A young private waits on the beach during the Marine landing at Da Nang, 1965
On the gray morning of the landing at Da Nang, a young private stood solitary against the ragged line where sea met shore. His boots sank into the wet sand, gripping the earth as if to draw some strength from it, while the South China Sea churned relentlessly before him. He watched the heavy sky, swollen and unyielding, as the surf rolled in with the dull roar of an unending barrage. The salt air mingled with the sharp sting of gunpowder and diesel, a harsh welcome to this distant land. His rifle felt clumsy in his hands, not yet a part of him as it would have to become. Around him, the figures of other Marines moved, ghostlike in the lifting mist, each man an echo of the same silent question that haunted his young eyes: What awaits us in the jungle’s shadow? The moment stretched, a thin line between the known world and the unknowable, and in that vast uncertainty, the private held his breath, waiting for the order to move forward into the dense heart of Vietnam.
An emaciated 18-year-old Russian girl looks into the camera lens during the liberation of Dachau concentration camp in 1945
A US Marine gives a cigarette to a Japanese soldier buried in the sand. Iwo Jima, 1945.
Depression-era portrait of a working-class couple, 1930s
In the weathered shadows of their makeshift dwelling, a couple sits, a silent testimony to the raw narrative of the 1930s. The man, with a pipe resting effortlessly between his lips, gazes directly into the camera, his eyes a well of stories untold. The firm set of his jaw speaks of resilience in the face of relentless hardship, his bare arms, marked by the sun, tell of labor endured under a relentless sun. Beside him, a woman rests, her posture one of weary contemplation, her attention drawn away, perhaps lost in thoughts of days less lean, her dress a patchwork of necessity, not fashion. Around them, the sparse simplicity of their surroundings—a tin pot, a wooden bench, a patch of sunlight—suggests a life stripped to its essence. Yet, in the midst of scarcity, there is a potent presence, a partnership unyielded by the punishing grip of the era, a bond that defines their quiet, enduring strength.
In 1945 a B-25 bomber got lost in the fog and crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. 14 people died in the accident.
100,000 Iranian women march against the Hijab Law, Tehran, 1979
Last four couples in a dance marathon, Chicago, circa 1930.
Jack Wilson, the most obese man in the world plays a chess game against a skinny man, 1932.
Remember that photo of the construction workers having lunch on the unfinished Empire State Building? Well here’s the photographer Charles Ebbets taking that photo, 1932
Jewish-Nazi collaborator Ans van Dijk stands trial for treason. During the war, she baited fellow Jews out of hiding and got them arrested by the Gestapo. Dijk, who was paid for every Jew she caught, sold out at least 145 people, including her own brother, Amsterdam, 1947
Ans van Dijk, a complex figure in history, was a Dutch Jewish woman who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. Born in Amsterdam in 1905, she initially aided the Dutch resistance but later changed course, choosing to work for the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi intelligence agency.
Under the guise of assisting fellow Jews to escape, she instead betrayed them to the authorities, leading to their capture and deportation.
Van Dijk’s motivations remain unclear; some speculate that she acted out of self-preservation, while others suggest ideological sympathies with the Nazi regime.
Regardless of her reasons, her actions resulted in the deaths of numerous Jews. After the war, she was arrested, tried, and ultimately executed in 1948 for her collaboration
George McLaurin, the first black man to be admitted to the University of Oklahoma in 1948, was forced to sit in a corner away from his classmates.
George Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, listening to Malcolm X speak in a Nation of Islam Meeting, June 25, 1961
Born in 1918, Rockwell was a staunch advocate of white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and Nazi ideology. He utilized provocative rhetoric and staged dramatic public demonstrations to promote his extremist views, including the notion of racial segregation and the superiority of the Aryan race.
Rockwell’s leadership of the ANP was marked by controversy and opposition, with his rallies often met with fierce resistance from civil rights activists and counter-protesters.
Despite his fringe status, Rockwell’s inflammatory rhetoric and organizational efforts contributed to the dissemination of hate-filled ideologies in American society.
His life was tragically cut short in 1967 when he was assassinated by a former member of his own party
A German orphan trying to sell his father’s Iron Cross for cigarettes in Berlin, 1945.
During the first years of Allied occupation, cigarettes were a major currency in Germany, preferred by everyone to the leftover Nazi coins and paper money and the just-introduced Allied Military Currency. Germans called their smokable money, zigarettenwahrung — cigarette currency.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife minutes before assassination that would lead to WW1, 1914
Breaker boys employed by the Pennsylvania Coal Company, 1911
In the dimly lit, dusty confines of the coal breakers in 1911, the life of a breaker boy was one of relentless toil and peril. Young boys, some as tender as eight years old, perched on wooden benches above chutes and conveyor belts, their small, nimble fingers picking swiftly through the coal to remove slate and other impurities. The air was thick with coal dust, coating their lungs with every breath, a slow poison that marked them physically and haunted their health. The incessant clatter of machinery never ceased, drowning out all conversation and often leading to accidents among the distracted or the weary. These boys, dressed in tattered clothing, their faces smeared with black soot, embodied the harsh realities of early industrial labor, where the innocence of childhood was surrendered to the dark, underground veins of the earth.