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Pictures can tell stories worth a thousand words. This is especially true for historical ones. Just by carefully studying the setting, objects, and people in them, we can learn what everyday life was for people in the past and how it’s different from today. Images, just like written diaries or letters, are primary historical sources that can be examined, providing insights into the past that words can’t even begin to describe.
Today’s collection of photos from the days gone by is brought to us by the Historical Capsule subreddit. Let’s all celebrate the beauty of the past by scrolling down and marveling at the thought-provoking and mesmerizing images in this list, and be sure to upvote the ones that you believe everyone should see!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Dewey The Cat, Who Died In 1910, And Meant Enough To His Owner To Be Honored With A Gravestone That Stands Today Over 113 Years Later
RELATED:
#2
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 Long-Standing Colour Barrier That Had Existed In The United States
#3
Last Picture Of Hachiko, The Faithful Dog Who Waited For Over 9 Years Outside Shibuya Station For His Master To Return Even After He Had Died. (Colorized, 1935)
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly creeping into various aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, the same can be said about historical photos that people are starting to fake using this tool.
While obviously forged images like Napoleon giving a TED Talk or Mata Hari taking a selfie with an iPhone don’t pose any threat and are created for humor and artistic expression, others, which can pass as authentic historical photographs, are crafted to deceive people.
#4
Female Students From Afghanistan In Kabul, 1975
#5
Tuskegee Airmen In Italy, 1944
Oerff On Tour 1 year ago
The squadron that was praised for their excellence by the bomber crews, who didn't even know the men were "negr0s". Now the USAF honor this squadron by giving the latest acquisition, the Boeing-Saab T-7 Red Hawk, the distinctive red tail that the Tuskegee Airmen sported during WWII
#6
1920: Women Line Up To Vote For The First Time In New York After The Passage Of The 19th Amendment
cerinamroth 1 year ago
Is the 19th amendment the one that gives women the right to vote? Sorry, not American and not familiar with your amendments.
Just last May, the Facebook account Past Perspectives shared a photo of Henry Ford with his first car in 1896. “Henry Ford sits in his first automobile the Ford Quadricycle. Ford made three Quadricycles in total. Ca. 1896,” the caption writes.
However, the suspiciously clear black-and-white picture doesn’t show Ford or even accurately depict the first car he manufactured. The image also had certain defects, like his right hand seemingly going through the steering wheel, which gave away the image's forgedness.
Even though the image was fake, the page doesn’t provide any information that it’s AI-generated, letting people believe that what they see is an authentic piece of history.
#7
Barack Obama Dressed As A Pirate With His Mother Stanley Ann. 1960s
#8
The Bread In This 1952 Episode Of I Love Lucy Was Real And Custom-Made By A Los Angeles Bakery. After Filming, It Was Shared With The Cast, Crew, And Audience
#9
Fashion In Pre-Revolutionary Iran: Pahlavi Era 1950s-1970s
In another instance, the Animals Are Amazing Facebook page shared a photo that looks like it could have been taken in the 19th century, depicting several men standing next to a giant horse. But if one took a closer look, a few things start to raise eyebrows. Like the enormous fingers of a man standing behind the horse or the blurry people’s faces. It was later found out that the image was created as a joke, but at that time it was already shared more than 10,000 times and picked up by other pages as it was real.
#10
Mom With Her Psychedelic Baby Pram, London, 1967
#11
Animals Being Used As Part Of Medical Therapy, 1956
#12
In 1940, The Lascaux Cave Paintings, Estimated To Be 17,000 Years Old, Were Discovered In Southwestern France
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some people go as far as creating new historical events that never happened and illustrating them with AI-generated images to pass them as reality. Like the “Infamous Blue Plague Incident” of the 1970s in the Soviet Union, the “July 2012 solar superstorm and blackout” in the U.S., or “the 1993 Eruption of Mount Rainier.”
