Usually, when you read a history article or story, it's mostly just dry facts and your imagination. But an amazing photo gives something a bit different. It shows you how it all actually looked, letting you understand the historical moment more intimately. Whether it would be a historical landmark, a famous person or random old pictures of the past - they all have fascinating stories behind them, and we're just about to show you.
The brave photojournalists that took these interesting pictures saw the morbidity of wars, documented the creation of an atomic bomb and shot stills of most magnificent constructions being built. You might not be aware that the city of Tel-Aviv used to be just plain dunes or how someone looks after literally falling from space. Keep on scrolling to take a look at Bored Panda's list of rare historical photos that might shine a new light on how you saw these crucial moments.
Wondering how historical photos taken in black and white would look if they were restored in color? Check out this article.
(h/t: designyoutrust)
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Dorothy Counts - The First Black Girl To Attend An All White School In The United States - Being Teased And Taunted By Her White Male Peers At Charlotte’s Harry Harding High School, 1957
Nikola Tesla Sitting In His Laboratory With His “Magnifying Transmitter”
Austrian Boy Receives New Shoes During WWII
Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945
The Graves Of A Catholic Woman And Her Protestant Husband, Holland, 1888
A Lone Man Refusing To Do The Nazi Salute, 1936
Race Organizers Attempt To Stop Kathrine Switzer From Competing In The Boston Marathon. She Became The First Woman To Finish The Race, 1967
Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974
Job Hunting In 1930's
First Morning After Sweden Changed From Driving On The Left Side To Driving On The Right, 1967
German Soldiers React To Footage Of Concentration Camps, 1945
Residents Of West Berlin Show Children To Their Grandparents Who Reside On The Eastern Side, 1961
Acrobats Balance On Top Of The Empire State Building, 1934
The Statue Of Liberty Under Construction In Paris In 1884
An Exotic Dancer Demonstrates That Her Underwear Was Too Large To Have Exposed Herself, After Undercover Police Officers Arrested Her In Florida
Mafia Boss Joe Masseria Lays Dead On A Brooklyn Restaurant Floor Holding The Ace Of Spades, 1931
That's cool, very dramatic. I think he lost the poker game though.
Lesbian Couple At Le Monocle, Paris, 1932
They look both relaxed and unsure. This is such a simple, yet interesting glimpse into the past.
7-Foot Bolaji Badejo, A Nigerian Design Student And One-time Actor, Wearing His Costume From The Now Classic Sci-Fi Thriller Alien, 1978
The Most Beautiful Suicide - Evelyn Mchale Leapt To Her Death From The Empire State Building, 1947
A photograph taken four minutes after her death by photography student, Robert Wiles, is now considered among the most iconic suicide photographs in history, referred to as "the most beautiful suicide".
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On April 30, 1947, McHale took a train from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania to visit fiance Barry Rhodes. The next day, after leaving she returned to New York City and went to the Empire State Building where she jumped from the 86th floor observatory. Rhodes did not notice any indication of suicide before McHale left. Detective Frank Murray found her suicide note in a black pocketbook next to her neatly folded cloth coat over the observation deck wall which read: "I don't want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don't have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don't think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother's tendencies."
Her mother was, I read, starting to show signs of schizophrenia. I wonder if Evelyn was experiencing it too.
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She looks like she's asleep!! Sad that she thought she had to throw herself from such a tall building to ease her pain.
This photo is absolutely AMAZING! It takes my breath away EVERY time I see it!
How many times did you look at it? Once was enough for me.
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Yeah. A flower pot could have, too.
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Being science minded, it amazes me what that petite woman did to that car! Especially considering back then they were made of STEEL!
Maybe her heels flew off upon impact? Gloves don't just pop off, shoes could.
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she specifically asked that no one see her like this, obviously nobody respected her wish. many things have been inspired by this photo, including the beginning of taylor swift's bad blood music video
i think i saw this in LOOK magazine...the picture was slightly different
Fotografia e artistică, într-adevăr, însă evenimentul în sine, deloc "the most beautiful".
She could have fallen onto somebody :/ Crowded area... Would have become murder/ suicide...
how is that supposed to be beautiful..very tragic for her. Scary. and not to mention someone's car is totaled
this is very rude, if this suicide is beautiful, then all suicides are beautiful. i mean a bunch of them are from jumping off something high
Who would've thought... even the wealthy (considering her clothes) and beautiful have problems that can lead to suicide. Wonder if she lost someone in the war?
It's because of how beautiful she is, laying there. She looks like she's just asleep rather than dead. No blood, no gore... Just asleep.
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Has anyone ever looked at this pic and thought - why are her panty hose around her feet (women would know that they fit quite snugly - as we struggle to get them off at the end of the night) - just an observation
Pantyhose weren't invented until 1959. She would have been wearing stockings held up by a garter or clipped to a garter belt. If you've ever worn thigh high stockings, you would know how it is nearly impossible to keep them up.
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Why is this any less acceptable than for instance the bloody image of the dead mob boss? Or the Nazi soldiers?
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The Remains Of The Astronaut Vladimir Komarov, A Man Who Fell From Space, 1967
Technically, it's cosmonaut because he's from Russia. Astronaut is for Americans
Hats In New York, 1930
Men always wore a hat back then. My grandmother has often commented on this and how it's some different than today.
A German Child Meets Her Father, A WWII Soldier, For The First Time Since She Was 1 Year Old, 1956
Explanation - the soldier was held a prisoner in Siberia concentration camp after being captured by the soviets.
