If you learned your history from an old, dusty textbook, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s just a collection of dry facts and dates. Sure, those things matter: they tell us what happened, when it happened and who was involved. But they miss out on all the texture and all the real faces that make our past so fascinating—and at times, so unsettling. Sometimes, even a single photograph can do what paragraphs of text can’t: make history feel within reach.
And I’m not just talking about those iconic images we’ve all seen a hundred times. Sometimes, the most memorable images are the ones that capture a bizarre moment, reveal something people would rather have forgotten, or simply show us a side of everyday life that’s mind-boggling to modern eyes. Those are the kinds of images we’ve gathered for you here. Some are strange, some are fascinating, and some are quietly devastating. Together, they offer glimpses into a past that was often wilder, darker and far less predictable than many of us might realize.
#61 View Of Boston, The Oldest Surviving Aerial Photograph Ever Taken. October 13th, 1860
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16points
#62 The Mcdonald Brothers In Front Of The Not Yet Opened First McDonald's, November 1948, San Bernadino, CA
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16points
#63 William And Alva Vanderbilt's Fifth Avenue Château, Home Of Their Nearly 1,200-Guest Costume Ball, C. 1885
Designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1882, the French château-style mansion was Alva Vanderbilt's architectural declaration that the family belonged among New York's elite. Her March 26, 1883 costume ball drew nearly 1,200 guests and helped secure the Vanderbilts' acceptance into old-money society.
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15points
#64 “Bandits' Roost,” 59½ Mulberry Street In New York City, Photographed By Jacob Riis And Collaborators, 1888
The alley stood in Mulberry Bend on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where immigrant families paid h**h rents for crowded rear tenements. Jacob Riis, Richard H*e Lawrence, and Henry G. Piffard photographed the area in 1887–1888 as part of Riis's campaign to expose urban poverty. Riis later published *How the Other Half Lives* in 1890.
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15points
#65 George H.w. Bush Takes A Toboggan Ride With Arnold Schwarzenegger At Camp David. 1991
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15points
#66 “The Thousand Yard Stare”—usmc Private Theodore J. Miller Is Helped Aboard A Ship After Intense Combat On Eniwetok Atoll. Miller Was Kia A Month Later, 1944
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15points
#73 Pennsylvania Militia Entering Homestead After Carnegie Steelworkers Fought Pinkerton Guards, 1892
This photograph shows Pennsylvania state militia entering Homestead after the violent July 1892 confrontation between locked-out Carnegie steelworkers and Pinkerton guards. The militia's arrival placed the town under martial law and helped the company regain control of the mill.
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12points
#75 Handlers Support Thomas Hicks During The 1904 Olympic Marathon After Dosing Him With Strychnine, Egg Whites And Brandy He Won
The St. Louis marathon was run in brutal heat and dust with only one planned water stop. Hicks's handlers gave him repeated small doses of strychnine mixed with egg white, then brandy, as stimulants. He crossed the line with attendants supporting him and was declared the winner. The same race also included Fred Lorz, who rode roughly 11 miles in a car before briefly being treated as the winner, and Len Tau, who was chased off course by dogs.
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11points
#76 Dave Grohl And Krist Novoselic From Nirvana At Kurt Cobain's Funeral. Seattle, Washington (1994)
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11points
#77 Dr. Erich Salomon Faked A Broken Arm So He Could Hide A Camera In His Cast To Photograph The Us Supreme Court - 1932
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11points
#80 American Soldier Wearing The Crown Of The Holy Roman Empire In A Cave In Siegen, Germany, On April 3, 1945
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9points