History is far stranger than you or I could ever imagine. People had different ideas and science was being explored in every way imaginable. The world was being analyzed and old ideas were dying out or changing their flavor.
History Is Strange
As you go through these incredible photographs, keep an open mind. The times were different and the morals of the past are not like the morals we have today, which means that some of these images are sure to boggle your mind.
We have grown as a people and know that certain things, like child labor, are simply wrong. Some photos have a history behind them while others are a total mystery that no one living can explain.
MGM’s Lion
MGM’s roaring lion at the beginning of their films is iconic. Every moviegoer gets a thrill when he or she hears the sound of the roar and gets goosebumps just knowing that the movie is finally about to start.
Different lions have been used since 1917 and if you look at different images of the MGM lion, you can spot the subtle differences between them. The first lion they ever used was originally named Slats. To make him more popular, they renamed him Leo. Leo retired in 1928 and was replaced by Jackie. Both of these lions were made to work for a few years and both died just a few short years after their retirement.
Redwood Deforestation
The Redwood Forest is located in California and is the home to some of the largest trees on earth. During the mid-1800s, men traveled to California for the gold rush, but few made any gold. Some men saw the Redwood Forest and found a different kind of gold.
Those who could not make it in gold mining found their fortune in cutting down the beautiful, immense trees of the Redwood Forest. When they first began, there were over two million acres of huge redwoods. By the time they stopped and the remaining forest was preserved, there were only a little over a hundred thousand acres left.
Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw, Poland’s capital, had a rich Jewish population and culture before World War II. It was the second-largest city in the world and had 1.3 million inhabitants.
Nazi Germans invaded Poland in 1939 and soon after forced the Jewish population to wear the blue Star of David on their arms. By 1940, the Germans forced the Jewish population in Poland to move to Warsaw. A wall was built up around the city and it was topped with barbed wire to prevent anyone from escaping. Residents in the Warsaw ghetto were faced with starvation and infectious diseases. In this photo, we see some young residents.
Mount Rushmore
It took about 400 men and women to create Mount Rushmore in inhospitable conditions. It did not matter if it was too hot or bitter cold, these brave workers started off their mornings by climbing up 700 stairs to reach the worksite. Only then could they punch their cards and begin their work.
Because the building was going on during the Great Depression, workers did not complain about the conditions. In fact, one worker boasted that he was earning $8 a day to work on the historical memorial. The men had to hang from great heights in “chairs” supported by 3/8 inch cables to carve the faces from the rock.
Buying Rocks
While Mount Rushmore was being built, visitors would come to see the progress. The view from the ground was amazing and most visitors wanted to come away with something to remember the occasion by.
The hoist operator was pretty ingenious when it came to the visitors. While he was at the bottom, he would have a piece of the rock from the Mount Rushmore project with him. Visitors would ask to buy the rock from him. They might only offer $2 for the chunk of rock, but the hoist operator would tell them that he really couldn’t sell it. He was holding onto it for someone else. The visitors would then offer up $6 and the hoist operator would sell it to them. After they left, he would call up for another chunk of rock to be sent down to sell to the next visitor.
Iconic Image Of The Great Depression
There is no single photo that describes how the Great Depression affected mothers and children than the photo of Florence Owens Thompson. Florence and her family were migrant farmworkers during the Depression. After beets, she and her family traveled on U.S. Highway 101 to find work picking in the lettuce fields.
Their car broke down and they coasted onto a pea farm. There were around three thousand other people camping there, hoping to work. Unfortunately, the crops were destroyed by freezing rain and there was no work or money. The photo is from the pea camp. She had just cooked a meager meal for her own children when other children, starving, came up and asked her for a bite of food.
Boston Marathon
History is full of images of women trying to accomplish something that men say they should not be able to do. Sometimes these women succeeded and other times they were beaten down, verbally or physically, and told to mind their place in society.
The 1967 Boston Marathon was a major event in women’s history. It was the first time a woman ran in the Boston Marathon. Kathrine Switzer was a numbered entry even though women were not allowed to officially compete in the run. She registered her name under her initials, disguising her identity until the day of the marathon. When she started to run, men tried to physically remove her from the race.
Little NAP
Little NAP was the “Napoleon of the Chimpanzee World.” This little chimpanzee, a female, was dressed and posed to make fun of Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 1900s.
Napoleon was a French military leader who conquered most of Europe in the 1800s. He was described as shrewd and extremely ambitious. He was also hated in many parts of the world, which is why the chimpanzee was dressed up to make fun of him. Unfortunately, Napoleon Bonaparte did not live long enough to see his chimp twin. He died in 1821 at the age of 51.
Nazi Doctor Schilling
This photo shows the moments leading to the hanging of Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling. At the Dachau camp, he experimented on over a thousand prisoners by injecting them with malaria. His goal was to find a vaccination against malaria.
