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If time travel ever becomes a real thing and not just a plot device for fiction, many of us would probably go back to our favorite era. In 2013, The Economist and YouGov asked Americans which decade from the 20th century they would most want to time travel to, and the 1950s came in first.
The members of the "Historical Capsule" subreddit also like to travel back in time but through the medium of photographs. Whether it's history as recent as the 2000s or moments from the beginning of the 20th century, see things like Niagara Falls without water or how Tokyo looked before all the skyscrapers right here!
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#1
Mongolian Girl Has A Laugh With Her Camel. The Little Girl’s Name Is Butedmaa And She Was Just 5 When This Picture Was Taken In 2003 By Photographer Han Chengli
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#2
A Woman Named Corrie Ten Boom Showing The Secret Hiding Place Her Family Constructed In Her Attic Bedroom To Shelter Jewish People And Resistance Members In Haarlem, Holland During Wwii
#3
Fifteen-Year-Old Johnny Gray Confronts One Of The Two White Boys Who Tried To Force Him And His Sister, Mary, From The Sidewalk As They Walked To School In Little Rock, Arkansas On September 16, 1958
r/HistoricalCapsule is the place you go when you feel like looking at some fascinating moments from the past. The subreddit currently has almost 400k members who are all about celebrating the beauty of the past, as it says in the group's bio, one snapshot at a time.
It's a fairly recently established community, created in January of 2024. Still, as subreddits with historical photographs go, it's one of the best. They're not just about aesthetics and cool-looking photos. The stories behind the photographs matter just as much, if not more. So, let's explore some of the moments from this list, shall we?
#6
Jimmy Carter At His Naval Graduation With His Future Wife Rosalynn And His Mother On June 5, 1946. He Died At The Age Of 100
The Democratic Party may have said "No" to Bernie Sanders as a presidential nominee, but the Internet often has nothing but praise for his work, choice of style, and lifelong activism. The photograph that we have in this list is from the 1963 Chicago civil rights protest, where Sanders was arrested for protesting racial segregation.
Sanders was only 21 at the time, but he stood for the same progressive values he stands for today. Documentary maker Gordon Quinn filmed the 1963 protests and even turned them into a film in 2017, titled '63 Boycott.
"One hundred and sixty-nine people had been arrested in the summer of '63, and four people were charged, and one of them was Bernard Sanders," Quinn said in 2016. "For a lot of people, Bernie is a tough sell. Not for us. He's saying all the things we believe in."
#9
An Arab Man Cries For Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin After His Assassination On November 4, 1995. Rabin Was Seen By Many As The Last Hope Of A Lasting Peace Between Israel And The Palestinians
Another political figure on this list is John F. Kennedy. His friendship with Lem Billings has been a topic of speculation, with people on social media (especially TikTok), suggesting they might have been more than friends.
However, historians believe that even if there were romantic feelings, they were one-sided. While Billings might've been infatuated with the future president when both were young boys, JFK never reciprocated. Upon receiving a suggestive note from Billings, he replied: "Please don't write to me on toilet paper any more. I'm not that kind of boy."
#12
The Last Picture Taken Of Late U.S. President Jimmy Carter In His Final Public Appearance, A Tribute Service For His Deceased Wife Rosalynn. Atlanta, Ga, November 28th, 2023
You can visit one place from this list even today. That's the Royal Portuguese Reading Room in Rio de Janeiro. Some call it "The coolest library on Earth," as its aura of 19th-century architectural grace is truly something awe-inspiring. The library boasts over 350k volumes, including authentic manuscripts and scrolls. Historians, literature fanatics and academics would probably never leave after setting foot there!
#13
An Inuit Girl Descending Into Her Home, An Ice Igloo, In Arviat, Nunavut (Northern Canada), 1949
#14
High School Teacher Sandy Brockman Wearing A Bold Print Hippie-Style Dress , In Denver, Colorado. 1969
#15
In 1990, Muhammad Ali Flew To Iraq To Help Free 15 American Hostages. Without The U.S. Government's Permission, The Heavyweight Champ Directly Negotiated With Saddam Hussein And Convinced Him To Let The Americans Come Home Safely
We've got some pups in this list too: the picture of a Disney animator using live Dalmatians to properly animate the dogs for the movie 101 Dalmatians. Interestingly, the animators used actors as stand-ins for the human characters, too. Actress Helene Stanley was the live model for Anita Radcliffe in 101 Dalmatians and was also the model for Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
#18
Webcam Was Invented In 1991 By Researchers To Check If The Coffee Pot In Another Room Is Empty Or Not
One of the history enthusiasts on r/HistoricalCapsule shared a photograph of Corrie ten Boom next to the hideout in the wall of her home where her family hid and saved Jewish people during WWII in Haarlem, Holland. The Corrie ten Boom house today is a museum where visitors can see the wall and house for themselves. Ten Boom also released a memoir called The Hiding Place in 1971.
#19
Disney Animator Used Live Pupies And Dalmatian Dogs To Learn How To Properly Animate Them, For The Film 101 Dalmatian, 1961
#20
A Young Infant Who Has Polio, In A Tiny Iron Lung Machine; Only The Infant's Head Is Visible. 1940s
Did you know that the first prototype of a webcam was created so that researchers could check if the coffee pot in another room was empty or not? Scientists at the University of Cambridge, Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Dr Paul Jardetzky, decided to solve the always empty coffee pot mystery by rigging up a camera. It would capture images three times a minute and send them to the researchers' internal computer network. Thus, the world's first webcam was born.
A photo of a woman whacking a neo-N**i with her handbag perhaps resonates with us just as much, if not more, today than it did in 1985 when the photograph was taken. The moment features a Polish-Swedish woman, Danuta Danielsson, whose mother was reportedly sent to a N**i concentration camp. After seeing the neo-N**i Nordic Reich Party's demonstration, the lady just couldn't contain her irritation, it seems.
#26
Family In A Cardboard House (Detail Of The Walls) And Flour Sack Dresses For The Girls Pose For A Photo, 1930s
You can even learn about different cultures on r/HistoricalCapsule, like in the case of this photograph of a Rwandan man wearing a popular Amasunzu haircut from the 1920s and 1930s. Surprisingly, you can see the haircut today, too. Lupita Nyong'o was rocking a hairstyle inspired by Amasunzu in 2018.
The cover of Tyler, The Creator's 2024 album Chromakopia features a traditional Amasunzu as well. In pre-colonial Rwandan culture, the hairstyle was a sign of a certain social status, power, and wealth.
How many new things did you learn today, Pandas? Let us know which photographs from this list surprised you the most. And if you want to see more historical curiosities from the r/HistoricalCapsule subreddit, see our previous articles on the community here, here, and here!
#34
Flight Attendant For The German Airline Lufthansa Serving Draft Beer From A Wooden Barrel And Ham On A Flight, Circa 1963
#37
A Woman Living In An Iowa "Hooverville" Cleaning Her Shack — Hoovervilles Were Shantytowns Built All Across The Us During The Great Depression. They Were Named After President Herbert Hoover, Who Was Widely Blamed For The Great Depression, 1930s
#42
"Cynthia" Was A Mannequin Created In 1932 By Lester Gaba. She Became Famous And Well-Liked To Society; She Received Numerous Invitations And A Large Amount Of Fan Mail. When She Fell From A Chair And Shattered, Her End Was Reported By The Press As If She Were A Real Person
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