Historical Photos Are Always So Intriguing

Harley-Davidson assembly line. 1909

Harriet Tubman in 1911 at age 89

The Kennedy family children, 1928

Helen Keller, the first deaf and blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree, photographed sitting down in Looe, Cornwall, UK on 6th May 1932

Last Person to be Publicly Executed in France 1939

Rather then react with solemn observance, the crowd behaved rowdily, using handkerchiefs to dab up Weidmann’s blood as souvenirs. Paris-Soir denounced the crowd as “disgusting”, “unruly”, “jostling, clamoring, whistling”.

Salvation Army ‘Doughnut Girls’ distributing treats to GIs during WWI (this is the origin of Donut Day). c.1917

The Italian motor torpedo boat MAS 15 in 1918. One hundred years ago, she sank the Austro-Hungarian battleship SMS Szent Istvan

Japanese Special Forces, Ready to Attack During the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

Hiroshima before and after the atomic bombing on August 6th, 1945

The first international animal superstar Jumbo the elephant and his keeper Matthew “Scotty” Scott 1882

Getting cooled air piped into the car while enjoying a meal at a drive-in restaurant in Houston, Texas 1957

Benjamin, the last known thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) in Hobart Zoo, Australia. Thylacines were able to open their jaws up to 80 degrees. 1933

Luftwaffe bomber crew patched up, apparently shot down in the Leningrad region in 1941.

Future President Gerald Ford with teammate Willis Ward at the University of Michigan in 1934. Ford threatened to quit the team when Ward was benched for a game against Georgia Tech, who at the time refused to play against black players

40,000 bison hides stacked in Dodge City in 1878.

The bison were hunted nearly to extinction in the late 19th century. In the 16th century the number of bison reached up to over 30 million, the number would be less than 1000 by 1880-90.

Dorothy Counts – The First Black Girl To Attend An All White School In The United States – Being Teased And Taunted By Her White Male Peers At Charlotte’s Harry Harding High School, 1957

Her parents forced her to withdraw after 4 days. She later moved to Philly and earned her diploma there. 50 years later the school renamed the library after her and gave her an honorary diploma. One of the kids in the photo eventually gave her a public apology.

She was only 15 at the time, and didn’t want to withdraw, but her parents forced her.

Women trainees of the LAPD practice firing their newly issued revolvers, 1948

Cowboys drinking at a saloon in Tascosa, Texas 1907

Men unloading a banana boat in New York 1900s

Drinking tea with an elephant, 1939

This is how a house on wheels looked in 1926.

A couple at a fair in Mexico, 1940

A burlesque diva named Zorita is walking her pet-snake, 1930

Women wearing extremely large pants, USA, 1933

An elephant holds a circus performer in its mouth, USA, 1937

Hoover Dam construction, USA, 1931-1936

A circus hippopotamus, harnessed to a wagon, 1924

An elderly woman gymnast, USA, 1977

Moto-rickshaw with a female driver, 1920s

A man riding a pig, England, 1903

A kid in an oxygen apparatus, USA, 1930

Night fishing in Hawaii, 1948

A man reading a book sitting in a huge tree hollow, Australia, 1900

2 stuntmen pretend to be playing tennis on a plane’s wings in 1923.

Circus show, 1933

A man at the beach fined for not wearing appropriate swimwear, Netherlands,1931

A best legs competition in England, 1936

Fakir on a bed of nails, India, 1907

Races on motorcycle chariots, Australia, 1936

These devices called Sound Finders helped to hear potential incoming enemy planes and detect outbreaks of enemy artillery, 1914

This is how baby carriages were transported on the front of a bus in New Zealand in 1955.

Picnic on the highway during the oil crisis, The Netherlands, 1973

Diving, 1940