We may read volumes upon volumes of history books and make our teachers proud. But there’s nothing more all-telling than real pictures that document wonders of the past. With Joseph Niepce’s camera obscura used in 1827, humans realized that capturing fleeting moments and preserving them was possible. And they never looked back.
This time, we are taking you on a heartfelt roller coaster that will take us back to the past. From the image of the nine kings of Europe photographed together for the first and only time to the snap of workers painting the Eiffel tower, these are one-of-a-kind moments.
In an unstaged manner, they reveal what genuinely made humans proud, moved them to tears, or left them heartbroken. Sometimes, the pics just show what kept them busy during the day. Fasten your seat belts, relax, and enjoy the time travel.
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In 1969, When Black Americans Were Still Prevented From Swimming Alongside Whites, Mr. Rogers Decided To Invite Officer Clemmons To Join Him And Cool His Feet In A Pool, Breaking A Well-Known Color Barrier
Mr. Rogers was a rebel. He pulled more of these stunts to fight injustice and racism in order to teach children a sense of moral and ethical reasoning. He was a tv show host with a sense of what's wrong and what's right.
Incredible Photograph Of A German Soldier Going Against Direct Orders To Help A Young Boy Cross The Newly Formed Berlin Wall After Being Separated From His Family, 1961
His comrades wouldn't hesitate to kill him if they saw what he was doing.
Charles Thompson Greets His New Classmates At Public School No. 27 In September 1954, Less Than Four Months After The Supreme Court Ruled That Racial Segregation Was Unconstitutional. Charles Was The Only African-American Child In The School. Photo By Richard Stacks For The Baltimore Sun
To find out just the meaning behind these historical photographs in a broader sense, Bored Panda reached out to Marcelo Guimarães Lima, a visual artist (drawing, painting, printmaking), writer and teacher. In his art, Marcelo employs figurative and abstract approaches to explore questions related to personal, historical, social, and political issues of our diverse life-worlds.
Marcelo explained that the birth of photography changed the image of the world in a profound way because “it did change the world for us, image viewers and image producers.”
According to the artist, the historical photographs that eternalized these significant moments of the past show us both permanence and change: “The change of circumstances (that can also, at critical times, change the subjects), the permanence of challenges and struggles related both to the short and the long durations and processes.”
Princess Diana Shakes Hands With An Aids Patient Without Gloves, 1991
Imagine what a massive gesture this must have been at the time. People probably thought she had lost her mind.
A Policeman In San Francisco Scolds A Man For Not Wearing A Mask During The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, 1918
Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945
The killing of Jewish people went on, even when the Third Reich was collapsing. Befehl ist Befehl.
Marcelo also explained that ambiguities of photography also reflect the ambiguities of situations. “The rhetoric of photography is that of a mediated immediacy and its effects are also related to the context of ideas expressed or directed also by the linguistic context (captions, text, etc).”
As a result, it all comes down to the circumstances on which the interpretation of the message relies. It also changes it. For example, “'The Queen of England as a war mechanic during WWII' is a now a kind of ironic piece, or rather, the inherent irony of the image/message is what comes to the fore now,” Marcelo said.
Members Of Dutch Resistance Celebrate The News Of Adolf Hitler's Death, April 1945
Margaret Hamilton And The Handwritten Navigation Software She And Her Mit Team Produced For The Apollo Project, 1969
Statue Of David By Michelangelo, Encased In Bricks To Prevent Damage From Bombs, During World War 2
The history of photography is as incredible as history itself. After all, without cameras, these historical snaps wouldn’t exist.
But it turns out that the birth of photography was quite recent (in a historical context), that is, less than two hundred years ago.It all started in 1826 with the photographic process invented by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, which he used to make the earliest known surviving photograph from nature. Known as heliography, the process refers to a wireless telegraph that signals by flashes of sunlight (generally using Morse code) reflected by a mirror.
Heliography was followed by the daguerreotypy method of photography, developed by Louis Daguerre, who made daguerrotypy sixty to eighty times quicker than Niepce’s initial method. In Great Britain, Henry Fox Talbot was also experimenting with talbotypy, which used paper coated with silver iodide.
