#1 An Officer Halts Traffic To Make Way For A Cat Carrying A Kitten Across The Street, 1925
#3 Three Young Boys Sit In A Wagon In A Pittsburgh Neighborhood Street, 1920-1930
Undiscovered History is one of the few online accounts run by the folks at History Defined. It's a blog that shares important and unusual historic facts and stories we probably don't learn in a history class at school. Their content includes such interesting stories as why Christian monks had such weird haircuts and the fashion of the decades from the 1920s up to the 1990s.
Besides this Facebook page, you can find History Defined and their content on Instagram, X, and YouTube. We've actually covered their IG page a couple of times, and you can find the article here and here. Their X page is currently the most popular with over 670k followers.
#5 A Portrait Of Hollow Horn Bear, A Man From The Brulé Native American Tribe. 1907
#6 A Lovely Photo Of A Brother And Sister. I Love Their Fashions And Her Purse! Chicago,. 1945
The content channel describes their goal as "to create exciting content, whether you're casually interested in history or an expert." The Instagram page came first in October of 2021, and other social media accounts followed. They also accept contributions from their followers, asking them to reach out through their contact page.
In May 2023, History Defined launched the Threads of History Facebook group, taking their audience's submissions even further. That's where their followers and fans can share any fascinating stories and photos from the past they find interesting and worth sharing.
Nowadays, we consume tons of visual media. Videos, photos, cinema, and TV can help us learn new things every day. However, they can just as easily misinform us. With the rise of AI-generated images and other means to doctor photographs, it's hard to know when we can trust what we see as true. Interestingly, what we now consider historical images were sometimes altered even before the advent of Photoshop.
#11 Three Female Students Walk In The City Of Kabul, Afghanistan, 1972
Perhaps the most iconic portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is actually fake. In the image, Lincoln is standing, but that's not his body. Printmakers superimposed his head from a 1964 portrait by Anthony Berger onto John Calhoun's body. Hany Farid, a professor specializing in image analysis at Berkeley University, claims it might've been because there were no "heroic style" portraits of Lincolns at the time.
#14 In 1960, David Latimer Planted A Spiderwort Sprout Inside Of A Large Glass Bottle, Added A Quarter Pint Of Water, And Then Sealed It Shut
#15 A Photograph Of A Little Boy Carrying A Newborn Lamb, In Scotland, 1932
Stalin was a big fan of removing his enemies and those who fell out of his favor from photographs. One example is a 1922 image where the dictator is standing next to the Moscow canal. In the original photo, a secret police official Nikolai Yezhov is standing next to him. But in 1938, he fell out of Stalin's favor and was secretly arrested, tried, and executed. Thus, the leader had photo retouchers remove him.
#17 3 Beautiful Children From 1901. Hattie, Clarence, And James Harold Ward
The National Geographic is also a culprit when it comes to altering images. Their February issue cover in 1982 featured the pyramids of Giza. However, in the image they used, the two pyramids are too close together than they are in reality.
The magazine later expressed their regrets and said: "We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we wouldn't repeat that mistake today."
#20 A Sweet Photo Of A Brother And Sister. Charlottesville, Va, C. 1916
