50 Rare Historical Photos That Might Change Your Perspective On The Past

But who needs history anyway? Some people wonder why we should bother studying it when we could be preparing for the future instead. But think about it: can we be ready for what's coming if we don't know what's happened before? The past gives us all kinds of insights that can help us tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow. Without that knowledge, we could be in for some tough times.

As American historian and journalist Eric Alterman pointed out, since our political discourse is increasingly dominated by sources who care nothing for truth or credibility, we come closer and closer to the situation that Walter Lippmann warned about a century ago, in his seminal 'Liberty and the News.'

"Men who have lost their grip upon the relevant facts of their environment are the inevitable victims of agitation and propaganda. The quack, the charlatan, the jingo ... can flourish only where the audience is deprived of independent access to information,” he wrote.

Historian Daniel Bessner agrees. "If Americans don’t seriously invest in history and other humanities disciplines, we encourage the ahistoric ignorance ... Progress depends on studying and arguing about the past in an open and informed manner."

According to Bessner, this is especially true nowadays, when people use history to fight over which vision of the country will dominate the political scene.

Dr. Darren R. Reid, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Dundee and is now a lecturer at Coventry University, explained to Bored Panda for our earlier publication on historical pictures that images are an incredibly important part of how we understand the past.

"They give us a distinct look into how people and societies viewed themselves and each other," Reid said back then. "In the medieval period, for example, Jesus and the saints were often depicted as physically larger than ordinary people — not because they were believed to be taller, but because they occupied a higher status in the minds of the artists who produced these images, and the audiences who consumed them. In later centuries, Europeans (and their descendants) looked to the classical world for inspiration, spending huge amounts of time (and money) on images that were both increasingly realistic and idealized."

Reid added that "Native Americans and American colonizers were frequently depicted in classical poses — all deliberate choices that show us how many people perceived the invasion of the Americas and the genocides that occurred there."

"They also include important details (such as items of clothing, hairstyles, etc.) that help us to picture the past. For modern people, this means we can more accurately imagine, and perhaps, empathize with the very different folks who came before us."

Darren R. Reid highlighted that developing an eye for visual storytelling allows us to detect when someone's trying to bend the narrative.

"The invasion of the Americas was frequently sanctioned and/or driven by governments, but it was the acts of 'ordinary' people that made it possible, and across that continent, a huge body of work was produced to justify, even encourage some really terrible acts," he said.

"American comic books and movies depicted Native Americans as simple, brutish, and savage. This helped to justify genocide and colonization as it was ongoing — and justify it, long after the most violent part of the process was complete. For a great example, check out the awful depiction of Native Americans in Disney’s Peter Pan. They helped to justify the colonial project to generations of children, right up to the present day."

Today, 66 percent of the global population and 97 percent of the U.S. population use the internet where they are under a constant barrage of content. Hopefully, places like the subreddit 'Rare Historical Photos' will help them navigate the overwhelming amount of information.