An American Soldier Cradles A Wounded Japanese Boy And Shelters Him From The Rain In The Cockpit Of An Airplane During The Battle Of Saipan While Waiting To Transport The Youngster To A Field Hospital. July, 1944
What a great photo! I like very much the expressions of both, the boy and the soldier
A Serbian Soldier Sleeps With His Father Who Came To Visit Him On The Front Line Near Belgrade, 1914/1915
Louis Armstrong Playing For His Wife, Egypt, 1961
Some beautiful love song, I'm sure... Or, maybe, "What a Wonderful World"
Only in 1889 did the world welcome the very first roll film pioneered by George Eastman. In 1913, these photographical inventions were followed by the very first 35mm camera engineered by German inventor Oskar Barnack.
1957 was the year of the first digital camera, which was a binary digital version of an existing camera that allowed the transfer of images into a digital computer.
Today, you can no longer imagine the internet and social media without photos (what would we do without cat pics?!). But it wasn't until 1992 that Tim Berners-Lee published the very first photograph on the web. It was a picture of a comedy band called Les Horribles Cernettes, which was a house project at CERN Laboratory Switzerland, where Tim was developing the World Wide Web.
Anne Frank’s Father Otto, Revisiting The Attic Where They Hid From The Nazis. He Was The Only Surviving Family Member (1960)
It shows we sometimes forget that people still had lives and memories after their told stories have ended
A Man Rides A Bus In Durban, Meant For White Passengers Only, In Resistance To South Africa’s Apartheid Policies, 1986
The look of disgust on the face of that woman on the right shows how disgusting she herself is.
Ruby Bridges, The First African-American To Attend A White Elementary School In The Deep South, 1960
If you think it was a long time ago, Ruby Bridges is 66 today and has Instagram account
Young Queen Elizabeth As A Mechanic During WW2 (C. 1939)
A Man Arrested For Cross-Dressing Emerging From A Police Van, New York, 1939
Albert Einstein, His Secretary Helen (Left), And Daughter Margaret (Right) Becoming U.S. Citizens To Avoid Returning To Nazi Germany, 1940
Soldiers Returning Home From WWII, 1945
Freddie Mercury With His Mother, 1947
When Nazis Asked Lepa Radic Who Were Her 'Accomplices' Before They Hanged Her She Responded: 'You'll Know Them When They Come To Avenge Me.' Young Serbian Girl Was Hanged At The Age Of 17 Near Gradiska In 1943. During The Battle Of Kozara, She Lost Her Father, Brother (15) And Her Uncle
David Isom, 19, Broke The Color Line In A Segregated Pool In Florida On June 8, 1958, Which Resulted In Officials Closing The Facility
A German Soldier Returns Home Only To Find His Family No Longer There. Frankfurt, 1946
WWI. A Canadian Soldier Tries To Comfort A Little Belgian Baby, Who Was Hurt And Whose Mother Was Killed By An Artillery Shell. November 1918
May 20, 1910: The Nine Kings Of Europe Photographed Together For The First And Only Time
Standing, from left to right: King Haakon VII of Norway, Tsar Ferdinand of the Bulgarians, King Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarve, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Prussia, King George I of the Hellenes and King Albert I of the Belgians. Seated, from left to right: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V of the United Kingdom and King Frederick VIII of Denmark. it took place during the funeral of King Edward VII.
A Hired Reader Reads To Cigar Makers Hard At Work In Cuban Cigar Factory (Ca. 1900-1910). Because Many Cigar Factory Employees Were Illiterate Lectors Were Hired To Read Novels, Poetry, Nonfiction Works, And Newspapers Determined By Consensus
“The Drunk Basket.” In The 1960s, Bars In Istanbul Would Hire Someone To Carry Drunk People Back To Their Homes
Russian Inmate Points An Identifying And Accusing Finger At A Nazi Guard Who Was Especially Cruel Towards The Prisoners In Buchenwald Camp
I have seen this photo somewhere else too, there is an excellent follow-up. Despite being starving and exhausted the prisoners had staged a revolt as the Allies approached. Literally attacking their guards with their bare hands and overpowering them. If this is the photo I believe it is, then, while the Americans watch on the prisoner is "selecting" a number of guards ( as prisoners were selected for death) to be handed over to the Russian Authorities. The German guards knew what that meant.
