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40 Important Historical Photos That Might Change Your Perspective On Things
It’s every photographer’s dream to take a picture so powerful that it ends up being enjoyed by future generations. The deeper you delve into the past, the more you realize how many wonderful photos have been taken, but perhaps haven’t been given the time in the spotlight that they deserve. They’re full of character, and just as good—if not better than—some of the most iconic pics we know from textbooks and the internet.
The ‘Photos From History’ Instagram page does exactly what it says on the tin and features aesthetic pics from the past. We’ve collected some of the top ones to share with you, Pandas, and some of them are bound to change the way you view history. Don’t forget to upvote the ones that impressed you the most!
Bored Panda reached out to professional photographer Dominic Sberna, from Ohio, for a chat about high-quality photos, how photography has become more accessible over time, and how AI might affect the art form in the future. Read on for our full interview with him.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
August 23, 1989: 2 Million People Form A Human Chain Through Latvia, Estonia, And Lithuania, Uniting All 3 Countries To Show The World Their Desire To Escape The Soviet Union
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#2
The Couple On The Woodstock Album Cover Is Still Together 50 Years Later In 2019
Agnotology 3 years ago
Sadly, she died of leukemia March 18 of this year. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/arts/music/bobbi-ercoline-dead.html
#3
Family Friend Went Camping 30 Years Ago And Heard A Noise. She Stuck Her Camera Outside Her Tent And Snapped This Picture
#4
The Swedish Warship Vasa Sank In 1628 Less Than A Mile Into Its Maiden Voyage And Was Recovered From The Sea Floor After 333 Years Almost Completely Intact
#5
East German Soldier Helps A Little Boy Sneak Across The Berlin Wall The Day It Was Erected In 1961
vvv 3 years ago
This is heart breaking , I'm half German and this picture is very famous in Germany. Families were split within a night and people who were elsewhere over night were stuck the other side. For a short time after people were allowed to chose which side to stay , many students went west. But a lot of parents also abandonned their children to flee to the West. They put them in orphanages or just with neighbours.
#6
King Arthur's Statue Overlooking The Atlantic Ocean On The Cliffs Of Tintagel In Cornwall, England
#7
Helen Mirren, 1967
deanna woods 3 years ago
I absolutely adore Helen Mirren and think that she is an amazing actress.
#8
The Last Public Appearance Of Laurel & Hardy In 1956
Oliver Hardy passed away the following year due to heart complications. Due to his own ill health at the time Stan Laurel was unable to go to his dear friend's funeral, famously saying 'Babe would understand." Laurel would never recover from Hardy's death. He refused to perform in any capacity afterwards, turning down interviews, stage and screen roles. Instead, Laurel decided to dedicate the remainder of his life to his fans and offering tips to up and coming comedians. His address to his small Santa Monica apartment and phone number where published in the phonebook. He eagerly greeted fans and guests that would show up unannounced. Fans were surprised that Laurel, himself, would answer the phone. Much of his free time was dedicated to answering his fan mail. He insisted that each and every letter be answered personally. Amongst the up and coming Comedians that often visited Stan Laurel were Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke. The advice they received from Laurel was invaluable to the later success of their careers. Stan Laurel out lived Oliver Hardy by eight years. As his health continued to decline, he remained out of the public eye, fearing that children would be horrified by his current old appearance. In 1965, he suffered a final heart attack and four days later passed away. At his funeral, Dick Van Dyke gave the eulogy and among the attendees were Hal Roach Sr and silent film comedian Buster Keaton who remarked "Chaplin wasn't the funniest, I wasn't the funniest, he was the funniest"
#9
Archeologists Unearth 2,200 Year Old Mosaics In An Ancient Greek City Named Zeugma In Gaziantep Province, Turkey
They have given us the opportunity to witness the unveiling of Greek and Roman art that hasn't been seen in thousands of years. Three new mosaics have been discovered. They are exceptionally well preserved mosaics, dating back to the 2nd century BCE.
#10
David Bowie Performs To A Huge Crowd At Milton Keynes Bowl In 1983
#11
Leonardo Dicaprio, Johnny Depp & Brad Pitt In The Flush Of Youth
#12
Ornithologist Jerry Mcgahan Holding A 6-Month-Old Andean Condor In 1971
martymcmatrix 3 years ago
Condors are impressive, already. But if you really want to be flashed, you need a harpy eagle and its truly piercing, unsettling gaze. THIS is the most beautiful representative of any bird of prey.
