Usually, when you read a history article or story, it’s mostly just dry facts and your imagination. But a photo gives something a bit different… It shows you how something actually looked, letting you understand the historical moment more intimately. Whether it would be a historical landmark, a famous person or random photo of the past — they all have fascinating stories behind them, and we’re just about to show you.
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 historical moments.
Wondering how historical black and white photos would look if they were restored in color? Check out this article.
#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
#2 Nikola Tesla Sitting In His Laboratory With His “Magnifying Transmitter”
#3 Austrian Boy Receives New Shoes During WWII
#4 The Graves Of A Catholic Woman And Her Protestant Husband, Holland, 1888
#5 Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945
#6 A Lone Man Refusing To Do The Nazi Salute, 1936
#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
#9 Job Hunting In 1930’s
#10 First Morning After Sweden Changed From Driving On The Left Side To Driving On The Right, 1967
#11 German Soldiers React To Footage Of Concentration Camps, 1945
#12 Residents Of West Berlin Show Children To Their Grandparents Who Reside On The Eastern Side, 1961
#13 Acrobats Balance On Top Of The Empire State Building, 1934
#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
#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
#20 The Remains Of The Astronaut Vladimir Komarov, A Man Who Fell From Space, 1967
#21 Hats In New York, 1930
#22 A German Child Meets Her Father, A WWII Soldier, For The First Time Since She Was 1 Year Old, 1956
#23 Wounded Combat Dog During Action On The Orote Peninsula, 1944
#24 Frida Kahlo Dressed As A Boy, 1924
#25 A Mother Shows A Picture Of Her Son To A Returning Prisoner Of War, 1947
#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
#28 These Are Titanic Survivors Boarding The Carpathia In 1912
#29 Painting The Eiffel Tower, 1932
#30 A Rare Shot Of A Young Winston Churchill, 1895
#31 The First Bananas In Norway, 1905
#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
#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.
#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
#37 Bob Dylan With Mick Jagger And Keith Richards At Jaggers 29th Birthday Party, July 1972
#38 The Last Public Execution By Guillotine, 1939
#39 Hungarian Jews Being Selected By Nazis To Be Sent To The Gas Chamber At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Auschwitz Album May-June 1944
#40 Columns Of Hoover Dam Being Filled With Concrete, February 1934 (Looking Upstream From The Nevada Rim)
#41 US Coast Guard Cutter Spencer Destroys The Nazi Submarine U-175, April 17, 1943
#42 Vladimir Lenin’s Last Photo. He Had Had Three Strokes At This Point And Was Completely Mute, 1923
#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
#44 Soviet Troops Scrawled Graffiti In The Reichstag After They Took Berlin In 1945
#45 A Jewish Woman Who Is Concealing Her Face Sits On A Park Bench Marked «Only For Jews», Austria, 1938
#46 The Gadget, The First Atomic Bomb, 1945
#47 Jennie Macgregor, Arrested By Minneapolis Police On April 10, 1924 For Dispensing Alcoholic Beverages From Life-Preserver Flasks
#48 Crew Of The Japanese Carrier Zuikaku Give One Final Banzai Cheer Before The Ship Sinks, 1944
#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
#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
#54 A Group Of Men Posing In Front Of Lynch’s Slave Market, St. Louis, Missouri, 1852
