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…
This photo was taken in July 1913 by French photographer Stéphane Passet who was hired by Albert Kahn. Albert Kahn was a millionaire banker who pioneered color photography using the process invented by the Lumière brothers. During his trip through exoti…
Mao's last public appearance—and the last known photograph of him alive—was on May 27, 1976, when he met the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during the latter's one-day visit to Beijing. Bhutto was a great admirer of Mao, emulating…
World War II planes bomb a hillside while a shellshocked reindeer looks on. The stark interface between the killing machines of man and the natural grandeur and beauty of the reindeer was not “natural”. Yevgeny Khaldei, the famous Soviet photographer wh…
On a clear afternoon in Sylacauga, Alabama in 1954, Ann Hodges was napping on her couch, covered by quilts, when a softball-size hunk of black rock broke through the ceiling, bounced off a radio, and hit her in the thigh, leaving a pineapple-shaped bruise.…
After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Americans took on the task of occupying Japan and reforming the militaristic nation into a modern country that would never again threaten its neighbors. On 29 August 1945, MacArthur was ordered to exercise autho…
World War I caused the death of millions of combatants and civilians, while countless soldiers suffered from injury and disfigurement. Perhaps the most disheartening were facial injuries, as soldiers had to not only deal with the physical loss, but also th…
Chased by youth armed with clubs, this woman is fleeing from a "death dealer" whose left leg can be seen at the left-hand edge of the photograph. The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive massacres of Jews living in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), per…
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…
South African mineworkers being x-rayed before leaving the diamond mines. A trained radiologist like the one in the picture can easily identify even the smallest diamond, which a would-be thief might attempt to smuggle out of the mine in his stomach. Ea…
By the late 1970s, it was clear that Russians were no longer particularly liked in Poland. The reverse was also probably true. Władysław Kozakiewicz felt this in person as he ran up to take his jump at the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1980 Summer Olympic G…
One of the most appalling disasters that have ever been recorded in American history befell San Francisco in 1906 when an earthquake struck the Californian city on the early morning of April 18th. Modern analysis estimates it registered 8.25 on the Rich…
These images are chilling, bordering on surreal: as World War II raged on December 18, 1941, Adolf Hitler presided over a Christmas party in Munich. The color-enhanced images were captured by Hugo Jaeger, one of Adolf Hitler's personal photographers. …
Hidden for 100 years, the astonishing photos by a 16-year-old soldier show how his brothers-in-arms would forever be haunted by the specter of defeat. These photos were taken by Walter Kleinfeldt who joined a German gun crew in 1915 and fought at the Somme…
By the time of this photograph, AIDS might have been more widely understood, but people were still wary about how it was transmitted because it wasn't widely understood by the general public at the time. Princess Diana was a very important figurehead in…
The fearless ‘Three Jacksons,’ acrobats, Jarley Smith, Jewell Waddek, and Jimmy Kerrigan perform a balancing act on a ledge on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building in Manhattan on August 21, 1934. The act took place 1,050 feet (320m) above the pavem…
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 picture is widely considered the photo that changed the face of AIDS. It showed AIDS victims as humans and people with families. The biggest opponents of doing anything about AIDS, anything at all, were conservatives trumpeting family values. This …
The photograph titled A Woman Hitting a Neo-Nazi with Her Handbag, captured by Hans Runesson on April 13, 1985, in Växjö, Sweden, has become an iconic image. I t portrays a 38-year-old woman striking a Nazi skinhead with her handbag during a demonstrati…
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to ever walk on the moon, starting a new era on the space exploration. We’re often subjected to the standard shots taken by Buzz Aldrin of the grey, rocky surface with a few faceless spacemen st…