The photo was taken by the Irish photographer Colman Doyle. The original caption: "A woman IRA volunteer on active service in West Belfast with an AR18 assault rifle”. The IRA regularly conducted “show of arms” displays, showing off their modern and numero…
During the Great Depression, millions of people were out of work across the United States. Unable to find another job locally, many unemployed people hit the road, traveling from place to place, hoping to find some work. A few of these people had cars, …
Dagen H (H day) was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The "H" stands for "Högertrafik", the Swedish word for "right traffic". After all, Sweden’s Scandinavian neig…
The photo was taken at the launch of a German army vessel in 1936, during a ceremony that was attended by Adolf Hitler himself. Within the picture, a lone man stood with arms crossed as hundreds of men and women around him held up their arms in salute a…
Female snipers of the 3rd Shock Army, 1st Belorussian Front. The 'Shock' armies were created with the specific structure to engage and destroy significant enemy forces and were reinforced with more armored and artillery assets than other combined arms armi…
A picture of a crowd in New York and there is not one unhatted head. Margaret Bourke-White shot this bird’s-eye-view of Manhattan’s Garment District —specifically 36th St. between 8th and 9th Aves.—for a FORTUNE magazine story titled “Cloak and Suit”. Wha…
In the early morning of 17 June 1939, Eugène Weidmann became the last person to be publicly executed by guillotine. He had been convicted of multiple kidnappings and murders, including that of a young American socialite. Beginning with the botched kidna…
Vasily Blokhin is recorded as having executed tens of thousands of prisoners by his own hand, including his killing of about 7,000 Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre in spring 1940, making him the most prolific official executioner in record…
Berlin after the War was a post-apocalyptic world. One of the largest and most modern cities in Europe was left a wasteland. There were vast piles of rubble everywhere. Other areas were rows of building walls with collapsed interiors — the skeletons of …
On a hot August night in 1930, a crowd gathered in front of an Indiana jail — men, women, and children shouting and jeering, demanding that the sheriff release his three prisoners. Three African-American teenagers: Tom Shipp, Abe Smith, and James Camero…
French women who befriended the Nazis, through coerced, forced, or voluntary relationships, were singled out for shameful retribution following the liberation of France. The woman photographed here, believed to have been a prostitute who serviced German…
Al Capone started one of the first soup kitchens. The kitchen employed a few people but fed many more. In fact, preceding the passage of the Social Security Act, “soup kitchens” like the one Al Capone founded, provided the only meals that some unemployed A…
This powerful photo taken by Robert C. Wiles was published as a full-page image in the 12 May 1947 issue of Life Magazine. It ran with the caption: “At the bottom of the Empire State Building the body of Evelyn McHale reposes calmly in grotesque bier, h…
Supposedly 22,000 Nazi supporters attended a German American Bund rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in February 1939, under police guard. Demonstrators protested outside. Aside from its admiration for Adolf Hitler and the achievements of Nazi Ge…
A punt gun is a type of extremely large shotgun used in the 19th and early 20th centuries for shooting large numbers of waterfowl for commercial harvesting operations and private sport. A single shot could kill over 50 waterfowl resting on the water's surf…
Born a male but raised as a female, Dora Ratjen competed on the female German track team. He set a world record for the high jump at the 1938 European Athletics Championships but competed as a female at that event. His true identity was discovered while ri…
A room full of women are working hard at emulating the “real danger” present in the master poster hanging in the background. It looks like some kind of class, like a high school or college art class. They may be all working on the same poster because th…
It’s interesting to see the range of emotions displayed by these men: anguish, defiance, stoicism, acceptance, and fear, the third one from the left is even smiling. The execution took place during the Bloody Sunday in Bydgoszcz, Poland, 1939. Bloody Su…
The short-barreled version of the Thompson was Winston's personal favorite weapon of all time. He looks like a gangster from an old Hollywood movie. This photo was taken during an inspection of invasion defenses near Hartlepool, on July 21, 1940. The in…
Women in uniform have always an appeal. She is so amazingly beautiful. The uniforms were meant to be professional, feminine, attractive, and functional. Women were encouraged to be feminine (like wearing red lipstick) for morale. The Women's Army Corps …