These kids had no idea what kind of hell was about to be unleashed on them. They're literally marching to hell. It's kind of eerie looking at the men in this picture and realizing that statistically speaking, they most likely never saw 1944. Those sungl…
By September 1942, a brutal hand-to-hand battle was being waged inside Stalingrad. As they fought from house to house and street to street, the Germans found that all of the tactical advantages they had possessed in fighting across the steppes were lost in…
Vlasik’s off-the-record photos of Stalin caused a sensation in the early 1960s when an enterprising Soviet journalist spirited some out, selling them to newspapers and magazines worldwide. This photo shows how human this “monster” was, like Hitler with his…
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 "Soviet flag over Reichstag" photograph is full of symbolism and represents a historic moment. Erected in 1894, the Reichstag's architecture was magnificent for its time. The building contributed much to German history and was considered by the Red …
Few episodes in modern history reveal the lengths a regime will go to manufacture consent quite like the personality cult Nicolae Ceaușescu built around himself and, eventually, his wife. During the Cold War, Romania stood apart even within the Eastern Bloc…
In the summer of 1978, a routine helicopter flight over the dense forests of southern Siberia turned into one of the most extraordinary discoveries in modern Russian history. A pilot, tasked with scouting landing zones for a group of geologists near the Mon…
The phrase "Behind every great man, there’s an even better woman" carries an unsettling weight when applied to some of history’s darkest figures. The women who stood beside leaders like Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, and Francisco Franco were often…
The political "thaw" in the Soviet Union during the 1960s brought about a similar shift in photography. Official propaganda images took a backseat to vibrant, candid moments of real life. Vladimir Lagrange, who had a passion for photography from a young …
The Eastern Front between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union witnessed some of the most barbaric and intense fighting of World War II. In August 1939, these two powerful nations struck a shocking nonaggression pact, agreeing to a ten-year period without conf…
Fashion in the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by the socio-political environment of the time. In an era characterized by political rigidity, the women of the Soviet Union found a remarkable way to infuse style with a distinct charm, …
Guns have played a significant role in shaping human history, from the development of early firearms in the 14th century to the modern weapons used in warfare today. Throughout this history, there have been numerous examples of guns that were not only e…
In 1935, Norwegian journalist Eirik Sundvor embarked on a journey to the Soviet Union, capturing striking photographs of everyday life in Moscow during a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization. Moscow in the 1930s was a city that was undergoing si…
This 1947 comic book produced by the Catholic Catechetical Guild Educational Society was part of a "Red Scare" in the U.S. that raised fears about the horrors of a communist takeover. With over four million copies sold and even more given away, this 50-page…
These photographs were taken in 1988 by Bruno Barbie and Carl De Keyser and show the everyday life in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. By the end of the decade, the Soviet Union was a country descending into chaos, torn apart by natural and indu…
By the outbreak of the Second World War, Poland’s Military Aviation, quite commonly and incorrectly called the Polish Air Force, was inferior in every aspect. From having the world’s first all-metal built and fastest fighter plane in the mid-1930s to fl…
TIME magazine decided to create a list of the 100 most influential pictures ever taken. They teamed up with curators, historians, photo editors, and famous photographers around the world for this task. "No formula makes for iconic photos," the editors said. …
By the beginning of 1945, the war which Germany had unleashed throughout the world had come back to consume it. In sharp contrast with what had occurred in 1918 in 1945, Germany fought, literally, to the bitter end. The Germans held out, although by ear…
The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, …
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…