50 Must-See Historical Images That May Make You Want To Open A History Book Once Again
“A picture is worth a thousand words”—a phrase most of us have heard before. And for a reason. Photographs can capture loads of information in just a split second and immortalize it for years to come. By freezing moments, photographers enable us to travel to places and times we’ve never witnessed ourselves. They allow us to see the world exactly as it was, whether it was yesterday or a hundred years ago.
The Instagram account called Historical Pix boasts a beautiful collection of pictures from various points in time. Their uploads cover a multitude of topics, from war to technology, from sport to fashion; you name it, it’s there. As they themselves describe, “It's just history. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
We have gathered some of the most impressive photographs shared by the account. Scroll down for the images and feel free to browse this list of historical pics or this one, if you’d like to see more.
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1945. 10-Year-Old Stoic Japanese Boy Standing At Attention Having Brought His Dead Younger Brother To A Cremation Pyre, Nagasaki
Years Later, Joe O’donnell, The American Photojournalist Who Took This Photo, Spoke To A Japanese Interviewer About This Photograph: “I Saw A Boy About Ten Years Old Walking By. He Was Carrying A Baby On His Back. In Those Days In Japan, We Often Saw Children Playing With Their Little Brothers Or Sisters On Their Backs, But This Boy Was Clearly Different. I Could See That He Had Come To This Place For A Serious Reason. He Was Wearing No Shoes. His Face Was Hard. The Little Head Was Tipped Back As If The Baby Were Fast Asleep. The Boy Stood There For Five Or Ten Minutes. The Men In White Masks Walked Over To Him And Quietly Began To Take Off The Rope That Was Holding The Baby. That Is When I Saw That The Baby Was Already Dead. The Men Held The Body By The Hands And Feet And Placed It On The Fire. The Boy Stood There Straight Without Moving, Watching The Flames. He Was Biting His Lower Lip So Hard That It Shone With Blood. The Flame Burned Low Like The Sun Going Down. The Boy Turned Around And Walked Silently Away.”
Oh my. This may be....I don't know if the photo or the explanation is sadder. So, so sad.
Photography allows us to travel all the way back to the 1820s—that’s when the first-ever picture was taken. The French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce did that by using heliography—a process of applying sunlight to draw—and a pewter plate. Taking the picture took several hours, but the image, titled View from the Window at Le Gras, marked the beginning of modern photography.
Back in the day, taking a picture required a bit more than a split second. Roughly until the 1840s, you would have had to stand still for 20 minutes for someone to photograph you. Can you imagine trying to take a family portrait or a picture of your cat under such circumstances?
1961. East German Soldier Ignores Orders To Let No One Pass By Helping A Young Boy Cross The Newly Built Berlin Wall, To Reunite With His Family
Anna Coleman Ladd Was An American Sculptor Who Is Best Known For Her Work Creating Prosthetic Masks For Soldiers Who Were Disfigured During World War I
Ladd, Who Was Born In 1878 And Died In 1939, Worked With A Team Of Assistants At The American Red Cross In Paris To Create The Masks, Which Were Made Of Copper And Other Materials And Were Designed To Be Worn Over The Soldiers' Faces In Order To Restore Some Of Their Appearance And Self-Confidence. The Masks Were Highly Realistic And Were Often Painted To Match The Soldiers' Skin Tones. Ladd's Work Was Praised For Its Artistic And Technical Skill, As Well As For Its Humanitarian Purpose
Nowadays, you can take a picture in the blink of an eye. You can also do it nearly anywhere, anytime, as most people now use camera phones. Able to fit in your pocket, they are undeniably more convenient than dragging around large pieces of equipment or trying to force the world to stop for 20 minutes so you can take a photograph.
The cameras on phones developed in leaps and bounds over the years. The first one was the SCH-V200 model introduced by Samsung back in 2000. It allowed users to take up to 20 pictures at 0.35-megapixel resolution. Now, just over a couple of decades later, the average resolution of a phone camera is 12 megapixels, and the number of pictures one can store is way higher than 20.