#13
A Girl Watches Her Father Perform Acrobatics
#14
Grace Jones By Jean-Paul Goude, 1981
#15
Barbra Streisand By Cecil Beaton, 1969
#16
David Bowie And Wife Iman
#17
Sigourney Weaver And Rick Moranis On Set Of The First Ghostbusters In 1984
#18
In A 1996 Incident At An Illinois Zoo, A Female Gorilla Cradled A 3-Year-Old Boy Who Fell Nearly 20 Feet Into Her Enclosure An 8-Year-Old Gorilla Named Binti Jua Made Worldwide Headlines When She Carried A Boy To Safety After He Slipped Away From His Mother And Climbed Through A Barrier At The Western Lowland Gorilla Pit At The Brookfield Zoo On Aug. 19, 1996
#19
Harvey Ball And The Smiley Face He Created In The 1960s
#20
The Discovery Of An Ancient Maya Statue In The Jungles Of Honduras, 1885
#21
Pink Floyd Concert In Venice In 1989
Burnt Bagel 3 years ago
Oh my god that looks awesome! Pink Floyd is unquestionably one of the best bands ever. And I just read that Nick Mason is down for another tour. Unfortunately a lot of ego in this band or they could be making millions!
#22
Carolyn Jones' Morticia Addams Wishes You A Ghoulishly Good Weekend
#23
Ava Gardner, Age 19. Photo From Her Mgm Employment Questionnaire In 1942
#24
Ukrainian Refugees In Germany In 1945
#25
The Face Of War By Salvador Dali In 1941
Dali had spent the years 1936-1939 in Paris, throughout the Spanish Civil War. During the beginning of the Second World War (1940), Dali fled to California with his wife, due to the Fall of France, in which Germany had invaded and captured France. This experience, along with then recent horrors of the Spanish Civil War, inspired Dali to express the misery of Europe through this painting
#26
Jacques Cousteau And His Crew Relax In A Submersible After Work During The Conshelf Two Expedition, 1963
Continental Shelf Station Two was an attempt at creating an environment in which humans could live and work on the sea floor. Dix oceanauts lived 10 metres down in the Red Sea, at Sha’ab Rumi off Sudan, in a starfish-shaped house for 30 days.
#27
Björk By Laura Levine In 1991
#28
Anthony Bourdain On Dublin - "If You've Got Any Kind Of A Heart, A Soul, An Appreciation For Your Fellow Man, Or Any Kind Of Appreciation For The Written Word, Or Simply A Love Of A Perfectly Poured Beverage, Then There's No Way You Could Avoid Loving This City."
#29
Croatians Ira And Marijan Kiss Near The End Of The Croatian War Of Independence In 1995
Marijan Horvat was coming back from the frontline after military operation 'Storm', and Ira was waiting near the road to see if he was on one of the trucks. This was the moment when she saw him and ran to him. "I was looking forward to see if he would be on a truck and suddenly I saw him. The truck was passing, they were not allowed to stop, so Marijan just leaned over to kiss me", Ira explains. The couple married not long after this photo was taken and are still together today (swipe for image above). Photo by Lea Krivošić. Coincidentally, this photo was taken 50 years to the day after Alfred Eisenstaedt's famous Life Magazine photo of a kiss between a sailor and a nurse in New York's Times Square on August 14, 1945, just after the end of World War II
#30
Nancy Sinatra Pictured With Her Father Frank And Family Friend Yul Brynner At The Sands Hotel In Las Vegas, 1965
#31
Casting Polaroid Of Salma Hayek In 1995
#32
The Rolling Stones' First Photo Shoot 4 May, 1963
#33
Young Couple Kissing Before The Fall Of The Berlin Wall In 1989
The Scout 3 years ago
A very tense historical moment - November, 9th, 1989. Because at that very moment, the border was not really open, with a shooting order still active. A gouvernment official just had - mistakenly - told reporters at a mpress conference that the border was finally open immediately ("ab sofort - ähm - unverzüglich"). So people flocked to the border checkpoint. It could very well have been a massacre instead. Fortunately the local commander in charge decided not to shoot and to open up a checkpoint instead in direct contradiction to his orders. After that, the further developments were not stoppable any more. The reason the border patrol guards are standing ON the wall? They wanted to be safe from being trodden down by the masses. It may sound boring in the history books, but those days were anything but.
