a member of a right-wing ultranationalist Japanese group. Inejiro Asanuma was the lea…
Looks like this man has seen some horror, a little bit like one thousand-yard stare. Note silver badge on his chest, that badge represents Infantry Assault Badge which was awarded in Silver and Bronze. This decoration was instituted on 20 December 1939 …
The SS loyalty oath was as follows: "I vow to you, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and chancellor of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I vow to you and to the leaders that you set for me, absolute allegiance until death. So help me God". The SS was differe…
Walking into a school cafeteria in the 1970s meant more than just finding a seat. The moment you set your lunchbox down on that long, noisy table, every kid around you took notice. Before you even opened it, a silent verdict had already been passed. That…
A decade after Fidel Castro's revolution reshaped the island, Cuba in the 1970s was a country still finding its footing, caught between the optimism of a new social order and the harsh realities of economic isolation. Photographer Manel Armengol traveled th…
Flip through any auto parts catalog from the 1970s or 80s and the message becomes clear within seconds: this was an industry that believed a woman in a bikini could sell anything from spark plugs to seat covers. Long before marketing departments worried abo…
New York City in the 1970s was a city on the edge. Overcrowded, underfunded, and gripped by a spiraling crime wave, it tested the limits of every institution trying to hold it together, none more so than the men and women of the New York City Police Department…
The teenagers of 1950s America helped create a completely new youth culture, one shaped by economic prosperity, growing independence, and a rapidly changing postwar society. Captured in a memorable series of photographs by photographer Nina Leen, these youn…
New York City, through much of the 20th century, was a place where power operated in the shadows. The Five Families ruled entire neighborhoods, names like Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Frank Costello commanded fear and respect in equal meas…
There is something striking about looking at a photograph of a teenager from the 1970s. The confidence, the color, the sheer audacity of what they chose to wear speaks louder than any fashion editorial ever could. These were not curated outfits assembled fo…
Before a woman could step onto a plane as a stewardess, she had to clear a set of requirements that bore no resemblance to anything related to aviation. No safety certification, no navigation knowledge, no emergency training. The checklist that determin…
At the turn of the twentieth century, one woman carried a camera into one of the most remote and unforgiving landscapes on Earth, and what she brought back changed how the outside world understood the people who had long called it home. These photographs, i…
Most of what we think we remember about 1990s fashion comes from movies, music videos, and magazine spreads. But those were costumes. These portraits are something else entirely. They show what regular young men actually pulled out of their closets on an or…