After the war, Dr. Schilling was tried for the death and mistreatment of foreign nationals. He was convicted and sentenced to die by hanging. There were also 40 other people at the camp who were given the same charges. All forty people were found guilty of the charges. Thirty-six of them were hung. The remaining four people were sentenced to hard labor, either for life or for ten years.
Children For Sale
In 1948, this picture was printed in the newspapers. The mother, Lucille Chalifoux, hides her face in the photo because the sign was for real. She was selling her children for $2 apiece. Her husband was out of work and the family was about to be evicted from their apartment.
While we can all agree that the selling of children is a horrible act, it was also very common in the United States. Fathers would leave the family or lose jobs. Mothers were paid less than half of what men were paid to work and could not be the sole breadwinners in the family. When things got dire, they sold off their children or dropped them off at the orphanages.
Hindenburg Disaster
On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg, a German passenger airship, erupted into flames when it was attempting to dock in New Jersey. There were 97 people onboard the ship. Of those, 35 died in the fire and one worker on the ground was killed.
The creepiest part of this tragedy is that it was caught on camera. A newsreel was filmed on the spot. Instead of having a perfect landing to show the public, the film captured the massive ship burst into flames and crash to the ground. There are many theories about how the ship caught on fire, from a cigarette to carelessness by a crew hand.
Iron Lungs
In the early 1900s, polio was called the baby plague because it affected so many infants and young children. At that time, they did not know what caused polio or how it was spread. Families were terrified whenever an outbreak hit their area and they would quarantine themselves and their children in the hopes that no one would get the dread disease.
Doctors tried just about everything they could think of to cure those with polio, including placing victims of polio in steel tanks. Iron lungs were widely used and patients might be stacked in the tanks, one above the other.
Ice Pick Lobotomy
Walter Freeman is considered the Father of the Lobotomy, what is also called the ice pick lobotomy. This man invented a new way to destroy a person’s brain, often making the patient worse than what he was before the procedure.
The procedure was performed while the patient was awake. A tool, looking like an ice pick, was placed in the corner of the patient’s eye and was hammered into the brain. A swoosh, swoosh, and Freeman scrambled the front of the patient’s brains. The result was often a docile patient. Sometimes the patient would die from the procedure. Other times, the patient would go onto commit suicide.
Gas Masks During WWI
Of the one million British horses enlisted in the war effort, only 62,000 returned home. Poisonous gases such as phosgene hurt the eyes and lungs of people and animals during the war, so soldiers did their best to protect the mules, horses, pigeons, dogs, and other animals that were used.
Although the use of poisonous gases was banned, 124,000 tons of gas were produced by the end of World War I. The French were the first to use chemical weapons during the Great War, using the tear gases, ethyl bromoacetate, and chloroacetone. The Germans fired back with army shells filled with a chemical irritant which caused uncontrolled sneezing. They also attacked the Russians with mustard gas, which was barely recognized by the human nose, but caused serious blisters both internally and externally.
Opening Tut’s Tomb, 1923
Archaeologist Howard Carter got the thrill of his life in 1923 when he discovered and entered, a tomb in Egypt that was believed to be the burial place of the ancient Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Tut, who had lived around 1400 B.C. and had died while still young (in his teenage years) and his tomb had been sought-after prizes for the archaeological community.
In this photo, we see Carter gingerly caresses the fine details carved into Tut’s open sarcophagus in 1923. The sarcophagus consisted of three nested coffins. The interior one, solid gold, contained King Tut’s mummified remains.
Joseph Goebbels’ Wedding, With Hitler in Attendance, 1931
Joseph Goebbels, one of Adolph Hitler’s closest confidantes and friends, served as Nazi Germany’s Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. He was a cruel man and spent his energies lobbying for harsher treatment and discrimination of Jews during the Holocaust.
Goebbels married Magda Ritschel in December 1931. Hitler was a witness to the affair and is pictured following the couple through the snow in the above photograph. Joseph and Magda went on to bear six children together, although Joseph was not faithful and had several extramarital affairs during their time together. On May 1, 1945, the couple hired a dentist to kill their children with cyanide, and the two then committed suicide.
1930s Baby Cages
In the 1930s, these baby cages were considered to be a good idea. This is so because it allowed the children to get fresh air and sunlight. Although today this image may be horrifying, one must remember that those living in the 1930s did not have most of the luxuries that we have today to ensure the health, comfort, and safety of their children.
It must have been an interesting sight to see baby after baby, dangling from out of an apartment building's windows. They sure seemed to have put a lot of trust in the structural integrity of that product back when it was in use.
