“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

Millions of moments have shaped the world as we know it today. Some were major turning points, like certain wars, inventions and discoveries. Others might seem less important… But even the events we perceive as slightly insignificant have played a big part in history.

Of course, so much has happened throughout the years that it could be easy to forget a lot of it. That’s where photography, writing, documenting and archiving come in. They preserve the memories of people, places and things so that future generations can look back and see how far humanity has come, and how far we have yet to go.

If you dig taking a deep dive into the past, you might want to join an online community called Archive of Humanity. It has close to 100,000 weekly visitors, and is a “curated space dedicated to preserving the visual legacy of our species.” From pivotal moments in human history to major breakthroughs in space exploration, science, and technology, the page is a beautiful, bottomless virtual archive.

Bored Panda has put together a compilation of its most interesting posts for you to scroll through while even more history is made today.

#1 Cracked And Faded Statue Of Vladimir Komarov, The First Human To Lose His Life During A Space Mission. Now Stands Forgotten At An Abandoned Children’s Camp Outside Moscow

“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

Image source: Suspicious-Slip248, sovietvisuals

What were the most important events in history? The answer may vary depending on who you ask, where and when they were born, and what they’ve experienced in their own lifetime.

Some may include World War II, others could go straight to the invention of the cellphone, or man’s first visit to the moon. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more potential responses. All are significant and all have shaped the world as we know it today – in one way or the other.

But certain events are so massive that they change the world instantly, forever…

#2 One Of The First “Drone Shots” In History, 1911

“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

Image source: PerryAwesome

#3 This Is What Mount Saint Helens Looked Like Before And After Its 1980 Eruption

“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

Image source: Front-Coconut-8196, Everett

Among the most recent is one that still haunts many of us: The Covid-19 pandemic. What a time to be alive…

One moment we were living our (best-as-we-could) lives, the next we were in an unexpected global lockdown, watching the fatalities rise all around us.

“On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, sending shockwaves across the planet. Overnight, borders closed, cities locked down, and daily life changed for billions—something unseen since previous pandemics, but on a much larger scale,” reports the History Collection site. “The speed and scope of the response was unprecedented, with countries scrambling to adapt.”

More than 7 million people lost their lives to the virus, economies took a knock, businesses shut down, families were left homeless and many still haven’t fully recovered from the crisis.

#4 Vincas Juška, A Lithuanian Book Smuggler That Transported Language Books Into Lithuania, Circa Late 1800s

Smugglers like Juška transported books a across the border to preserve the Lithuanian language and culture, March 16th is celebrated in Lithuania as the Day of the Book Smugglers

“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

Image source: Suspicious-Slip248, Unknown author

Another fairly recent date many of us will never forget is September 11, 2001, or 9/11, as it’s since become known.

Again, things began as normal on this fateful day in history until suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, two planes flew into the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York. A series of co-ordinated attacks followed. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and another into a Pennsylvania field, leaving America and the rest of the world stunned.

Close to 3,000 people lost their lives in those incidents. Air travel, politics, and daily life for many, would never be the same again.

“In a single morning, global priorities shifted, leading to sweeping changes in security and foreign policy,” notes History Collection. It wasn’t long before a number of wars would be launched.

#5 Mihailo Tolotos, A Greek Orthodox Monk That Lived For 82 Years (1856 To 1938) Without Having Ever Seen A Woman In His Life

“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

“Archive Of Humanity”: 109 Photos Showing The Most Important Moments In Our History

#1 Cracked And Faded Statue Of Vladimir Komarov, The First Human To Lose His Life During A Space Mission. Now Stands Forgotten At An Abandoned Children’s Camp Outside Moscow

#2 One Of The First “Drone Shots” In History, 1911

#3 This Is What Mount Saint Helens Looked Like Before And After Its 1980 Eruption

#4 Vincas Juška, A Lithuanian Book Smuggler That Transported Language Books Into Lithuania, Circa Late 1800s

#5 Mihailo Tolotos, A Greek Orthodox Monk That Lived For 82 Years (1856 To 1938) Without Having Ever Seen A Woman In His Life

#6 An Ottoman Supply Train Still Resting Where It Was Ambushed By Lawrence Of Arabia Over 100 Years Ago On The Hejaz Railway

#7 Norwegian Storyteller Eiliv Braatene Spent Much Of His Life As A Wandering Vagabond, Carrying All His Possessions In A Tin Can And A Small Bundle, 1897

