New Yorkers have been taking the plunge in the Big Apple since the late 1800s, when the state legislature passed a law mandating free bathhouses in cities with populations over 50,000. The state believed it was necessary to provide bathing facilities fo…
These color photos document life in the French army during World War One, and the destruction of towns and villages caused by German shelling. The pictures were taken by Paul Castelnau and Fernand Cuville using the photochrom technique and brought home …
According to news reports of the time, Simon Perris (also known as Ali Mahmud) was born in either Congo or Senegal and came to Hungary when he was a little boy. Originally he was a servant for a Turkish man who lived in Budapest. After his master's deat…
Caroline Munro (born in 1949) is an English actress, model and singer known for her many appearances in horror, science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s. Munro's career commenced in 1966 when her mother and a photographer friend entered some …
On May 1, 1903, an African-American man named Will West entered the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth. Like any other new prisoner, West was subjected to the standard admission procedure: prison clerks took photographs, a physical description, a…
The Maya people have been called many names over the years, such as “the mysterious Maya” and “the magnificent Maya,” and many scholarly books have been written about this ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Many years before European explorers came to t…
This photo collection shows color images of the lifestyle, windmills, canals, cities, and countryside of the late 1890s Netherlands. The pictures are created using the Photochrom process which is a technique that applies colors on black and white images…
Elizabeth Taylor, born in 1932, was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She then became the highest-paid movie star in the 1…
January 28, 1986, was an exceptionally cold day in Florida, where freezing weather is rare. The beaches near the Kennedy Space Center were crowded with people who had come to watch the launch of the space shuttle Challenger, which had been postponed on sev…
The boy and girl looked toward the camera. They were just old enough to understand the task assigned to them: to stand very still, with arms linked, and direct their gaze to the contraption in front of them. Isaac was eight and Rosa, six. How two former…
These future fantasy collectible cards were published by the German company Echte Wagner in the first half of the 20th century. Originally Echte Wagner made margarine, and it made a lot of trade cards that were distributed all over Central Europe. In 19…
These vivid color photographs of Ireland were produced as tourist mementos and postcards using a technique called Photochrom. The collection features the main cities of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Waterford alongside the main tourist attractions of the day. …
The history of the Vietnam War is one that has been complicated by politics, and it is a history that is still being written and rewritten. The war involved a fratricidal conflict between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and …
The Durbar of 1903 was held in Delhi to celebrate the succession of the British monarch King Edward VII (the great-grandfather of the current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II) as the Emperor of India. The Delhi Durbar was organized by Lord Curzon, In…
There has always been great interest in domesticating and training zebras as riding and harnessing animals. In the 1760s, French naturalist Buffon believed that zebras could replace horses and there were rumors in Paris that the Dutch had already trained a…
Raquel Welch (born Jo Raquel Tejada in 1940) is an American actress and sex symbol who took the worldwide media by storm after the 1966 release of a movie poster featuring her natural assets in a wild and woolly prehistoric bikini. She was the oldest of thr…
In 1955, photographer Charles Hewitt visited Salvador Dalí and his wife (and muse) Gala at their home to shoot photos for a British editorial magazine called Picture Post. The famous artist posed up showing his surreal personality and didn’t miss this o…
A few months before Pearl Harbor was attacked, LIFE magazine ran a black-and-white photograph of an up-and-coming movie actress named Rita Hayworth. The redheaded beauty was kneeling on a bed made up with satin sheets, her silky nightgown is white, with…
The Battle of Cable Street was a clash between anti-fascist protestors and the British Union of Fascists on Sunday 4 October 1936. The BUF was an organization inspired by Mussolini’s Blackshirts, and allegedly included 50,000 members at its height befor…
Princess Diana visited the United States in early November 1985 with her husband Prince Charles. The royal couple stayed at the White House, where they attended a gala dinner on 9 November. The 24-year-old Princess was photographed dancing with the acto…