Wounded Combat Dog During Action On The Orote Peninsula, 1944
Frida Kahlo Dressed As A Boy, 1924
A Mother Shows A Picture Of Her Son To A Returning Prisoner Of War, 1947
Scottish Piper In A Kilt On The Battlefield During World War One
The bagpipe is the only musical instrument deemed a weapon of war because it inspired its troops to battle and instilled terror into the enemy
Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa Is Returned To The Louvre After WWII
It's commendable when people risk themselves to save art and history during war times, and then return it.
These Are Titanic Survivors Boarding The Carpathia In 1912
Painting The Eiffel Tower, 1932
A Rare Shot Of A Young Winston Churchill, 1895
The First Bananas In Norway, 1905
Robert Williams Wood, Max Planck And Albert Einstein In The Front Row Of A Session Of The Physical Society In Berlin On July 28, 1931
About 100 People Participate In A Lottery To Divide A 12 Acre Plot Of Sand Dunes, That Would Later Become The City Of Tel Aviv, 1909
Carving Eye On Mount Rushmore, 1930s.
Tsar Nicholas II Allows His Daughter, The Grand Duchess Anastasia, To Smoke
Marilyn Monroe Filming Her Iconic Scene In The Seven Year Itch. This Shot Was Taken In New York In Front Of A Large Crowd Of Bystanders And Press To Create Hype, 1954
Poor Marilyn... Produs al mass-media şi copil al Hollywood-ului. Trist.
Bob Dylan With Mick Jagger And Keith Richards At Jaggers 29th Birthday Party, July 1972
These jokers are almost my dad's age and still rock so hard! I love these guys!
The Last Public Execution By Guillotine, 1939
Hungarian Jews Being Selected By Nazis To Be Sent To The Gas Chamber At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Auschwitz Album May-June 1944
Columns Of Hoover Dam Being Filled With Concrete, February 1934 (Looking Upstream From The Nevada Rim)
US Coast Guard Cutter Spencer Destroys The Nazi Submarine U-175, April 17, 1943
Vladimir Lenin's Last Photo. He Had Had Three Strokes At This Point And Was Completely Mute, 1923
Eduard Bloch, The Jewish Physician Of The Hitler Family In His Office C. 1938. Bloch Was Later Called A ‘Noble Jew’ By Hitler And Stood Under His Personal Protection
Soviet Troops Scrawled Graffiti In The Reichstag After They Took Berlin In 1945
A Jewish Woman Who Is Concealing Her Face Sits On A Park Bench Marked "Only For Jews", Austria, 1938
The Gadget, The First Atomic Bomb, 1945
I can't get over how casually he sits next tobit. He might as well be eating a sandwich. Just because we have the ability to make suck weapons of mass destruction, doesn't mean we should. :-(
Jennie Macgregor, Arrested By Minneapolis Police On April 10, 1924 For Dispensing Alcoholic Beverages From Life-Preserver Flasks
Crew Of The Japanese Carrier Zuikaku Give One Final Banzai Cheer Before The Ship Sinks, 1944
Boxing Match Aboard The U.S.S. New York, July 3, 1899
Finalizing The Fat Man Atomic Bomb, Which Was Dropped On Nagasaki On August 9, 1945. On Its Nose It Had Stenciled The Acronym “Jancfu”- Joint Army-Navy-Civilian F*** Up
A Young Hitler Cheers The Start Of World War One, 1914
i dont think thats him. his iconic mustach was trimmed that way because he still wanted facial hair, but also needed it to fit under a gas mask
The Eiffel Tower During The Nazi Occupation, 1940
An American Evacuee Punches A South Vietnamese Man For A Place On The Last Chopper Out Of The US Embassy During The Evacuation Of Saigon In 1975
A Group Of Men Posing In Front Of Lynch’s Slave Market, St. Louis, Missouri, 1852
WOW... these are outstanding pictures... # 20 is absolutely unbelievable!
Very interesting article. Must have taken some time to find all those photos
These pictures were fascinating! Thank you for making this collection to share.
Bobbi Gibb was the first woman to complete the Boston marathon in 1966. She also completed it in 1967, an hour ahead of Switzer.
20+ Rare "Greengo" Historic Photos That You Probably Haven’t Seen Before
An unusual pictorial article. It should appear in letters. Mohammad Baqer
Great collection of images that reflect human history. The good and the bad.
Most of these photos just prove we've done terrible things as humankind and never learn from any historical archive depicting so. :( Still, wonderful to learn so much from visuals of another era.
Nah. The very fact that you found the cruel ones troubling proves that we DID learn and are indeed improving. Maybe slowly, but certainly.
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yes, yes it was. fact - www.vintag.es - it was only around last week or so it was posted. just look for it, or search.
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WOW... these are outstanding pictures... # 20 is absolutely unbelievable!
Very interesting article. Must have taken some time to find all those photos
These pictures were fascinating! Thank you for making this collection to share.
Bobbi Gibb was the first woman to complete the Boston marathon in 1966. She also completed it in 1967, an hour ahead of Switzer.
20+ Rare "Greengo" Historic Photos That You Probably Haven’t Seen Before
An unusual pictorial article. It should appear in letters. Mohammad Baqer
Great collection of images that reflect human history. The good and the bad.
Most of these photos just prove we've done terrible things as humankind and never learn from any historical archive depicting so. :( Still, wonderful to learn so much from visuals of another era.
Nah. The very fact that you found the cruel ones troubling proves that we DID learn and are indeed improving. Maybe slowly, but certainly.
Load More Replies... yes, yes it was. fact - www.vintag.es - it was only around last week or so it was posted. just look for it, or search.
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