#13
When Every Soft Drink Bottle On The Shelf Was Still Glass, 1980s
#14
A 'Conversation Pit' From The 1960s
#15
Duke Kahanamoku, The Man Who Made Surfing Popular Around The World, Hawaii, 1920
The faking of historical pictures and events was popularized with the creation of a program called Midjourney. It allows anyone to create AI-generated photos from text descriptions. Co-creators Brodbeck and de Barbuat fed content to the machine for several weeks so it could recreate snapshots from the 20th century. The AI-image generator has extremely improved since its first version and now is the most realistic AI model so far.
#16
Charging An Electric Car In The Garage, 1911
Trent 1 year ago
Everyone complaining saying that it sucks need to look at the first gas powered cars, they sucked too. But time and R&D and money were put into them and they improved. So if that same amount of effort was put into electric it would have gone somewhere. Tesla found out how to produce free electricity for the grid but it wasn't done because the people with the money wanted to make more money.
#17
Magazine Advertisement From 1996 - Nearly 30 Years Ago
#18
A Samurai With Long Bow, From Satsuma Domain. Japan, 1860
Experts are highly worried about how this can affect our history and our perception of it. “The potential impact of such posts cannot be overstated. The more these fake images circulate, the harder it becomes to separate fact from fiction. Each new post or share distorts the truth a little bit more, until we're left with a version of the past that bears little resemblance to reality,” says digital colorist and bestselling author Marina Amaral. Not to mention the malicious people who can intentionally manipulate history to fit their own political agenda.
#19
Punks In Poland, 1990
StumblingThroughLife 1 year ago (edited)
As peeps already know, we had these in the 70s/80s, too (my first BF was one, lol - I was a New Romantic - we didn't last, but remained friends), and the clothes/hairstyles haven't changed much.
#20
This Is Ash From The Erupting Mt. St. Helens Raining Down On Robert Landsburg. He Took This Photo, Rewound The Film, Tucked The Camera In A Backpack And Laid Over It While Being Buried In The Ash. His Body Was Found 17 Days Later
#21
My Father Returning Home From World War II In Europe: March 1945, Queens, NY
Even though authorities are trying to solve the issue, the change is happening relatively slowly. In the meantime, what we can do to protect ourselves from historical misinformation is to learn how to identify fake AI-generated images.
#22
Mother With Children 1800 Years Ago. Alexandria, Roman Egypt
Vivian McBride 1 year ago
This is mosaic, isn't it? The ancient Romans were masters of this technique.
#23
This Photo Was Taken In The Late 1800s And Shows An Ancient Maya Zoomorphic Stone
#24
My Grandparents On Their Wedding Day, 1940's
Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, a historian who specializes in debunking fake historical images, recommends looking at hands. “Most AI programs still have problems with hands, and you often see that people have too many fingers or they just look weird.”
#25
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 11. April, 1945. He Would Die Of A Cerebral Hemorrhage At The Age Of 63 The Following Day
#26
Feelin’ Groovy: Fascinating Vintage Color Picture Of High School Fashion Across America In 1969
#27
The Port Of Carthage, In Modern-Day Tunisia, As It Would Have Appeared In The 3rd Century Bce And How It Looks Today
“Then I put them through a reverse image search to try and find when and where they were uploaded first, this often tells us more about the source. I also regularly use AI detection software, it's pretty good although AI creation software is improved all the time so it doesn't always work with newer versions,” Teeuwisse adds.
#28
A Woman Walks Her Dog At The Bois De Boulogne In Paris, 1910
#29
An Azerbaijani Wedding, 1965
#30
Two Women Showing Uncovered Legs In Public Place For The First Time, Toronto, 1937
Michael Largey 1 year ago
"Are your pants caught on a fire hydrant?" "No, I was just glad to see them!"
