American film actress Veronica Lake demonstrates the danger of loose hair around machinery November 9 1943.
Lake altered her famous peekaboo hairstyle for the demonstration. Factories reported workplace injuries among women dropping after the campaign because they adopted safer tied back hairstyles.
Two Blackfeet warriors look across what is now Glacier National Park in Montana in the early 1900s.
The Blackfeet controlled much of the northern Great Plains. Glacier National Park stands on land the United States acquired in 1895 by pressuring the tribe to sell after mass bison loss left them starving. The Blackfeet never intended to give up permanent rights to the mountains and later argued the government violated the agreement.
Actress Marilyn Monroe dances with Truman Capote at Club Morocco New York during the premiere of House of Flowers March 24 1955.
Capote adored Marilyn and wanted her to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He claimed she was the only actress who understood the character. The studio rejected her for being too controversial and chose Audrey Hepburn instead, a decision Capote resented for the rest of his life.
Farmers hang nooses at a foreclosure auction to intimidate outside bidders. Michigan 1936.
These were known as penny auctions. Communities organized to keep foreclosed farms from falling into the hands of banks or outside investors. If outsiders tried to bid the crowd would surround them or threaten them until they backed down, allowing the farm to be bought for pennies and quietly returned to the original owner.
LBJ visiting Eisenhower at Walter Reed after Ike’s seventh heart attack in 1968.
Eisenhower had been advising LBJ privately on Vietnam and foreign policy even in retirement. Despite their political differences LBJ considered him one of the few people whose counsel he trusted.
A child was born. A father giving his newborn a thumbs up from outside a window. Soviet Union 1977.
Hospitals in the late Soviet era often limited father access during delivery and recovery, leading to scenes like this where communication happened through windows rather than inside the maternity ward.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s postmortem mask taken shortly after his death in 1821.
The most famous casts were made by Dr. François Antommarchi and by a British surgeon who claimed he was denied access. The competing versions led to accusations of theft and forgery and scholars still debate which mask reflects Napoleon’s real features in his final hours.
American soldiers survey the Maginot Line at Hochwald West Fortress Block 13 in 1944.
The Maginot Line was one of the most heavily fortified defense systems ever built. Even years after France fell American troops were stunned by the scale of the underground barracks, artillery turrets and armored corridors.
A camouflaged Finnish road from 1941.
Finland used suspended trees and nets to disguise troop movement from Soviet aircraft. The deception worked well enough that Soviet pilots often bombed empty stretches of forest while convoys moved unharmed below.
Pfc George A. Guckenberger of the 506th PIR 101st Airborne Division in his foxhole during the siege of Bastogne 1944.
Guckenberger fought with Easy Company’s regiment during the harsh winter encirclement at Bastogne. He was killed weeks later during the Allied counteroffensive. His grave in Belgium is regularly visited by locals who adopt American graves as part of a memorial tradition dating back to the war.
Mr. Rogers advocates for non commercial children’s programming before the US Senate Washington D C May 1 1969.
His six minute testimony so moved Senator John Pastore that Congress restored the entire federal budget for public broadcasting growing PBS funding from nine million dollars to twenty two million.
Calvin Graham the youngest US Serviceman to fight in World War II.
Graham lied about his age and grew a fake mustache to look older. He was wounded by shrapnel during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. When the Navy discovered he was twelve he was dishonorably discharged, a status not corrected until 1978.
US Marines use a flamethrower to clear a tunnel of Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima Island 1945.
The island contained more than ten miles of interconnected tunnels and bunkers making close quarters fighting the norm and flamethrowers one of the few effective tools to clear defenders.
The earliest known photograph of men drinking beer 1844.
The men were Edinburgh firemen photographed by the pioneering duo Hill and Adamson who created more than three thousand calotypes in just four years helping establish portrait photography as an art form.
Six year old Teddy Roosevelt watching Lincoln’s funeral procession through Union Square New York City April 24 1865.
The Roosevelt family townhouse overlooked the procession route. A young Teddy watched from a second story window along with his brother Elliott who would later father Eleanor Roosevelt.
King Tribhuvan of Nepal is crowned at age five in 1911.
The real rulers were the Rana prime ministers who reduced the monarchy to a ceremonial role. Tribhuvan eventually overthrew the Rana regime in 1951 becoming the first Nepali monarch to wield real power in generations.
Anne Frank’s father Otto revisits the attic entrance where the family hid from the Nazis Amsterdam 1960.
The visit was part of a series of interviews that helped bring Anne’s diary to a global audience. Otto refused to alter Anne’s writing even when advised to remove passages considered too personal for publication at the time.
Serial killer Harry Powers the Butcher of Clarksburg stands in jail after confessing to five murders 1931.
Powers lured victims through lonely hearts advertisements. His case shocked the nation and inspired the villain in The Night of the Hunter whose eerie charm and violence mirrored Powers’ real behavior.
Hitler says goodbye to Mussolini in 1944. They would never meet again.
The meeting took place after Mussolini was rescued by German commandos and installed as the puppet leader of the Italian Social Republic. By their next birthdays both dictators had committed suicide.
FBI agent delivering one million dollars to a plane hijacker in his underwear 1972.
The hijacker demanded the agent strip to prove he carried no hidden weapons. Hijackings were so common in the early seventies that airlines averaged nearly one a week in the United States.
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington D C photographed in 1917.
The memorial was still under construction when this photo was taken. The iconic statue by Daniel Chester French would not be installed until 1920.
Man sitting beside a Lamassu sculpture from the palace of Sargon II at Dur Sharrukin France 1968.
Lamassu statues were protective guardians placed at palace gates. Each one could weigh up to fifteen tons and required teams of laborers and sledges to move in the eighth century BCE.
Middleweight boxer Rubin Hurricane Carter with police after the triple murder he was later falsely convicted of June 1966.
Carter’s wrongful conviction became a global cause. After his release he spent the rest of his life advocating for other wrongfully imprisoned people and directing the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
Related Posts:
