In 1907, when Annette Kellerman appeared on Revere Beach in a one-piece swimsuit ending in shorts above her knees, her bold choice created an uproar. Her legs, visible and daring by the standards of the day, led to her arrest for indecency. Yet those same legs had made her a sensation: Kellerman, an Australian swimmer, held all the women’s world records by 1905. Beyond the pool, she captivated audiences as a vaudeville star with breathtaking high dives and graceful underwater ballet, earning her the nickname “The Original Mermaid” in the press....

Igor Youriévitch Bogdanoff and Grégoire “Grichka” Youriévitch Bogdanoff were French television presenters and producers best known for hosting programs on science fiction, popular science, and cosmology. The identical twins gained widespread recognition in the late 20th century, not only for their television work but also for the controversies that surrounded them. The most significant of these was the Bogdanov affair, which revealed that the brothers had obtained Ph.D. degrees based on physics papers widely criticized as nonsensical, though they had still passed peer review and been published in respected scientific journals....

This seal was actually a seal to King Tut’s fifth shrine. The king was buried in a series of four sarcophagi, which were in turn kept inside a series of five shrines. This unbroken seal stayed 3,245 years untouched. The late discovery of Tut’s tomb resulted from the fact that it was covered by debris from that of Ramesses IV which was located directly above its entrance. While the outermost shrine of the youthful pharaoh had been opened not once but twice in ancient times, the doors of the second of the huge shrines of gilded wood containing the royal sarcophagus still carried the necropolis seal which indicated the pharaoh’s mummy was untouched, and intact....

The rock group Phonolog. These interesting pictures, taken by photographer Harf Zimmermann, revolve around Hufelandstraße, a bustling neighborhood street in the heart of communist East Germany. The neighborhood was an anomaly in the increasingly drab Soviet-administered city. Buildings boasted proud facades and balconies, linden trees lined the broad sidewalks, and an unusual number of privately-owned shops remained in business. But in 1985 the crumbling balconies were stripped away, and in 1987, with the soil poisoned by leaking gas lines, the last of the linden trees were felled....

These old photos show couples in love from the 19th century proving that love is timeless and eternal. Despite sometimes appearing stern or sitting apart, it’s clear that they still adore each other as shown by their sweetly shy smiles, flirting, tender touches, giggles, and happiness. In the 19th century, love and courtship were often subject to strict societal expectations and customs. Marriage was typically viewed as a necessary and desirable institution, and courtship was a means to find a suitable partner for life....

The Ericofon, created by the Swedish phone giant L.M. Ericsson in the 1950s was the lightest phone on the market at the time of its introduction. It revolutionized the look of this common household object by concealing its dial on the bottom of the base, making it look more like a modernist figurine than a phone. To hang up, you simply set it back down on a table. Because of its styling and its influence on future telephone design, the Ericofon is considered one of the most significant industrial designs of the 20th century by Phaidon....

In the early 20th century, companies such as Sears, Roebuck and Co., sold tens of thousands of mail-order kit houses. Available in a variety of styles and at a range of price points, these DIY kit houses would arrive via railroad boxcar as precut and then the buyer would have them assembled. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company’s count....

Valentine’s Day, a time for love and romance, has long been celebrated with sentimental cards and sweet gestures. However, amid the sea of heartfelt messages, there exists a collection of vintage Valentine’s cards from the mid-20th century that are nothing short of peculiar, creepy, and downright strange. These relics from the past offer a glimpse into the quirky humor and unconventional tastes of yesteryear. Back in the day, expressing love took a rather perplexing turn....

In the 1960s and 1970s, long before he stepped onto the world stage, Barack Obama was a bright-eyed boy with an infectious smile and a big future ahead. These rare childhood photos capture his early years, showing sweet, everyday moments that highlight the warmth and closeness of his family life. Growing up between Hawaii and Indonesia, young Barack experienced a unique blend of environments that shaped his outlook long before politics entered the picture....

Adolf Eichmann walks around the yard of his cell, Ramla Prison, Israel, 1961. Adolf Eichmann was a German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. Because of his organizational talents and ideological reliability, Eichmann was charged by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with the task of facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe....

The 1950s were a period of huge change for Hong Kong. The end of Japanese occupation, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. and U.N. trade embargoes on China, and a mass influx of Mainland immigrants bringing low-cost labor to the city, shaped much of Hong Kong’s social and economic landscape during this decade. Coupled with ambitious infrastructure plans and investment-friendly policies, Hong Kong laid the foundations that, over the coming decades, were to create one of the world’s greatest trading hubs....

This collection of vintage photographs offers a snapshot into the everyday lives of Americans from the 1900s to the 1940s, showing moments that are both amusing and undeniably cool. From the bustling streets of urban centers to the simplicity of rural life, these images capture a bygone era filled with charm, innovation, and a sense of adventure. Get ready for flappers and fellas, quirky contraptions, and a glimpse into a bygone era that’s both amusing and strangely cool....

Underwater detonation of 23 kiloton nuclear weapon (Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test), 1946. This detonation, known as the Baker Test, was part of Operation Crossroads in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps....

In the post-World War II era, the automotive industry was a hotbed of innovation and opportunity. With the American public clamoring for new vehicles and new technologies and materials readily available from wartime developments, the time was ripe for bold ideas, no matter how unconventional they seemed. One such idea came from the creative mind of Glen Gordon “Gary” Davis, an Indiana-based used car salesman. Drawing inspiration from a custom design by the legendary Indycar designer Frank Kurtis, Davis introduced the Davis Divan, a striking three-wheeled vehicle....

Albert Einstein’s office – just as the Nobel Prize-winning physicist left it, taken mere hours after Einstein died, Princeton, New Jersey, April 1955. Albert Einstein, whose theories exploded and reshaped our ideas of how the universe works, died on April 18, 1955, of heart failure. He was 76. His funeral and cremation were intensely private affairs, and only one photographer managed to capture the events of that extraordinary day was Ralph Morse of Life Magazine....

Television was introduced to Americans in 1939 and began to gain a foothold after the Second World War. In the 1950s, the sale of TV sets and the boom in programming made TV America’s favorite source of entertainment. In 1950, just under 20 percent of American homes contained a TV set. Ten years later, nearly 90 percent of homes contained a TV—and some even had color TVs. The number of TV stations, channels, and programs all grew to meet this surging demand....

Personal flying machines. Apparently, back in 1900, Germans had high hopes for mankind and the inventions and experiences we would collectively create in the future. While you would think that these ideas would come from the minds of visionaries, scientists, or inventors, in this scenario the inventor of the future was a German chocolate factory named Theodor Hildebrand & Son. The company was founded in 1817 by the confectioner Theodor Hildebrand in the center of Berlin....

Mockups of how Hitler could have disguised himself. Towards the end of World War II, U.S. intelligence officials were afraid that the German dictator would flee Germany by assuming a disguise. By 1944 the world identified the man largely by his trademark toothbrush mustache and oily side-slicked hair, so they ordered his portrait to be cloned. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an early version of the CIA set up during World War II, asked Eddie Senz, a New York make-up artist, to produce the altered portraits after D-Day on 6 June 1944....

For centuries, the term “computer” meant a person, often a woman, performing complex calculations by hand. By the late 19th century, these human computers became the unsung heroes of numerous scientific advancements. Alan Turing described the “human computer” as someone who is “supposed to be following fixed rules; he has no authority to deviate from them in any detail.” Teams of people were used to undertake long and often tedious calculations; the work was divided so that this could be done in parallel....

David Douglas Duncan was a renowned war photographer and photojournalist, who first encountered Picasso in 1956 when he infamously rang the doorbell of La Californie, the artist’s home in Cannes. At the time, Picasso was in the bathtub and allowed Duncan to photograph him right then and there, leading to a lasting friendship that granted the photographer access into the artist’s personal life. Over the next seventeen years, Duncan took thousands of photographs of the artist, inside his studio-homes, and of his then-unknown canvases....