The Kiss Of Life. 1967
Utility Lineman Jimmy D. Thompson Giving Mouth-To-Mouth Resuscitation To Fellow Worker Randall G. Champion, After Champion Was Knocked Unconscious By An Electric Shock. Because Of Thompson's Intervention, Champion Survived And Lived Until 2002. Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photograph By Rocco Morabito
1959. A Young French Girl Poses With Glee As She Cradles Her Cat
When I was about this child's age, I was upset and crying. Mom asked me what was wrong. I told her that every time we posed for a picture with a pet, my brother got to hold it. My mom said I was right, and to go get the kitten. She stopped whatever it was she was doing to listen to me when my feelings were hurt, and to fix the problem. In my pictures with that kitten, my face looked just like this kid's.
According to Phototutorial, an average smartphone user has roughly 2,100 pictures on their device. The number is not that shocking, considering that people take nearly 93% of photos with their cellphones and only 7% use a camera.
Taking photographs was mostly a job for professionals years ago when it required working with certain chemicals. But now, more people can capture beautiful moments with the help of constantly developing technology.
1976. Soviet Explorer, Nikolai Machulyak, Feeding A Polar Bear And Her Cubs With Condensed Milk And Meat, Near Cape Schmidt Off The Coast Of The Chukchi Sea
1954. Cats Stand Up On Their Hind Legs To Catch Squirts Of Milk During Milking At A Dairy Farm. Photo By Nat Farbman
Beatles Fans In 1964 And 2013. Ringo Starr Took The Top Photo From Car Window, After The High School Friends Skipped School To See The Beatles During Their First Trip To The Us In 1964
Phototutorial also revealed that people worldwide take an astonishing number of 57,246 pictures per second, which equals roughly 5 billion per day. So far, 12.4 trillion photos have been taken throughout the years, some of them capturing significant historical events.
C. 1910. Native American Blackfoot Warriors At Glacier National Park, On The Shore Of St. Mary Lake, Montana. Photo By Roland W. Reed
Members Of The Red Warriors – A French Youth Anti-Fascist Street Gang That Used Violent Force To Combat The Surge Of Neo-Nazi Violence From France In The Mid To Late 1980s
The Red Warriors Often Acted As Security For Punk Shows And Left-Wing Activist Groups, Who Were Often Targeted With Violence By White Power Skinheads. Over Time, The Red Warriors, And Other Youth Gangs With Similar Goals, Became Well-Known In France For Their Confrontational Methods For Resisting Fascists
Graffiti On Troops’ Helmets During The Vietnam War
Some images portraying significant historical events or periods became known all over the world. For instance, the picture of a couple kissing taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt in 1945, titled V-J Day In Times Square. Or the Tank Man—a photo taken by Jeff Widener in 1989.
1839. The Oldest Known Photographic Portrait Of A Human In The USA, Taken As Self-Image By Photography Pioneer Robert Cornelius. He Had To Remain Motionless For 10 To 15 Minutes To Capture The Photograph
Eruption Of Mount St. Helens, 1980, By Richard Lasher
C. 1910. Child Miners Photographed By Lewis Hine. Hine’s Photographs Were Instrumental In Bringing About The Passage Of The First Child Labor Laws In The United States
Some of the globally well-known images immortalized important moments of pop culture as well. One of the greatest examples of that was the cover for the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. It was taken by Iain MacMillan in August of 1969 as the band members were crossing Abbey Road in London.
C. 1929. A Little Girl Hands Lilies To A Police Officer On Duty At The Porte Saint-Denis In Paris
1975. John Cleese On The Set Of Monty Python And The Holy Grail
I'm getting so old that things from my teenage years are now considered "historical"
Great Blizzard Of 1888, New York City
My great uncle perished in that blizzard in Philadelphia. Poor dude froze to death.
