30 Important Historical Photos That Might Change Your Perspective On Things (New Pics)

Gay men supporting lesbians at the Dyke March, 1993. This first Dyke March in Washington D.C. was quite monumental for the period, as gay men and lesbians didn't really get along for a long period of queer history - often due to misogyny, and clashes of feminism and gay liberation. This all changed during the HIV/AIDS epidemic when lesbians banded together to nurse, treat and be activists for gay men who were often refused by doctors and were on the end of increasing homophobia due to the epidemic.

"Suddenly, the hospitals were full of lesbians who were volunteering" Jon, a gay man living in San
Francisco during the HIV outbreak in the 1980s said. "I remember being so moved by them because gay men hadn't been too kind to lesbians. We'd call them fish and make fun of the butch dykes in the bars and yet, there they were."As a thank you, they changed the official signs at Pride to having Lesbian' first (Hence L first in lgbt). This shows some of the slightly later proclaimed support by gay men of lesbians.

This saw the race to reach the South Pole lost to Roald Amundsen and ended in the deaths of Scott and his party. During the expedition, Crean's 35 miles (56 km) solo walk across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Edward Evans led to him receiving the Albert Medal, and is considered one of the greatest single feats of endurance of the era.

After his experience on the Terra Nova, Crean's third and final Antarctic venture was as second officer to fellow Irishman Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. After the ship Endurance became beset in the pack ice and sank, Crean and the ship's company spent 492 days drifting on the ice before undertaking a journey in the ship's lifeboats to Elephant Island. He was a member of the crew which made a small-boat journey of 800 nautical miles (1,500 km), plotting only by the stars, from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island to seek aid for the stranded party. This extreme effort saved the lives of all 65 members of the expedition.

The story of Richard Lasher's incredible photo of the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens. Everybody knew the mountain was gonna blow, but Lasher camped in the area. He planned to get up early the next morning and drive to Spirit Lake, but woke up late, and was driving towards the lake at 8:32am when Mt St Helens blew. The immediate sight, sound, and force of the blast must have been an almost unimaginable experience for Lasher. Desperately he turned his car in a hurry bending the forks of his Yamaha dirt bike. This is when he took this now world renowned photo.

Had Lasher made it to Spirit Lake, he'd almost certainly have died. According to journalist John P. Walsh, Spirit Lake "met the full impact of the volcano’s lateral blast. The sheer force of the blast lifted the lake out of its bed and propelled it about 85 stories into the air to splash onto adjacent mountain slopes." Had Lasher made it even over the next ridge, he'd almost certainly have died. According to Cooper's telling of the story, "Luckily for him, and he did not realize until later just how lucky, he was on the opposite side of that ridge in front, because the entire forest was flattened from the ridge down, and he was in the lee side and protected from most of the blast and the 640 degrees melting temperature."

As it was, he was soon driving blind through the ash, staying on the left shoulder as he could just see the trees a few feet away. His vehicle clapped out from the ash so he mounted his damaged Yamaha. This decision saved his life. Four campers near close to his position
that morning were not so lucky, and 57 people near the mountain died that day.

The following day he rode his motorcycle back up into the now so called hot zone with his camera to get what pics he could. He was well into the No-Go-Zone when a helicopter saw him and came right down and landed in his path. He was surprised to be arrested on the spot and flown out in the chopper and to jail. They left his motorcycle lay on the mountain. They also kept him in jail for a few days. When he was eventually relessed, he again went back up the mojntain, and was able to get his motorcycle.

Gaston Rébuffat was a French alpinist, mountain guide and author. He is well known as a member of the first expedition to summit Annapurna 1 in 1950 and the first man to climb all six of the great north faces of the Alps. Photography by George Tairraz

The Battle of Adwa (Amharic: አድዋ; Tigrinya: ዓድዋ;) was the climactic battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War. The Ethiopian forces defeated the Italian invading force on Sunday 1 March 1896, near the town of Adwa. This victory signaled the decline of European colonialism in Black Africa.

In 1889, the Italians signed the Treaty of Wuchale. The “Treaty of Wichale agreed to in principle that Menelik II would provide to Italy land in the Tigray province in exchange for support in the form of weapons the Italians had been supplying him for some time, but the Italians wanted more.

There were two versions of the treaty to be signed, one in Italian, and one written in Amharic. Unbeknownst to the conquering King was the fact that the version in Italian had been altered by the translators to give Rome more power over Menelik II and his kingdom of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Kingdom/Empire had been in existence since the 13th century

On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device at a remote site in Kazakhstan, signaling a new and terrifying phase in the Cold War.

By the early 1950s, schools across the United States were training students to dive under their desks and cover their heads. The now-infamous duck-and-cover drills simulated what should be done in case of an atomic attack—and channeled a growing panic over an escalating arms race.

“During this period, the United States is suddenly having to really reckon with the fact that it is not the only nuclear power out there anymore,” says Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and nuclear weapons and professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. “Now, instead of just seeing the bomb as this asset that we could use or not use...it suddenly is brought to bear that this is something that could be used against us.”

The school drills, which were part of President Harry S. Truman’s Federal Civil Defense Administration program, aimed to educate the public about what ordinary people could do to protect themselves, however, how was ducking and covering really going to protect you from a nuclear bomb detonating your school?

These drills stopped being made during the 1980s.

"The night before (Slimer) was meant to be approved, all the executives were coming by the next morning to sign off on him, I get a note saying 'He's gotta look like John Belushi.' His buddies Harold (Ramis) and Dan decided this was a way to keep him in the movie as a slobby, obnoxious ghost like his Bluto character in Animal House'"
- Ghost Effects creator Steve Johnson.
Dan Aykroyd originally wrote one of the characters in Ghostbusters especially for John Belushi.

Groundhog Day 2 February, 1963. In 1723, the Delaware native Americans settled Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania as a campsite halfway between the Allegheny and the Susquehanna Rivers. The town is 90 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, at the intersection of Route 36 and Route 119. The Delawares considered groundhogs honorable ancestors. According to the original creation beliefs of the Delaware Indians, their forebears began life as animals in "Mother Earth" and emerged centuries later to hunt and live as men.

When German settlers arrived in the 1700s, they brought a tradition known as Candlemas Day, which has an early origin in the pagan celebration of Imbolc.  It came at the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.  Superstition held that if the weather was fair, the second half of Winter would be stormy and cold.  For the early Christians in Europe, it was the custom on Candlemas Day for clergy to bless candles and distribute them to the people in the dark of Winter.  A lighted candle was placed in each window of the home.  The day's weather continued to be important.  If the sun came out February 2, halfway between Winter and Spring, it meant six more weeks of wintry weather.

The earliest American reference to Groundhog Day can be found at the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at Franklin and Marshall College: February 4, 1841 - from Morgantown, Berks County (Pennsylvania) storekeeper James Morris' diary..."Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate."

In order to preserve the year’s harvest, a number of collective farms in the Moscow region hired special horseback militia units to guard the fields.
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