#8 It Took 36 Years For This Archaeologist To Make The Most Accurate Model Of Ancient Rome

#9 In 1912, Jim Thorpe Had His Running Shoes Stolen The Morning Of His Olympic Events. He Found This Mismatched Pair Of Shoes In The Garbage And Ran In Them To Win Two Olympic Gold Medals

#10 Astronaut Frank Culbertson, Aboard The Iss, Was The Only American To Witness The 9/11 Events From Space; His Historic Photograph Captures A Visible Plume Of Smoke Rising Over Manhattan

#11 A 1966 Photo From The Netherlands Dubbed The “Dutchiest Father Of All Time” Captures A Father Fully Embracing Classic Mid-1960s Dutch Practicality

#12 When Humanity Tried To Ride Zebras: A Forgotten 1890–1940 Experiment That Failed Spectacularly

#13 Ultraviolet Bath Given To Soviet Kids, Ussr, 1980s

#14 Members Of The Blackfoot Tribe Photographed In Glacier National Park, 1913

#15 Native American Looking At The Newly Built Transcontinental Railroad, 1868

#16 King Island Inuit Woman And Child, King Island, Alaska, Taken Between 1915 And 1925

#17 Chief John Smith Was An Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indian Who Lived In The Area Of Cass Lake, Minnesota. He Passed In 1922 At The (Alleged) Ripe Old Age Of 137

#18 A Young Boy Playing The Banjo With His Dog, 1920

#19 In The Late 1800s, Explorers Photographing The Jungles Of Guatemala Captured This Image Of Stela K At Quiriguá, An Ancient Maya City Near The Motagua River

#20 Photograph Of A Man Eating Rice, 1904

#21 No One Wants To Remember The Horrors Of War. Poland, Warsaw, 1946

#22 Woman Kneeling Next To Bed Of Child, In An Underground Tunnel During The Bombing Of London, World War II, January 1945

#23 Nagasaki, 20 Minutes After The Atomic Bombing In Japan, 1945

#24 In 2003, Fast Attack Submarine Uss Connecticut (Ssn-22) Had Partly Surfaced In An Ice Pack When A Polar Bear Began To Lick And Paw The Exposed Rudder To Determine If It Was Worth Eating

#25 A Fishermen Returns With His Fish In Istanbul 1930s

#26 Children In Front Of World’s Largest Log Cabin In Portland, Oregon, USA 1938. Built In 1905 Burned Down In 1964

#27 The First Self Portrait In Space, Taken By Buzz Aldrin In 1966

#28 Tourist And His Car At The Edge Of The Grand Canyon. Arizona, USA. 1914

#29 Leicester, England, 1950s. When Coal Was Very Much The Number One Energy Source

#30 During The 19th Century, Rich British Landowners Ordered Exaggerated Portraits Of Their Livestock As Symbols Of Wealth, Frequently Depicting Them With Unusually Large Rectangular Bodies

#31 The First Ever Underwater Photograph Taken In The South Of France At A Depth Of 164 Feet By Louis Boutan In 1899

#32 The Stadium At Aphrodisias In Modern Turkey, Built During The 1st Century Ad, Is Among The Best-Preserved Examples Of Ancient Greek Stadiums

#33 Boy Selling Apples Beside A Road In North Carolina, 1934 (During The Great Depression). Photo By Bayard Wootten

#34 A Mississippi River Pearl Diver, Using A Car’s Old Gas Tank For A Helmet, Prepares To Descend Into The River. 1938

#35 The Kailasa Temple At Ellora Was Built In The 8th Century

#36 Heliphants, Indian Air Force Helicopter Unit 116 Were Hal Chetak Helicopters Covered With Elephant-Shaped Decorations Used In Air Displays, 1970s

#37 Aloha Airlines Flight 243 Lost Its Fuselage Midair And Landed Safely On 28th April 1988

#38 Winter In Times Square, 1947

#39 Man Guards His Family From The Cannibals During The Madras Famine Of 1877 At The Time Of British Raj, India

#40 A Tree House Of The Koiari People, East Of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 1886

#41 Inky Paws Found On A 15th Century Manuscript

#42 Last Eruption Of MT. Vesuvius,1944 – Colorised

#43 Faces Of Passersby Upon Seeing The 9/11 Incident

#44 Series Of Photos Of Calcutta, British India Taken In 1860s By Samuel Bourne Titled “Views Of Calcutta And Barrackpore”, Colourised

#45 A Polar Bear Cub And Child Meet, (1975), Wrangel Island, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russian Sfsr

