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)
#1 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
Image source: Don Sturkey
#2 Nikola Tesla Sitting In His Laboratory With His “Magnifying Transmitter”
#3 Austrian Boy Receives New Shoes During WWII
Image source: Gerald Waller
#4 Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945
#5 The Graves Of A Catholic Woman And Her Protestant Husband, Holland, 1888
#6 A Lone Man Refusing To Do The Nazi Salute, 1936
Image source: wikimedia
#7 Race Organizers Attempt To Stop Kathrine Switzer From Competing In The Boston Marathon. She Became The First Woman To Finish The Race, 1967
#8 Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974
Image source: Jack Bradley
#9 Job Hunting In 1930’s
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#10 First Morning After Sweden Changed From Driving On The Left Side To Driving On The Right, 1967
Image source: Jan Collsiöö
#11 German Soldiers React To Footage Of Concentration Camps, 1945
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#12 Residents Of West Berlin Show Children To Their Grandparents Who Reside On The Eastern Side, 1961
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#13 Acrobats Balance On Top Of The Empire State Building, 1934
Image source: Bettmann / Corbis archives
#14 The Statue Of Liberty Under Construction In Paris In 1884
#15 An Exotic Dancer Demonstrates That Her Underwear Was Too Large To Have Exposed Herself, After Undercover Police Officers Arrested Her In Florida
#16 Mafia Boss Joe Masseria Lays Dead On A Brooklyn Restaurant Floor Holding The Ace Of Spades, 1931
#17 Lesbian Couple At Le Monocle, Paris, 1932
Image source: Georges Brassai
#18 7-Foot Bolaji Badejo, A Nigerian Design Student And One-time Actor, Wearing His Costume From The Now Classic Sci-Fi Thriller Alien, 1978
#19 The Most Beautiful Suicide – Evelyn Mchale Leapt To Her Death From The Empire State Building, 1947
Image source: Robert C. Wiles
#20 The Remains Of The Astronaut Vladimir Komarov, A Man Who Fell From Space, 1967
Image source: RIA Novosti/Photo Researchers Inc.
#21 Hats In New York, 1930
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos.com
#22 A German Child Meets Her Father, A WWII Soldier, For The First Time Since She Was 1 Year Old, 1956
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#23 Wounded Combat Dog During Action On The Orote Peninsula, 1944
Image source: W. Eugene Smith
#24 Frida Kahlo Dressed As A Boy, 1924
#25 A Mother Shows A Picture Of Her Son To A Returning Prisoner Of War, 1947
Image source: Ernst Haas
#26 Scottish Piper In A Kilt On The Battlefield During World War One
#27 Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa Is Returned To The Louvre After WWII
Image source: Pierre Jahan
#28 These Are Titanic Survivors Boarding The Carpathia In 1912
Image source: thechive
#29 Painting The Eiffel Tower, 1932
#30 A Rare Shot Of A Young Winston Churchill, 1895
Image source: wikimedia
#31 The First Bananas In Norway, 1905
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#32 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
Image source: Alamy
#33 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
#34 Carving Eye On Mount Rushmore, 1930s.
Image source: Getty Images
#35 Tsar Nicholas II Allows His Daughter, The Grand Duchess Anastasia, To Smoke
#36 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
Image source: Getty Images
#37 Bob Dylan With Mick Jagger And Keith Richards At Jaggers 29th Birthday Party, July 1972
Image source: Getty Images
#38 The Last Public Execution By Guillotine, 1939
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#39 Hungarian Jews Being Selected By Nazis To Be Sent To The Gas Chamber At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Auschwitz Album May-June 1944
Image source: Ap Images
#40 Columns Of Hoover Dam Being Filled With Concrete, February 1934 (Looking Upstream From The Nevada Rim)
Image source: Alex Stephens
#41 US Coast Guard Cutter Spencer Destroys The Nazi Submarine U-175, April 17, 1943
Image source: Jess W. January
#42 Vladimir Lenin’s Last Photo. He Had Had Three Strokes At This Point And Was Completely Mute, 1923
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#43 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
Image source: Bundesarchiv
#44 Soviet Troops Scrawled Graffiti In The Reichstag After They Took Berlin In 1945
Image source: Life
#45 A Jewish Woman Who Is Concealing Her Face Sits On A Park Bench Marked “Only For Jews”, Austria, 1938
Image source: Institute for Contemporary History and Wiener Library
#46 The Gadget, The First Atomic Bomb, 1945
Image source: Los Alamos National Laboratory
#47 Jennie Macgregor, Arrested By Minneapolis Police On April 10, 1924 For Dispensing Alcoholic Beverages From Life-Preserver Flasks
Image source: Getty Images
#48 Crew Of The Japanese Carrier Zuikaku Give One Final Banzai Cheer Before The Ship Sinks, 1944
Image source: Kazutoshi Hando
#49 Boxing Match Aboard The U.S.S. New York, July 3, 1899
#50 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
#51 A Young Hitler Cheers The Start Of World War One, 1914
Image source: rarehistoricalphotos
#52 The Eiffel Tower During The Nazi Occupation, 1940
#53 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
Image source: Getty Images
#54 A Group Of Men Posing In Front Of Lynch’s Slave Market, St. Louis, Missouri, 1852
Image source: Thomas Martin Easterly
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