In 1938, photographer Ben Shahn of FSA traveled to the small town of London, Ohio, and captured the residents as they strolled through the town’s main streets. The town was struggling economically and the welfare of the residents had declined rapidly over the last years. Before the Great Depression, people refused to go on government welfare except as a last resort. The newspapers published the names of all those who received welfare payments, and people thought of welfare as a disgrace....

Soldiers of the British, American, and Russian armies mimic and mock Adolf Hitler and his ideas on Hitler’s famous balcony at the Chancellery in conquered Berlin. The Russians were coming from the East, the Brits and Americans from the West, all with the objective of taking the Chancellery, knowing that would signal the end. So when they both finally met there, and the Nazis were irrefutably vanquished, they must have felt ecstatic....

A guerrilla soldier aims a Stinger missile at passing aircraft near a remote rebel base in the Safed Koh Mountains on February 10, 1988 in Afghanistan. A guerrilla soldier aims a Stinger missile at passing aircraft near a remote rebel base in the Safed Koh Mountains on February 10, 1988, in Afghanistan. The end of Soviet military occupation , which began in 1979, has left the Afghan Army more vulnerable to these guerrilla forces, who are fighting the Russian-installed Afghan government....

These vivid photos from inside the 1972 Texas State Fair exhibition hall show people sampling a wide variety of the products of their state, from eggs and beef to pecans and spring water. The Dallas State Fair & Exposition, to which the present State Fair of Texas traces its origin, was chartered as a private corporation on Jan. 30, 1886, by a group of Dallas businessmen. The goal was to create an annual occasion for the farmers, ranchers, and business owners of the state to gather and show off their products, and for visitors to enjoy a wide selection of entertainment....

Death mask of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, discovered by U.S. Seventh Army troops in 1945. A death mask is a mold taken from a person’s face after they have died. Death masks may be mementos of the dead or be used for the creation of portraits. Wounded in France three months before his death, Rommel’s death mask shows evidence of the injuries, particularly the indentation of the left temple....

The Nazi concentration camps during World War II were a place of unimaginable horror and suffering for millions of innocent people. While much attention has been paid to the role of male guards in perpetrating these atrocities, the role of female guards in these camps has often been overlooked. These women were tasked with enforcing the strict rules and regulations of the concentration camps, but they also played a crucial role in the torture, abuse, and murder of countless prisoners....

A boom in New York’s population in the mid-to-late 1800s led to the rise of tenement housing in lower Manhattan. Tenements were low-rise buildings with multiple apartments, which were narrow and typically made up of three rooms. Because rents were low, tenement housing was the common choice for new immigrants in New York City. It was common for a family of 10 to live in a 325-square-foot (30-square-meters) apartment....

The term Dust Bowl was coined in 1935 when an AP reporter, Robert Geiger, used it to describe the drought-affected south-central United States in the aftermath of horrific dust storms. Historically, the Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. Severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon....

Filipinos are pictured in loincloths sitting in a circle together at Coney Island in New York in the early 20th century while crowds of Americans watch on from behind barriers. These shocking rare photographs show how so-called ‘ human zoos ‘ around the world kept ‘primitive natives’ in enclosures so Westerners could gawp and jeer at them. The horrifying images, some of which were taken as recently as 1958, show how black and Asian people were cruelly treated as exhibits that attracted millions of tourists....

These pictures are not staged and show Tippi Hedren, star of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds , with her husband, Noel Marshall, her daughter, actress Melanie Griffith, and their lion, Neil. In 1969, Hedren and Marshall were filming in Africa and came across an abandoned house inhabited by lions. The scenery made the couple want to make a film that would help promote the preservation of this beautiful endangered species....

Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials celebrate Christmas at the Lowenbraukeller restaurant in Munich. These images are chilling, bordering on surreal: as World War II raged on December 18, 1941, Adolf Hitler presided over a Christmas party in Munich. The color-enhanced images were captured by Hugo Jaeger, one of Adolf Hitler’s personal photographers. Mr. Jaegar buried the photos in a glass jar at the end of the war and they remained hidden there for 10 years until 1955 when he transferred them and around 2,000 other images to a bank vault....