#46 The Blue Void Earth’s Most Isolated Hemisphere, This Is The Pacific-Centered View Of Earth The Side We Rarely See In Maps Or Textbooks

#47 Zbigniew Religa – Most Famous Polish Cardiac Surgeon After 23-Hour-Long (Successful) Heart Transplant. His Assistant Is Sleeping In The Corner. 1987

#48 A Migratory Mexican Field Worker Stands Beside His Makeshift Home Near A Pea Field In Imperial Valley, California, 1937

#49 Deep Sea Diver With An Umbrella, 1949

#50 At The Greenhouse Of The “Decorative Cultures” State Farm, (1980s), Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkarian Assr

#51 A New Guinea Resident Was Stunned To See A White Man For The First Time. Until 1930, Mountain Tribes Believed They Were The Only People On Earth

#52 The World’s Last Commercial Ocean-Going Sailing Ship – The Pamir – Rounding Cape Horn, 1949

#53 The Only Surviving War Elephant Armour In The World From 17th Century India Displayed At The Royal Armouries Museum In Leeds, England

#54 Soviet Northern Explorer Nikolai Machulyak Feeds Polar Bears With Condensed Milk. Chukchi Sea, 1976

#55 A Third Class Ticket Of Titanic In 1912

#56 Colorized Image Of Young Boy Who Lost His Parents To A V2 Rocket London Wwii

#57 The Cosquer Cave Is A Palaeolithic Decorated Cave, Located In France, That Contains Numerous Cave Drawings Dating Back As Far As 27,000 Years Bp

#58 64,000 Years Ago In What Is Now Spain’s La Pasiega Cave, A Neanderthal Drew This Image

#59 Golden Chamber (Burial Chamber), The Reliefs Are Not Just Colors, But Are A Recessed And Relieved, Ultra-Precise Sculpture, Which Has Preserved Its Bright Colors For More Than 3000 Years

#60 Engraved Handprints On White Mountain Wyoming, Sacred To The Shoshone, Arapaho And Ute Tribes Today

#61 Algeria Is Home To Seven Unesco World Heritage Sites And Is The Second Country In The World With The Most Roman Ruins After Italy

#62 Classroom Doodles Of 6 Or 7 Yo Boy Onfim From Novgorod Around 800 Years Ago

#63 Norwegian Ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl And His Raft ‘Kon-Tiki’ Crossing The Pacific Ocean

#64 The Full-Scale Recreation Of The Roman Forum Built For The Filming Of ‘The Fall Of The Roman Empire’ (1964)

#65 There Is A Spacecraft Graveyard In The South Pacific Ocean Known As“Point Nemo”, It Is The Furthest Place On The Earth From Land

#66 Trainees Donning Makeshift Astronaut Suits Marching Through Zambian Villages

#67 On October 16, 1964, China Carried Out Its First Successful Nuclear Detonation, Becoming The 5th Country In The World To Develop Nuclear Weapons

#68 Picture Of Mahabodhi Temple Before (1879) vs. During (1883) vs. After (1899) Its Restoration, It Is The Site Where Gautam Buddha Attained Enlightenment

#69 A Bedouin Woman From Tunisia In 1907

#70 To Study The Medical Effects Of Weightlessness In Space, Scientists Convinced Captain Druey P. Parks To Toss A Kitten In The Air While Cruising In His F-94c Jet At An Altitude Of 25,000 Feet

#71 Frozen Niagara Falls, Around 1905

#72 President John F. Kennedy Leans Over His Desk In This Iconic Photo, Dubbed “The Lonliest Job.” February 11, 1961

#73 Afghan Hunter With A Fox-Mask, 1970s

#74 Latitude 41′ 46n And Longitude 50′ 14w, The Place Where The Titanic Sank (Atlantic Ocean 1912)

#75 Human Creativity 30,000 Years Ago, Prehistoric Cave Paintings Of Bhimbetka Rock Shelters (Unesco World Heritage Site)

#76 Vision Of The Future In The 1930’s Soviet Futurism Art, Electro-Magnetic Rapid Transit System

#77 Inside Esna Temple, Luxor — 2,000-Year-Old Ceilings That Still Look Unreal

#78 Man With A Mask – By Peter Ondreička

#79 Geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor And Meteorologist Charles Wright In The Entrance Of An Ice Grotto. Terra Nova Expedition, Ross Island, 5 January 1911. Photo Taken By Herbert Ponting