#34
A Bank Robber Shooting His Pistol At The Surveillance Camera, Cleveland, Ohio, 1977
#35
Esso Hibernia Tanker Under Construction, Wallsend, England, 1970
#36
Audrey Tautou On The Set Of Amélie In 2001
#37
Iggy Pop Raised By The Crowd In A Messianic Pose Live In Cincinnati In 1970
#38
(1980) Punk Legend Viv Albertine Of The Slits Performs At Alexandra Palace In London
#39
(Studio 54) Ballet Icon, Rudolf Nureyev, Initiates Nine-Year-Old Actor Ricky Schroder Into The Delights Of Disco Dancing At Studio 54 In New York On Sunday, April 2, 1979
#40
Andy Fletcher From Depeche Mode At The Hill 16 Pub, Dublin, 1983
#41
John Lawrence Burns, Veteran Of The War Of 1812, Became A 69-Year-Old Civilian Combatant With The Union Army At The Battle Of Gettysburg During The American Civil War. He Fought Valiantly For 3 Days During The Battle, Being Wounded Three Time, And Survived To Become A National Celebrity. Photo By Timothy O'sullivan In The 1860s
#42
Aztec Sun Calander Stone, National Museum, Mexico, 1964
#43
A Factory Worker In Rute, Gotland, Sweden, Posing For A Photograph. Photograph Taken By Måns Birger Bruzelius In 1920
#44
Heath Ledger And Rose Byrne In Las Vegas, 1999
#45
Sr 71 Blackbird Designed In The1950s, Was Able To Cruise Near The Edge Of Space And Outfly A Missile
To this day, it holds the records for the highest altitude in horizontal flight and the fastest speed for a non-rocket powered aircraft. For me it is one of the most beautiful engineering designs in history, a kin to the great Art Deco locomotives of the 1930s. "It still looks like something from the future, even though it was designed back in the 1950s," Peter Merlin, an aviation historian and author of "Design and Development of the Blackbird". "Because of the way the fuselage bends and the wing curves and twists, it looks more organic than mechanical. Most conventional airplanes look like someone built them -- this one almost looks like it was grown." 70 years on from its inception the SR 71 Blackbird is a timeless design classic.
LonelyLittleLeafSheep 3 years ago
Agree that it is the most beautiful aircraft ever designed. Finally got to see one up close at the aviation museum in Oregon. Wanted to be one of the pilots when I was a kid.
#46
Light From Billions Of Years Ago Detected By The James Webb Telescope
#47
Arnold Schwarzenegger In College, 1979
That same year Arnold got his bachelor’s degree in business administration and fitness marketing from University of Wisconsin-Superior. It's also the same same year Schwarzenegger appeared with Kirk Douglas and Ann-Margret in the comedy The Villain.
JoJo Anisko 3 years ago
That was a funny movie almost no one has heard of. I used to have it on VHS but alas time moves on.
#48
A Vehicle Hovering Over A Crevasse During The Trans-Aantarctic Expedition Of 1954
#49
The Ghost Ship - C. 1900
#50
American Soldiers Talk To A Pontifical Swiss Guard From The Vatican, June 1944
#51
Father, Son, And Grandfather, New Guinea, 1970
#52
Dutch Girls Ria Vermeulen And Ineke Van Wijck Write Messages On A Polish Armoured Division Tank After The Liberation Of Breda, Their Hometown, Noord-Brabant Province, The Netherlands, 1944
As the tanks are soon to pass through neighboring villages and districts, people use them as a 'message carrier' letting their, soon to be liberated family and friends, know, that they were ok. Also note the symbol of the Dutch resistance movement on the tank - OZO (Oranje zal Overwinnen - Orange Shall Conquer)
#53
Al Capone With His Son "Sonny" Capone In 1925
#54
A Wheat Field In Manhattan Showing The Twin Towers
The Public Art Fund hired artist Agnes Denes in 1982 to produce something of artistic worth in Manhattan's Battery Park before high-rises and condos took over the region. Rather than an artwork, she chose to cultivate a golden wheat field. The dirt required to do so was mined during the construction of the neighbouring Twin Towers a decade earlier
sofacushionfort 3 years ago
I remember this during a visit from my native Midwest. There was also an art installation nearby where a gallery had black dirt three feet deep on its floor. Wheat and dirt: so odd to Gothamites that it could only be an artistic statement.
#55
Nurses In Their Bomb Trenches Between Hospital Wards In France, 1918
#56
'the Thinker', By Hiromu Kira. Los Angeles, C. 1930
#57
Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, And Bunny Wailer Started A Ska Band In 1963 Called The Teenagers, Before Renaming Themselves The Wailing Rudeboys, Then The Wailing Wailers And Finally The Wailers. I Wonder What Became Of Them?