Certain historical pictures mark significant milestones in developing the process of photography itself. The first self-portrait, which could be considered the predecessor of the selfie, is a great example of that. Robert Cornelius, a chemist from Philadelphia, is believed to have taken the first portrait of such a kind back in 1839.
1967. Kangaroo Hits A Photographer For Trying To Photograph Him, England. Photo By Voller Ernst
The name of the photographer does not sound correct. "Voller Ernst" would be the equivalent of "dead serious" in German. Or am I missing something?
1945. Boys Hanging On A Full Train After The Liberation Of Holland. Photography By Menno Huizinga
This photograph is incredible. I feel like you could build an entire novel or film over this one shot alone
September 1945. Australian Soldiers Catch Up On News From Home After Their Release From Japanese Captivity In Singapore
My dad only knew his father for about 5 years, he and his twin sister and my grandmother were evacuated just before the Japanese invaded Singaore. My grandmother was given the choice of two boats to leave on, the first going to Australia (closer) the second to England (she was from Scotland). She chose the second. The first one got bombed at sea, all souls lost. Dad and his family made it back home. My grandfather wasn't so lucky. He was a sergeant in the Royal Coastal Artillery and taken prisoner in Singapore after his family left. Despite two attempts to escape, he failed and was executed by the Japanese five days before the Surrender. 5 days made the difference between me possibly meeting him one day and not, and him being reunited with his family.
My mum's dad died when she was very young as a result of the horrific torture the Japanese subjected him to. But the thing is, when the BBC was gearing up for the fifty year anniversary of the end of the war, my gran was watching TV and suddenly her decades dead husband was smiling out of the screen at her. It turned out that someone had shot footage of prisoners through the fence, one happened to be my grandad and that happened to be the clip they showed. She nearly had a heart attack!
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I imagine them being strapping lads before being taken captive. How awful to see such deterioration.
Remarkable how the Japanese pride themselves on politeness and honour, yet treated their prisoners in such an appalling way. My grandfather refused to buy Japanese goods because of the way they treated "our boys".
It's because they literally believed they were all subhuman.
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Exactly! This is what hate can do. Hate, a superiority complex, entitlement… you name it. There were two experiments that show how even normal, seemingly good people can succumb to… something like „peer pressure“. One was the Stanford Prison Experiment, the other one was „The third wave“. Both very interesting
Load More Replies... One comes across Holocaust photos, and knows what to expect from them. This is shocking in a way they no longer are, at least to me. This is a situation I've never known about.
the Japanese plumbed the depths of depravity in their treatment of virtually everyone they came in contact with. From live vivisection to cannibalism to torture as routine to tens of millions of civilians killed on the Asian continent . It's ugly reading
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Holding the newspaper is Sergeant Jack King RM, formerly of HMS PRINCE OF WALES, while standing next to him, with the distinctive chest tattoo, is Private Tom Wardrope of 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders: a lot of sources claim these are British soldiers, not Australian. Not 100% sure what the truth is
Ive seen this pic before when researching the Sutherlanders, so came to find this comment
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My uncle's aircraft was shot down over Japan and he was captured. They sent him to a camp in Yugoslavia where he spent the next 3 years. My sister's FIL was captured and also sent to Yugoslavia. Makes me wonder if they sent officers there and kept enlisted in Asia. Meanwhile the USA had internment camps for Japanese Americans on the west coast
They were also located in Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, and Hawai'i.
Load More Replies... The book and film King Rat, based on the author’s experience in the camp in Singapore are well worth the look
I've seen this picture several times and every single time, it hits me the same. It is horrific and sad and I just want to say thank you to everybody that risks their lives during time of war. And all other times. The suffering that these people have endured is heart-wrenching. But I'm so glad they got to go home.
oh my goodness they look as if they were starved.
My Dutch uncle was in charge of Royal Dutch Shell's office in Singapore, when the Japanese invaded, he and my aunt were sent to internment camps, had a terrible time. Oom Jaap contracted TB, but survived to be liberated at last, sent to Australia to recuperate, but eventually was sent to Switzerland, for the fresh air of the Alps, plus the nourishing food. I stayed with them in 1958, in Holland for a few months.