Thirty vivid, oversize black-and-white photos from the Library of Congress show Detroit in the 1940s. Full-screen scenes show vintage vehicles, fashions, hairstyles, the Crowley-Milner department store, Cunningham’s drugs, a streetcar, Chrysler’s tank assembly workers, tense integration of the Sojourner Truth Homes federal housing project in 1942, and five images from June 1943 rioting. The early part of the 20th century saw the city of Detroit, Michigan, rise to prominence on the huge growth of the auto industry and related manufacturers....

“Politruk” Alexey Yeremenko leads his men into combat, armed with a Tokarev TT-33. He was killed minutes after this photo was taken. Khorosheye, near Voroshilovgrad, Ukraine, July 12, 1942. “Politruk” (political commissar) Alexey Yeremenko (220th Rifle Regiment/4th Rifle Division) encouraging his men to counterattack against German positions moments before being killed, in the village of Khorosheye, near Woroschilowgrad, today Luhansk, Ukraine. This is one of the iconic photo of Soviet in World War II, comparable only to the photo of the Red Flag over Reichstag ....

Rebels in front of an adobe house riddled with bullet holes in Ciudad Juárez. The Battle of Ciudad Juárez marked the end of the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. It was fought between federal forces loyal to President Porfirio Díaz and rebel forces of Francisco Madero. Diaz’s 34-year dictatorial rule met with much opposition and by the end of 1910 opposition had resulted in a guerrilla campaign against his Federal soldiers....

The Mangbetu stood out to European explorers because of their elongated heads. The Mangbetu people had a distinctive look and this was partly due to their elongated heads. At birth, the heads of babies’ were tightly wrapped with cloth in order to give their heads the elongated look. The custom of skull elongation called by the natives Lipombo , was a status symbol among the Mangbetu ruling classes, it denoted majesty, beauty, power, and higher intelligence....

The 1960s marked a significant turning point in the world of fashion, as designers sought inspiration beyond the earthly confines and embarked on a journey to the cosmos. Among these avant-garde visionaries, André Courrèges stood as a trailblazer, redefining the landscape of fashion with his iconic Space Age designs. Space Age fashion emerged against the backdrop of the Space Race, a period characterized by fervent scientific exploration and the remarkable landing of Apollo 11 on the moon....

In the late 19th century, Victorian children had access to far fewer toys compared to today. Luxury items such as rocking horses, dollhouses, and Noah’s Arks were exclusive to the wealthy, while elaborately dressed dolls were so expensive and delicate that children were often forbidden to play with them. With the average wage in 1900 being just £1 per week (equivalent to approximately £74.39 today – $98), many toys were simply out of reach for most families....

During the 1980s, a distinct pop culture aesthetic shaped the way teenagers decorated their bedrooms, regardless of gender. These spaces were a vibrant mix of cartoons, movies, and toys, capturing the essence of the era. The decor often mirrored the excitement of a Saturday morning cartoon lineup, bursting with color and personality. For teenagers in this decade, their bedroom was an extension of their personality, where they could escape the pressures of the outside world and be themselves....

The Amphicar is used as a fishing boat by its owner at the start of the salmon fishing season on the River Tay, Scotland. 1964. The Amphicar was manufactured in West Germany and first made an appearance in America at the 1961 New York Auto Show. Originally designed by Hanns Trippel, these amphibious cars hit the US market from 1961 to 1967. Most notable for their ability to cruise on land and operate in the water, these cars were a fun new invention in the car world for that time....

Anti-fascist demonstrators flee as police attack a barricade. The Battle of Cable Street was a clash between anti-fascist protestors and the British Union of Fascists on Sunday 4 October 1936. The BUF was an organization inspired by Mussolini’s Blackshirts, and allegedly included 50,000 members at its height before being banned in 1940. The plan of British Fascists led by Oswald Mosley was to send thousands of marchers dressed in their Blackshirt uniform through the heart of the East End (an area which then had a large Jewish and Irish population)....