#31
Before Smartphones And Online Streaming, 40 Years Ago - Sony Watchman (1984)
#32
Downtown Anchorage, Ak After 1964 Quake
#33
Woman On A Cart Pulled By Two Buffalo, 1910
#34
A Louisiana Creole Family. Probably From The Early 1900s
#35
An American Soldier Who Lost His Legs In World War 1
#36
Desmond Thomas Doss & His Wife Dorothy After Receiving The Medal Of Honor From President Harry Truman On October 12, 1945
Agfox 1 year ago
From Wikipedia: a United States Army corporal who served as a combat medic with an infantry company in World War II. Due to his religious beliefs, he refused to carry a weapon. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for actions on Guam and in the Philippines. Doss further distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by saving an estimated 75 men, acting on his own, becoming the first of only three conscientious objectors to receive the Medal of Honor for this and other actions
#37
A Well-Dressed Young Lady In The 1930s. Almost Looks Like It Could Have Been Taken Yesterday
#38
This Behemoth Of A Flip Cut, 1960s
#39
A Mother And Her Child In Spitalfields, One Of The Worst Slums In London, 1903
#40
My Grandfather In His Youth As A Soldier In Yugoslavia 1971
#41
Ross Sisters Do A Small Tower. Around The 1940s
#42
Athelte Ivy Russell (Surrey, England 1907) Does A Bent Press With 47 Kilos At 57 Kilos Herself., Around 1930s
#43
Metal Suit, Said To Enable A Diver To Descend To A Depth Of 1,200 Feet, 1938
#44
My Great Grandfather On The Eastern Front (1943-4)
#45
Two Women In Front Of An Anti-Women’s Suffrage Poster In Zürich, Switzerland, 1947
#46
'If You Talk Too Much, This Man May Die!'; Fort Hood, January 1943
#47
Inhabitants Of St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, 1926. The Islands Had Been Inhabited Since Antiquity, But Would Be Evacuated In 1930
#48
American Servicemen Salute A Soviet Traffic Controller At The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1945
#49
Public Men’s Toilet. France, 1920s
#50
U.S. Army Corporal Larry Matinsk Puts Cigarettes Into The Extended Hands Of Newly Liberated Prisoners Behind A Stockade In The Allach Concentration Camp. April 30, 1945
Michael Largey 1 year ago
"You just escaped death, so, here, let me put your life back in danger!"
#51
“Graf Zeppelin” Flying Over The Pyramids Of Giza, Egypt, 1931
#52
Hand-Powered Carousels, 1990s, Cuba
#53
A Young Boy And Girl On The Way To School For The Start Of A New Term In The 1920s
Upstaged75 1 year ago
When I was a kid I wished I had been born in a different time because I always wanted to wear my hair in sausage curls like this. :)
#54
World's Highest Standard Of Living. US, During The Great Depression, 1937
#55
Oldreive's Iron Horse's New Tricycle, California. 1882
#56
My Great Grandmother And Her Sister - 1920s
#57
Kmart Employees In North Carolina Watching The Moon Landing. Photo Taken In July 16, 1969
#58
Heath Ledger’s Polaroid Selfie With Larisa Oleynik, Joseph Gordon-Levitt And Julia Stiles On The Set Of 10 Things I Hate About You, 1999
#59
San Francisco After Its 1906 Earthquake
#60
Apache Warrior, Arizona, USA, 1916
#61
Adolf Eichmann Walks Around The Yard Of His Cell, Israel, 1961
DadManBlues 1 year ago
They are not just responsible for death of millions but he and that other Nazi made the name Adolf extremely rare today.
#62
Photo Taken In Prison In Ulaanbaatar Ope, Mongolia, 1913
#63
Photographer Taking A Photo Above Fifth Avenue, Looking North. New York City, 1905
Don Golosso 1 year ago
I wonder if there's a photograph of the photographer photographing this photographer?
