It’s virtually impossible to feel how fast time flies until it passes right behind us, leaving the sense it was only yesterday we had our first day at school or said ‘I Do’. Present moments sneakily turn into memories, and it’s a never-ending cycle.
But thanks to the invention of photography and people who stood behind the lens, not everything gets lost in history. People, places, events that happened years, decades and hundreds of years ago are all made immortal by the camera.
One such mesmerizing gallery is curated by the Lost In History Twitter account dedicated to sharing photos that they say “throw light on our past.” Below, we selected some of the most incredible and interesting photos shared there, so pull your seat closer!
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I read a lot of mystery books about the Orient Express, and it is described as very luxurious and beautiful. I can see now why
Some time ago, Bored Panda spoke with Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. We found out about the cultural and societal significance of old photos, as well as the meanings behind them. It turned out that old photographs can tell us more about life in the past than you will ever learn from history books.
Amazing, rising literally from the ashes. I do hope she didn't die horribly of radiation poisoning...
First and foremost, it’s important to understand that old photos affect our perception of time in unique ways. According to Lisa, they do that “by making abstract historical events visually concrete, giving us an emotional connection to eras we might not otherwise know very much about, exactly, through books or family stories.”
She gave an interesting example: “I was really taken by images of Japanese-Americans in WWII U.S. internment camps, young people protesting low wages for teachers in the Great Depression, female engineers working for the Space Race, and little kids protesting Daylight Savings Time—my own son especially appreciated that one…"
What are the cannibals going to eat? They're nothing but bones. What a horrific picture.
Another way old photos alter our perception of time is by showing that people in the past had just as rich and complex lives as we have today. Lisa explained that “we tend to assume that in the past, women were limited to work as wives and mothers, and we certainly see a number of images here celebrating women’s work in the home.”
But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. “We also see women doing all sorts of work in the public sphere as well—everything from attending school graduations and working on supercomputers to taking back the streets of postwar London and bouncing drunks out of bars,” the professor explained.
The part in Schindlers List which upsets me the most is when they are told to carefully write their names on their suitcases as they will get them back when they get off the train. You then see the suitcases being brought to the sorting areas and the contents being put into various piles like this. The fact that they gave these prisoners a glimer of hope (that their possessions would be returned to them) while knowing what was in store for them is just heartbreaking 😥
Moreover, old photographs remind us of something we tend to forget: “that people in the past have had many of the same challenges and triumphs as we have, and that we can look to them for inspiration regarding how to make sense of the present and build new futures,” Lisa concluded in this in-depth interview we had.
TIL goats like bananas. Looked into it, and in addition to hay and grains, I learned they also eat "foods like fruits, dried fruits, veggies, graham crackers, cheerios, Cheetos, and even corn chips."
... And it wasn't just Germans who were brainwashed by Nazism. Let's not forget that.
Terrible working conditions. It's literally what Zorro rescues "the disappeared ones" from in the movies.
In hindsight humans are always complete morons. Figure generations will be saying the same things about current generations.
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Seems to me this is a hell of a lot more indecent, but what would I know, I'm just a woman 2022-07-07...32f309.png 
And they don't think the men's swimsuits in this picture are indecent?! They're so gross!
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The pervs who come up with these rules need to be fined. They just project their own feelings onto others (and look for excuses to touch legs).
See how she’s stooping a bit to lower the hem? Clever woman (Yes I know she may not purposefully be doing that but still..)
Interesting that it's indecent just to look at a woman's leg, but it's ok for this man to touch women's legs to measure their suits.
Pretty soon they'll be publicly measuring our menstrual cycles and questioning us on suspicion of "mUrD3r" if it's irregular in away suggesting a miscarriage or ab0rt10n. It's literally worse than 100 years ago.
Wow! Bathing suits too short, no right to abortion, no right to equal pay…how about voting for women? Would you like that too? Assholes
Some women want to control other women as well so voting for women isn't necessarily a safe bet. In the other photo of the two women being arrested for their swimsuits being too short, is a woman pulling the second woman towards the "patty wagon" 😔
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I am a men and this disgusted me as well and I would not support such actions, but just because I am a men do I deserve no second thought aside from stereotype?
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I graduated from high school in 1963 and if a girls dress or skirt did not touch the floor when told to get on our knees, we were sent home to change.
Why was it up to men to decide? Just another way of degrading women.
They are worried about the length of her skirt.... As the man measuring it cops a feel.... 🤦
I think the conservative Republicans would try this if their wives wouldn't knock them over the heads.
Wow .. if they only knew . Now women wear swimsuits that are thongs and boobs hanging out..
Is this for real? Why didn't they measure men's slacks to make sure they weren't "high waters"? Unbelievable!!
Let's go swimming Beatrice! Ok I just need to put on my bathing cap, snap on my girdle, squeeze into my swimming trousers, measure my swimming gown...
And to think they wear thong bikinis held together with string and 3 patches of fabric.
Clothes provoke you? I think something is wrong with you then. If you have problems and think of everything in a sexual way then you should visit a doctor.
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Note: this post originally had 42 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
"The past was a different world." I forget which SciFi author said that.
Not one “Illuminating” photo of an African American. I guess we were not apart of history.
Native Americans were not represented either, but it's because there is still no change that can be described with the word "illuminating ". Maybe a pic of an indigenous school, but they were still killing kids up into the 1970's. Hardly the past
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Chool pics. Comments make me a bit angry thou. Mostly comments against forestry, nazies and old traditions. People seem to have only one and same mainstream braincell
"The past was a different world." I forget which SciFi author said that.
Not one “Illuminating” photo of an African American. I guess we were not apart of history.
Native Americans were not represented either, but it's because there is still no change that can be described with the word "illuminating ". Maybe a pic of an indigenous school, but they were still killing kids up into the 1970's. Hardly the past
Load More Replies... Chool pics. Comments make me a bit angry thou. Mostly comments against forestry, nazies and old traditions. People seem to have only one and same mainstream braincell