First Class Lounge On The Titanic Before It Sank
This is a typical lounge hat would have been available to first-class passengers aboard the Titanic. Generally, it was accessed by the wealthiest of guests who utilized rooms such as this to socialize and have refreshments.
It's eerie to think that the last care in the world for these people while sitting in this exact room was the ship sinking. It's also ironic that all of the luxury and labor put into that room now lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Beach Patrol Making Sure Girls Bathing Suits are the Appropriate Length
In the 1920s, if you were a woman going to enjoy a nice day at the beach, it wouldn't be unusual to be approached by a beach patrol or the police who would then measure your bathing suit to make sure it was within the legal limits. If it was not, the woman would then be fined.
This picture shows that not even 100 years ago, it was okay to tell women what and what they were not allowed to wear, even at the beach. It's also ironic that the woman is only allowed to show so much skin, whereas the man can willingly touch the parts of her body that aren't supposed to be exposed apparently.
The "Knocker-Up"
This poor soul was probably the most hated individual in the community. Commonly referred to as a "knocker-up," their job was to go to wake up sleeping people to make sure they got to work on time. This was necessary during the time of the Industrial Revolution since alarm clocks were not cheap or reliable.
The tool they used was called a "snuffer-outer" which was used to extinguish gas lamps in the morning and reach second-story windows. This job was commonly performed by elderly men and women or police constables to supplement their pay by working in the early mornings. The real question is who woke up the "knocker-upper"?
Abraham Lincoln Before And After The Civil War
The two photos taken of Abraham Lincoln, the United States 16th President of the United States, were taken before and after the term he served during the civil war. It is a chilling image to see what all of the stress and trauma had done to him physically, so it is hard to imagine what it had done to him mentally.
In the first photo, he appears as a young, strong, and confident man ready to take his place in the White House. Yet, the other photo, taken only four years later, it looks as though Lincoln had aged 30 years.
Martin Luther King Jr. Removing a Burned Cross From His Lawn
In 1960, this iconic photo was taken of Martin Luther King Jr., removing a burned cross from his front yard with his son at his side in Atlanta, Georgia. This was not an uncommon routine for the King family. The burning crosses were threats to Martin Luther King and his family, yet he remained unshaken and continued with his efforts for equality and civil rights.
In 1968, King was planning a march on Washington called the Poor People's Campaign when he was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. Since his death, he has had monuments constructed in Washington D.C, a national holiday in his honor and has post-humanly received numerous awards.
Mona Lisa Returns
After World War I, da Vinci's Mona Lisa was returned to the Louvre. The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre on August 21, 1911. The museum was closed for an entire week during the investigation. Both the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and his friend, the artist Pablo Picasso, were brought in for questioning. Two years later, the real thief revealed himself and the painting was brought back.
After two years, the real thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, revealed himself. He was an Italian patriot who believed da Vinci’s painting should be returned to Italy to be displayed in a museum there.
Tolstoy Tells A Story
Here's Leo Tolstoy telling a story to his grandchildren in 1909. Hopefully, the story was a little bit shorter than War and Peace. Tolstoy had a large family. The Russian author married Sophia Andreyevna Behrs in 1862 when she was 16 years his junior. Together, they had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood.
He also had six grandchildren, five of whom were his son Illya Tolstoy’s children: Anna Tolstoy, Illya Jr. Tolstoy, Andrei Tolstoy, Vera Tolstoy, and Mikhail Tolstoy. Tatyana Sukhotina was the daughter of Tatiana Sukhotina-Tolstaya. This quiet family moment shows a different side of the serious, classic author.
What Lovely Eyes You Have, My Dear
No, this isn't a still from a horror film. These bizarrely-dressed women were participants of the Miss Lovely Eyes competition in Florida held in 1930. The purpose of the nightmare-inducing Hannibal Lecter masks was to block out all the contestants’ other features so the judges could focus entirely on their eyes.
In the 1930s, bizarre beauty pageants were fairly common. At other Lovely Eyes competitions, women obscured their features with everything from ridiculous Abraham Lincoln hats that fell down to their chins and had holes cut out, to pieces of paper, swatches of fabric, and colorful bandannas. Somehow, we’re not any less disturbed.
Tiger, Tiger
This is the last known Tasmanian tiger, also known as a thylacine or Tasmanian wolf. The species is now extinct, but this Tasmanian tiger was photographed in 1933. It is so very sad when humans allow this to happen. Surviving evidence suggests this animal was shy and nocturnal, with the appearance of a medium to large dog. It also had a pouch like a kangaroo. It's closest living relatives may be the Tasmanian devil or the numbat.
Competition from invasive dingoes and indigenous humans hurt the Tasmanian tiger’s numbers as far back as 2,000 years ago in mainland Australia. The species survived until the 1930s on the island of Tasmania.