A French Women Welcomes An American Soldier Two Days After Liberation. Strasbourg, France, 22 November 1944
September 3, 1967: The Day Sweden Switched From Driving On The Left To The Right Side Of The Road
7'3'' (221cm) Jakob Nacken, The Tallest Nazi Soldier Ever Chatting With 5'3'' (160cm) Canadian Corporal Bob Roberts After Surrendering To Him Near Calais, France In September Of 1944
18-Year-Old Keshia Thomas Protects A Fallen Man, Believed To Be Associated With The Ku Klux Klan From An Angry Mob Of Anti-Clan Protestors. Ann Arbor, Michigan USA. 1996 By Mark Brunner
Strange how proud boys need to hide behind women when they are in trouble. Why don't they proudly stand back and stand by in the face of the same violence they so proudly advocate?
Rosa Parks's Booking Photo Following Her February 1956 Arrest
Here Is How An Ukrainian Immigrant Celebrated Stalin's Death, 1953
Into The Jaws Of Death, 6th Of June, 1944
Imagine stepping out into the cold water knowing that the chance you'll live to see the next day is next to zero. True heroes. So sad that a lot of them died to fight what now is celebrated by millions of Americans.
Crowd In Times Square, New York City Celebrating The Surrender Of Germany, May 7th, 1945
Kinda looks like my town on the day Biden won, except we wore masks.
Fire And Fury: B-25s Are Pictured Flying Past Mount Vesuvius In Italy As Lava And Ash Spews From The Top Of The Volcano. The Eruption Killed 57 As It Destroyed The Village Of San Sebastiano And San Giorg In March 1944 While Allied Forces Were Battling For Supremacy In The Skies
Nikola Tesla, The Last Photo Ever Of The Famous Scientist, 1st Jan 1943
If you’re driving a Tesla and someone steals it, is it an Edison?
A Nurse With A Sick Child During Smallpox Epidemic, Wrocław, Poland, 1963
Thanks to the invention of a vaccine, small pox is as good as non-existent anymore. But for some strange reason anti-vaxxers want to introduce this killing disease again. Just as they don't want to get rid of Covid-19.
Ruth Lee, A Hostess At A Chinese Restaurant, Flies A Chinese Flag So She Isn’t Mistaken For Japanese When She Sunbathes On Her Days Off In Miami. Dec. 15, 1941
Inside Of An Airplane In 1930
Soviet Citizens Look At The "Wall Of Sorrow", Honoring The Hundreds Of Thousands Of People Killed By Stalinism. In 1988, The Soviet Government Allowed Information Regarding The Victims Of Stalin's Great Purge To Become Public
That's an terrible historic figure, who made so many people and nations suffer, in his attempt to establish the new dictatorship, this time named communism, instead of Hitler's national-socialism
"Human Fly" George Willig Scales The Exterior Of The World Trade Center's South Tower In 1977. Completing The Climb In 3.5 Hours, He Was Arrested At The Top After Signing Several Autographs, And Was Fined $1.10 By The City - A Penny For Each Floor He Passed
That is the cheapest fine I have ever heard of, even with inflation it is approx $5.
Portrait Of Arctic Explorer Peter Freuchen And His Wife, Fashion Illustrator Dagmar Cohn, 1947
Fun fact: He doesn't have a leg on this picture. He lost it in 1926 to frostbite.
Allied Soldiers Mock Hitler Atop His Balcony At The Reich Chancellery, 1945
Teenage Dating In Diner, 1950s, The States
Mobsters Hide Their Faces At Al Capone's Trial 1931
Nuclear Explosion Less Than One Millisecond After Detonation (1952)
Nintendo's First Headquarters In Kyoto, Japan (1889)
A Member Of The Ku Klux Klan Stands Behind A Police Officer For Protection, After A Mob Surrounded His Klan Rally In Austin Texas, 1983
Note: this post originally had 118 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Historical photo : war, war, war, segregation, war, war, invention, war war, random stuff, war, war... How awesome are we...
Fascinating, a great perspective of some of the most important historical moments of humanity ( those that could be photographed)
Historical photo : war, war, war, segregation, war, war, invention, war war, random stuff, war, war... How awesome are we...
Fascinating, a great perspective of some of the most important historical moments of humanity ( those that could be photographed)
