The 1950s were a period of huge change for Hong Kong. The end of Japanese occupation, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. and U.N. trade embargoes on China, and a mass influx of Mainland immigrants bringing low-cost labor to the city,…
Sophia Loren (born in1934, Rome, Italy), is an Italian film actress who rose above her poverty-stricken origins in postwar Naples to become universally recognized as one of Italy’s most beautiful women and its most famous movie star. She was named by the Am…
He was “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” the biggest attraction in the history of professional wrestling. At seven-foot-four (2.23m), 450 pounds (205kg), André the Giant was a living, breathing legend, the kind of make-believe figure usually encountered on…
Clint Eastwood, in full Clinton Eastwood, Jr., (born May 31, 1930, San Francisco, California, U.S.), American motion-picture actor who emerged as one of the most popular Hollywood stars in the 1960s and went on to become a prolific and respected director-produ…
By 1930, Texas was already the nation’s leading oil producing state, yet East Texas remained the only area of the state that had not obtained high-volume oil production in spite of having the state’s first oil discovery. This changed when on October 3, 1930…
In his lifetime, Arnold Schwarzenegger has worn many shoes. A former champion builder to a Hollywood action icon to a politician, Schwarzenegger has been them all, and more. He has won several titles from Mr. Universe to Mr. Olympia during his bodybuilding …
By the first week of September 1914, the Germans had come within thirty kilometers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. The French and British armies were engaged in fierce fighting with the Germans in the First Battle of the Marne which repelled th…
In the early 1910s, photographer Harry Pollard traveled around Canada to take a series of photographs of the natives, who are one of the first people who settled in Western Canada and Alberta. These photographs capture, among others, people from Tsuu T’…
Pennsylvania’s rich coal mining history dates back centuries to the late 1700s and boomed between 1870 and 1930. The pictures collected in this article were taken by John Collier, an Office of War Information photographer, and capture the gritty life of min…
In 1920, the southeastern part of Europe was a miserable place. The endless wars, beginning with the First Balkan War in 1912, continuing with World War I in 1914-1918, and other ethnic conflicts, had disrupted countless lives. The American Red Cross ha…
The pretty ankle contest" appear in the early 1900s as special shows within women’s beauty competitions. Contestants would have to stand behind a curtain to conceal their bodies, so that all that could be seen was below the knee - legs clad in thick sto…
In the 1950s, the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) – that part of Germany which had been the Soviet Occupation Zone in the post World War Two division of Germany – was threatening to bleed dry, as one in six people fled, usually in search of work und…
By the time the sun rose in New York City on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first and second waves of American troops had come ashore under heavy German fire on the beaches of Normandy. Working under the command of General Eisenhower, an armada of 5,0…
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 …
The invention of individual diving suits in the early 18th century allowed a more refined exploration of the ocean depths. The initial drive for the creation of diving suits was to aid salvage missions, at a time when many ships (carrying many treasures…
This is the story behind the famous picture of the test pilot George Aird ejected from his Lightning F1 fighter plane. The picture was taken by Jim Meads on September 13, 1962. It was published in newspapers all around the world at the time and many peo…
It is said that Niagara Falls has a mystic allure that gives some people the uncontrollable urge to jump in and blend into the swirling waters. Officials say that they recover an average of 20 people per year who chose Niagara Falls as the place to end …
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…
In 1969, more than 400,000 people descended on Bethel, New York, headed to a dairy farm owned by Max and Miriam Yasgur, where the Woodstock Music & Art Fair was being held. The epic event became synonymous with the counterculture movement of the 196…
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…