Smokebot
Retro technology at its finest! The Westinghouse Electric Corporation actually made a smoking robot in the 1930s. His name was Elektro — how modern. In addition to puffing on cigarettes, Elektro could speak about 700 words (thanks to a 78-rpm record player, blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. His eyes could also distinguish red and green light.
Elektro made his big debut at the 1938 New York World's Fair and reappeared the next year with Sparko, a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg. This robot is currently retired at the Mansfield Memorial Museum.
WTC
Building the World Trade Center in New York City, 1970. The original WTC was a large complex of seven buildings in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
At the time the original 1 World Trade Center was built at 1,368 feet, it was the tallest building in the world. The total construction cost was $400 million (which is $2,300,000,000 in today's money). Before the devastating attacks in 2001, the building was also bombed in 1993. The new One World Trade Center, rebuilt after the tragedy, is the tallest building in the United States.
Dinosaurs
From the 1964 New York World's Fair: the Sinclair Oil Corporation sponsored an exhibit called "Dinoland," which featured life-size replicas of nine different dinosaurs that were shipped via barge down the Hudson River.
Louis Paul Jonas, a famed designer, was behind the nine fiberglass dinosaurs that inhabited Dinoland. Jonas also designed dioramas for prestigious museums, including the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the Berkshire Museum. Two of the dinos were mechanized: the nineteen-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus and the Brontosaurus. He also did his homework, enlisting famed paleontologists to make sure Dinoland was as accurate as possible for the time.
Historical Breakthroughs In Science!
Here's physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla in his workshop. An online campaign recently raised $2.2 million to buy this space and convert it into a museum dedicated to the scientist. The Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist is best known for his contributions to the modern alternating current electricity supply system.
He may have been brilliant in some areas, but Tesla also had some pretty out-there beliefs. Tesla was a proponent of imposed selective breeding (otherwise known as another form of eugenics). At the same time, he believed women would become the dominant sex in the future and supported struggles for gender equality. What a strange contradiction.
Survival Town
When the U.S. government was conducting nuclear tests in the 1950s, they constructed a town of mannequins. This was done for the sole purpose of find out out what would happen to them if the big explosive were to drop.
The eerie mannequin tests were carefully set up for the sole purpose of being destroyed, and they often were staged just like people enjoying dinner with their family, watching television, or children playing outside. The Nevada test site, known as "Survival Town" is now open for tours. Tests ended in the early 1990s, which wasn't so long ago at all.
Strongman
In 1957 Paul Anderson lifted 6,270 pounds, using his legs and back. Paul was an Olympic gold medalist, World Champion and two-time National Champion in Olympic weightlifting champ. Anderson was considered a major part of the popularity of power-lifting and its recognition as a competitive sport.
He didn't get so strong at some fancy gym. In high school, Paul Anderson used homemade weights that his father created out of concrete poured into a wood form. Sadly, Anderson suffered from Bright’s Disease (which we now call chronic nephritis). The kidney disorder took his life at age 61 on August 15, 1994.
Historical Photo Of The Circus
These are performers with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Circus in 1948. All of the Ringling Brothers elephants have now been officially retired from show business after outcry from animal rights activists about their horrific treatment.
Freak shows were popular in the early 1900s and often featured outright shams or people who simply had medical conditions. Sometimes people with physical deformities or who were considered "exotic" in some way were kidnapped to perform. Some performers, like Schlitzie and Koo-Koo the Bird Girl, performed not only for Barnum & Bailey but in major motion pictures like Freaks.
Rasputin Gets Colorized
This chilling photograph of Rasputin was recently colorized, seemingly bringing the Russian mystic to life almost 101 years after his death. Rasputin was a self-proclaimed holy man who gained influence over the country after he became close with the family of Emperor Tsar Nichols II.
When his influence was deemed too powerful, a group of nobles murdered Rasputin with a close-range gunshot to his forehead. When you see Rasputin's hypnotizing blue eyes brought to life, it's easy to see how he won over the dynasty.
The Tattooed Texan
The story behind this photograph of Olive Oatman is hard to believe. Roy Oatman took his wife and seven children on a perilous journey from Illinois to California—but he didn't realize the trip would claim nearly all of their lives.
As the Oatmans traveled through Arizona, they were attacked by members of the Yavapais tribe. Only three of the children survived, including 13-year-old Olive who was forced into slave labor. The Yavapais eventually traded Olive to a Mohave tribe, where she was considered family and was even tattooed to identify her as a tribal member. When the U.S. government discovered a white woman was living with a Mohave tribe, they stepped in to rescue her, despite her desire to stay. Olive was returned to live among the white settlers in Texas, although her facial tattoos were a constant reminder of the life she grew to love and left behind.