I wish so much more of these stories were shared and collected for future generations. Survivor stories were obsessive reads of mine as a young adult and really made me realize no matter how bad a time in having, people have survived worse against incredible odds. Your grampa is a hero and angel looking over you. Thank you for sharing.
Good Lord, they're all skin & bones! But alive & on their way home
One of my relatives (as second or third cousin?) was a “lady of the night” in Sydney’s red light districted called Kings Cross at the end of the Second World War. She, and several other of her friends were hired by the Australian Defence Force to help soldiers like these rehabilitate before they were sent home to their wives and loved ones. Many POW’s suffered impotence when they returned home, so the military hired ladies to help rehabilitate their nethers. Great Aunt Dorrie, as we knew her, had one particular skill that was very valuable. To put this delicately… her muscle control in certain body parts was exceptional and she could quite literally latch onto her client and not let go until they performed the deed. Dorrie lived well into her 90’s and was proud that her pelvic floor was second to non!
Thank God they came home and got to recover from their trauma! Many weren’t so fortunate, sadly.
Actually when able to have food available again after this type of starvation, they must undergo "refeeding training". If they were just to ingest whatever was put in from of them, they would most likely die. Google refeeding syndrome. Our bodies are capable of the weirdest things.
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My mate’s grandad was forced to work on the Burma railway in WW2 - he never forgave the Japanese for their torture and cruelty and refused to ever buy a Japanese car (or any other goods)
I feel strange about this. On the one hand it‘s… somehow… „good“ to know we Germans weren‘t the only bad guys in this sense. On the other hand this is of course bad, because there are too many bad people and bad things happening on this earth
My grandparents came to USA from Lichtenstein right before WWI. With relatives still over there in WWII my grandmother said you had no choice but to play along or be killed. Many horrors and genocides have happened since then but go unnoticed.
Load More Replies...Whether it’s a portrait or not, you might have noticed that not many people would smile in photographs back in the day. Now, it is typical to put on a happy face for taking a picture (followed by a moment of awkward silence after everyone is done saying “cheeeeeeese”), but it wasn’t always like that, and there are several versions of why. Some say that it was based on poor dental hygiene, while others believe it was related to the time it took for one shot—smiling for 20 minutes straight can be quite a challenge.
1954. A Young Boy Carrying Two Bottles Of Wine Under His Arms, Rue Mouffetard, Paris. Photo By Henri Cartier-Bresson
1920s. Traditional Rwandan Hairstyle Of Amasunzu
Amasunzu Hairstyle Is Traditionally Worn By Rwandan Men And Unmarried Women, With The Hair Styled Into Crests, Often Decorated With Beads And Cowrie Shells. It Is Frequently Described As Crescent-Shaped. The Style Is Associated With The Rwandan People's Cultural Identity And Has Been Passed Down Through Generations
1911. The Wreck Of The Arden Craig Off The Isles Of Scilly, West Of Cornwall. Photo By Francis James Mortimer
Some pictures age like fine wine—they become even more influential or appreciated as time goes by. And most such images undoubtedly deserve an award. One of the greatest photo competitions is held by the World Press Photo Foundation. It attracts thousands of spectacular submissions each year that immortalize our life as it is—the good and the bad—for future generations to see. Needless to say, choosing a winner is never easy.
Grand Central Terminal In New York City, C. 1954
One of the few remaining examples of classic Art Deco still standing. Those windows look exactly the same now as they did then. There was a time in the 70s and 80s when real estate developers were talking about tearing it down. It's now a national historic landmark.