#58
(1940) Father Christmas Handing Out Presents To Evacuees From Peckham, London
#59
“When I’m In Nature, Everything Falls Into Place. I’m Just One Tiny Piece Of A Big Jigsaw Puzzle And I Like That.” - Björk, 2008
#60
Cult Hero Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards Soars Above The 1988 Winter Olympic
#61
Rip Pelé (1940-2022) - A Master, An Icon, And A Gentleman
#62
Mounted Police Officer Flies Down Tremont Street, Boston In The 1920s. Photo By Leslie Jones
#63
Westminster Silhouetted By The Fires Of The Blitz In London, 1940
#64
'youth And Maturity', Photo By Henri Cartier-Bresson In Paris
#65
Richard Jack At Work On His Iconic Painting, The Second Battle Of Ypres, 1917
#66
Greek Partisans Pose For A Photograph Following The German Invasion Of The Island Of Crete In 1941
#67
Elijah Wood With His Scale Double Kirann Shah On The Set Of Fellowship Of The Ring In 2001
#68
Charles Ebbets, Credited With Taking The Iconic Photograph 'Lunch Atopa Skyscraper' (1932)
#69
Michael Rockefelle, Son Of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, In Dutch New Guinea, May, 1960. He Went To Explore The Jungle And Went Missing In 1961. His Body Was Never Found
#70
The Clash Riding On Their Way To Shea Stadium, New York (1982)
#71
Surgeon After Open-Heart Surgery On A Chernobyl 'Liquidator'
#72
Iconic Traditional Irish Folk Band The Dubliners In 1972
#73
Forging The Chain For Titanic's Anchor In 1910
#74
Children Watch In Fear As Their Neighborhood Is Bombed In Minsk, Belorussia
#75
Winona Ryder On The Set Of Beetlejuice In 1988
#76
"Kombat" By Max Alpert: A Soviet Officer Leads His Men In A Counterattack Against German Lines In Ukraine, 12 July 1942. The Officer In Question, Alexey Yeryomenko, Was Killed Soon After This Picture Was Taken
#78
Rory Gallagher, Age 11
#79
Clint Eastwood & Shirley Mcclaine On The Set Of 2 Mules For Sister Sara, In 1969
Fish Fingers 3 years ago
It always amazes me how much Scott Eastwood looks like his dad. They genuinely look like twins!
#80
Marilyn Monroe In The Late 40's
#81
As The Tour De France Enters The Alps, Another Look Back At The History Of The Greatest Race Of Them All
#82
Logging Drivers Near Glens Falls, New York, On The Hudson River, 1907
#83
A Reusable Shopping List From The 1920s
#84
(1914) Germans In Front Of The Reichstag The Day After The Declaration Of War On Russia
#85
Photo Of The Day
Stephanie Did It 3 years ago
I took a similar photo but with the setting sun peeking between them and it's still breathtaking
#86
Alec Guinness As King Faisal 1 & Director David Lean On The Set Of Lawrence Of Arabia
#87
Felix Rodriguez And Che Guevara, Moments Before His Execution In Bolivia, 1967
sofacushionfort 3 years ago
Strictly speaking, when a bound, wounded prisoner is shot without trial, it’s not an execution.
#88
17-Yr-Old Tom Hardy Photographed In A Friend's Kitchen In 1994
#89
Superman On The Set Of Superman
#90
Joy Division Lead Singer Ian Curtis. Kevin Cummings Captured The Band’s Complete Journey, From Their Original Work Under The Name Warsaw, Through To The Heyday Of Joy Division
#91
Donald Campbell's Final Moments At Over 300 Mph In His Bluebird In 1967
He died in the accident which followed. Campbell broke eight world speed records on water and on land in the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only person to set both world land and water speed records in the same year. Campbell's body wasn't recovered until 2001.
#92
An Armed Guard Provides Both Service And Security To White Golfers At A Golf Course At The Hotel Leopard In Rhodesia, 1978
#93
“I Didn’t Want To Get Blood On Your Floor.” Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci & Frank Vincent, With Martin Scorcese Under The Bar, On The Set Of Goodfellas In 1990
#94
A Shirtless Benito Mussolini Harvesting Wheat In Aprilla In 1938
#95
Russian Soldiers Sunbathe On A Rooftop While A Sniper Stands Guard In Grozny, Chechnya, 9 May, 2000
#96
Saddam Hussein As A Young Boy In The 1940's
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