Interesting Historical Photos (22 pics)

1

Finnish personnel disarm a floating sea mine from a small wooden rowboat in the Gulf of Finland near Haapasaari, Autumn 1944. Photo by SA-Kuva.

2

"In January 1925, a diphtheria epidemic tore through Nome, Alaska. The closest medication was over 500 miles away — and the only way to transport it was by dog sled. More than 20 mushers volunteered to set up a relay to quickly move the antitoxin serum to Nome through brutal winter conditions in temperatures of 30 degrees below zero. Though a dog called Togo completed the longest and most dangerous part of the route, it was a husky named Balto who led the final team of dogs into Nome with the life-saving medicine and became a national hero."

3

"Biracial Family taken circa 1900, Tennessee, USA. He was Jim Turner, from an affluent white family in Henning, TN, and his wife Carrie Turner, a schoolteacher. Their sons George, William, and Hardin, who became a doctor. This is a stunning portrait of a family who defied societal norms and embraced their mixed heritage with pride, showcasing that love knows no boundaries."

4

"A child with polio learning to walk inside parallel bars (around the time physical therapy was born).

Polio causes paralysis in approximately one out of every 200 cases. Survivors like this two-year-old child, often underwent months or even years of physical therapy to regain mobility.

Polio Rehabilitation Center Sudbury General Hospital, Canada, 1953."

5

"On January 27, 1945, Soviet scouts in southern Poland stumbled upon what appeared to be an abandoned N*zi camp near the town of Oświęcim. They had no idea that the camp even existed and were stunned to see thousands of emaciated and brutalized prisoners, some barely clinging to life, staring at them through the barbed-wire fence."

6

In 1871, Anna Swan married Martin Van Buren Bates in London. It was an eye-catching wedding — as both the bride and the groom stood almost 8 feet tall and, in fact, the bride was a bit taller.

7

Cop stops the traffic so a mother cat holding a kitten can cross safely. According to the book "Great News Photos and the Stories Behind Them", photographer Harry Warnecke missed the original crossing but convinced the cop to reenact it three times - to the consternation of irate motorists - until he got the shot just right. It was the craziest thing that happened that year. New York, 1925.

8

For over 15 years after his father Bob Ross died in 1995, Steve Ross couldn't bring himself to stand in front of an easel, let alone teach his painting classes. But now, the son of the famed "happy trees" painter has picked up his brush again — and he's teaching the Bob Ross technique in various states.

9

The day after she graduated high school in 1964, Dolly Parton left her home in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains and boarded the first bus to Nashville with a suitcase made of cardboard — and filled with songs. She quickly impressed Nashville's country music moguls with her compositions, but they insisted that her voice just wouldn't make her a star.

10

A sharecropper mother from Transylvania, Louisiana, educates her children at home, focusing on letters and numbers. (1937)

11

A young Carrie Fisher watches her mother Debbie Reynolds perform on stage. (1963)

12

Street urchin found by Thomas Barnardo in Whitechapel that led to his orphanage and later a ragged school to educate the East destitute!

13

Children going to school having to cross a river by pulley, Modena, Italy, 1959

14

7 Oct 1943, Ottla Kafka, beloved sister of author Franz Kafka, was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz after volunteering to escort a group of orphans from the Terezin ghetto so they wouldn’t be afraid.

15

Soba noodles deliveryman in Tokyo, Japan. 1935. Photo by the Mainichi Shimbun.

16

In January 1965, an Alabama woman named Annie Lee Cooper lined up at her county courthouse to vote. This was not her first attempt, as she had been turned away from the polls just two years earlier. And after failing the impossible literacy tests made to keep Black people from the ballot box, Cooper decided that this time would be different.

When a notoriously racist cop named Jim Clark began to demand that she abandon her spot in line, Cooper did her best to ignore him. But when he poked her in the neck with his billy club, Cooper took action — and punched him square in the face.

17

An elderly resident of Berlin sits among the ruins, Berlin. Germany, 1945.

18

The last American slave ship docked illegally in Mobile, Alabama in 1860, carrying about 160 West African captives. Among them was Cudjo Lewis, who recognized how his birth culture might be erased while toiling in this new land.

So when he was freed, he purchased two acres and started a self-sufficient community of survivors of the last slave ship. Known to outsiders as Africatown, Lewis' neighborhood was modeled on his West African home, where extended families lived together, members conversed in their regional languages, and partook in traditions that might otherwise be lost to them in America. Today, Africatown still exists and houses the descendants of the nation's last slave ship community.

19

In 1938, Bertha Hill, a coal miner's daughter from West Virginia, was captured doing the family’s laundry — a task that required strength, perseverance, and hard work. The laundry wasn’t done with the convenience of running water, as the family had to carry water uphill from a nearby spring to wash their clothes. This photo, taken by M.P. Wolcott, highlights not only the daily hardships faced by coal miner families but also the resourcefulness and dedication required to make life work in the mountains. For Bertha and others like her, even routine chores demanded significant physical effort, yet these tasks were often done with little complaint, as they were essential for keeping the family going. The image is a poignant reminder of the resilience of coal miner families in rural Appalachia during the Great Depression.

20

Annie Edson Taylor poses with her cat and the barrel she successfully rode over Niagara Falls in 1901.

21

The last known photograph of Tsar Nicholas II, on the grounds of his royal residence, 1917.