#64
Launching Of The Steamer Frank J. Hecker. St. Clair, Michigan, September 2, 1905
#65
Miners Digging For Coal In Wales, 1931. 18% Of Coal Miners In 1900 Were Younger Than 16
StumblingThroughLife 1 year ago (edited)
My grandfather on my mum's side was a Coal Miner (UK, too), and my grandmother had always suffered bronchial asthma since childhood. She sadly passed when she reached 40, and was bedridden before that for as long as my mum could remember. My grandfather is still alive, and thankfully avoided Black Lung.
#66
A Drawing Of Elvis Presley By A Young Jimi Hendrix After Seeing Him In Concert, 1950s
#67
How Lumberjacks Used To Cut Trees In 1946!
#68
Flattening Hills To Build Seattle, 1910s
#69
A Family At Their Newly-Built Log Cabin In Knott County, Kentucky, 1914
StumblingThroughLife 1 year ago
No windows - that I can see, but I suppose it kept the warmth in.
#70
Wilhelm Hippert Showing Off The High-Altitude Oxygen Apparatus Used By German Pilots During World War I, 1917
Tim Douglass 1 year ago
It's amazing that WWI pilots few to over 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) without oxygen.
#71
Aids, The Homosexual Disease Threatening American Families. 1983
#72
Tourist Crowd Inside The Crown Of The Statue Of Liberty, 1980s
#73
The Bee Gees, Formerly The Brothers Gibb, Gaze Through The Window Of A Rolls Royce Showroom In 1967
#74
People Struggle To Board A Plane In Nha Trang During The Withdrawal Of Us Troops From South Vietnam. April 1, 1975
#75
September 14th 1956 Ibm Introduced Its 305 Ramac Computer. The 1st Commercial Computer To Use Magnetic Disks
DadManBlues 1 year ago
The first unit was installed at Chrysler's MOPAR division, that HUGE hard disk drive had 3.75 megabytes capacity. So it would be enough to store one single low resolution digital photo.
#76
Disneyland Parking Lot Opening Day July 17, 1955
#77
Construction Of The Airship USS Akron (ZRS–4), USA, 1930
#79
Insulin Production In The 1950: 4,535 Kg Of Pig Pancreas Was Required To Produce 0.45 Kg Of The Medication
#80
“Banana Inspection” - Longshoremen Load And Unload Ships. Working On The Docks Meant Stiff Competition For Employment, An Intense Few Hours Of Dirty, Heavy Labor, Followed By Hours Of Waiting. Ca. 1910 [location Unknown]
![“Banana Inspection” - Longshoremen Load And Unload Ships. Working On The Docks Meant Stiff Competition For Employment, An Intense Few Hours Of Dirty, Heavy Labor, Followed By Hours Of Waiting. Ca. 1910 [location Unknown]](https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/66e99454a7e50_0bp8iru1z3pd1-jpeg__700.jpg?utm_campaign=rebelboost_true "“Banana Inspection” - Longshoremen Load And Unload Ships. Working On The Docks Meant Stiff Competition For Employment, An Intense Few Hours Of Dirty, Heavy Labor, Followed By Hours Of Waiting. Ca. 1910 [location Unknown]")
#81
Bill Monroe, Considered The Father Of Bluegrass Music, Was Born On This Date (Sep 13). Pictured With His Blue Grass Boys, Circa 1945
S. E. in Indiana 1 year ago
This not my type of music but Mr. Monroe was very accomplished musician.
#82
Sept 15th 1942. The Most Successful Torpedo Attack In History
#83
Rag Collectors. NYC, 1896
#84
U.S. Marines Take A Last Look At A Pin-Up Girl Before Landing On The Japanese Held Island Of Betio In The Tarawa Atoll On November 20th Of 1943
#85
Afghan Military Officers Celebrate One Year Of Daoud Khan's Coup D'etat, 17 July 1974
#86
Computer Showing The Expired Gym Account Of 9/11 Hijacker Ziad Jarrah (September, 2001)
#87
“The Resting Place Is The Whale's Jaw,” 1960
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