1894. Archaeologists And Workers Pose In Front Of The Near-Perfectly Preserved And Still-Upright Statue Of Antinous, Unearthed Near The Temple Of Apollo In The Sanctuary At Delphi, Greece
1931. German Photographer Willi Ruge Took This Photograph Seconds Before Landing During His Seven-Minute Parachute Jump From An Airplane Over Berlin
Some other photo competitions that present attention-worthy shots include but are definitely not limited to the International Photography, the Sony World Photography, and the Big Picture Natural World Photography awards. For those interested in the wonders one can do with a camera phone, the iPhone Photography Awards might be something worth delving deeper into.
1909, Wakefield, Massachusetts. Young Members Of The Payro Family Being “Photographed” By Their Cat. Photo By Joseph C. Payro
C. 1910. Portraits Of Immigrants At Ellis Island, New York, By Augustus F. Sherman
1961. Audition For A Black Cat Role In A Low-Budget Hollywood Horror Movie
More Than 150 Cats Showed Up For The Audition. The Lead Role Was Filled By A Professionally Trained Black Cat. Additionally, Seven More Cats Were Chosen For Publicity Based On How “Mean” The Look In Their Eyes Was. Photography By Ralph Crane
Listening To The Birds, 1885, By John Dumont
C. 1930s. A Turkish Fisherman Returns With His Booty
Powerhouse Mechanic, 1924, By Lewis Hine
1930s. A Chinese Buddhist Monk Walking On A Chain Bridge At Jiangyou Figure Hill Temple In China
1889. A Blind Man Carrying A Paralyzed Man With Dwarfism In Damascus, Syria. Photo By Italian Photographer Tancrède Dumas
Queen Elizabeth II (1926 - 2022)
1954. Marilyn Monroe On Stage Performing For Thousands Of American Troops In Korea
1928. A War Veteran Sells Matches On The Street In Canterbury, Kent, England. Photo By Clifton R. Adams
9/11
C. 1911. Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, Cuernavaca, Mexico
Hong Kong, 1950s-60s By Fan Ho
C. 1917. Frozen Fountain, Washington Boulevard, Detroit
1910. Paris Motor Show At The Grand Palais In Paris
1936. The New York Central Railroad Streamliner 'Mercury' Passes Through Syracuse City Hall
C. 1860s. Studio Portraits Of Samurai Warriors
June 6, 1944. D-Day In Color
1932. Sailing Ship S.v. Penang In Millwall Docks, London, Towers Above The Poverty Of The Surrounding Housing
Love seeing the faces of the lady and the couple kids looking right at the camera
1930. Worker Smoking Cigarette And Carrying Bag Across Shoulders Pauses In The Middle Of Steel Beam High Above City Streets, During Construction Of The Manhattan Company Building At 40 Wall Street, New York City. Photo By Arthur Gerlach
Golden Gate Bridge Under Construction, C. 1935
1972. A Burning Wall Crumbles Down, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Photo By A. Abbas
1970s. Girl Licking Ice Cream And Playing With The Tip Of The Gun’s Bayonet To Elicit A Reaction From A Royal Guard Outside Stockholm Palace, Stockholm, Sweden
Note: this post originally had 90 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Those were very interesting and although I'm quite interested in history, about half of these were new to me. Thanks! Great content.
The photos are very interesting but there are more than10 repetitive photos. Why do someone would repeat the photos instead of giving numbers less?
BP needs to relook at their mobile apps. On a pc, this looks okay, but viewing this via an android phone shows repeated entries.
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I love browsing these historical lists but I have seen these same pictures recycled on the same list over and over and over again.
I don't know. There's a documentary in YouTube. His kid was like 6 or 7, I think. They were both interviewed.
Those were very interesting and although I'm quite interested in history, about half of these were new to me. Thanks! Great content.
The photos are very interesting but there are more than10 repetitive photos. Why do someone would repeat the photos instead of giving numbers less?
BP needs to relook at their mobile apps. On a pc, this looks okay, but viewing this via an android phone shows repeated entries.
Load More Replies... I love browsing these historical lists but I have seen these same pictures recycled on the same list over and over and over again.
I don't know. There's a documentary in YouTube. His kid was like 6 or 7, I think. They were both interviewed.
