Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1962. These fascinating vintage images show Atlantic City in the 1960s before gambling was legalized and huge hotel chains moved in. The images are part of Glen Fairweather’s collection. The city was incorporated on May 1, 1854, from portions of Egg Harbor Township and Galloway Township. It is located on Absecon Island and borders Absecon, Brigantine, Egg Harbor Township, Galloway Township, Pleasantville, Ventnor City, and the Atlantic Ocean....

Czesława Kwoka in 1942 or 1943. Czeslawa Kwoka, age 14, appears in a prisoner identity photo provided by the Auschwitz Museum, taken by Wilhelm Brasse while working in the photography department at Auschwitz, the Nazi-run death camp where some 1.5 million people died during World War II. She died at Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland and is among those memorialized in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum indoor exhibit called ‘Block no. 6: Exhibition: The Life of the Prisoners’....

Back in 1951, the Bell Telephone System released a handy booklet called “The Telephone and How We Use It.” Designed with elementary school students in mind, it was all about helping folks understand the ins and outs of those classic rotary dial phones. Ever wondered how to use one of those circular dial phones? Or how to start a call and respond when someone rings you up? This booklet had the answers!...

Diego Maradona uses his hand to find a way past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton to open the scoring. 1986. Argentina’s 2-1 victory over England in front of 115,000 fans on June 22, 1986, is remembered entirely for the two moments from Maradona which would ultimately settle a contest simmering with political overtones. Four years earlier, Britain and Argentina had fought a bitter conflict in the South Atlantic over the Falkland Islands, which ended in defeat for the South American nation’s military junta....

“Emperor” Jean-Bedel Bokassa , seated on his golden throne for his coronation, Bangui, Central African Republic. December 4, 1977. Jean-Bédel Bokassa was a military officer and the head of state of the Central African Republic from his coup d’état on 1 January 1966. But being President wasn’t enough so in 1976 he proclaimed himself emperor of the nation, which was renamed the Central African Empire. Bokassa attempted to justify his actions by claiming that creating a monarchy would help Central Africa “stand out” from the rest of the continent, and earn the world’s respect....

The invention of the cannon in the 12th century revolutionized warfare, and soon after, this powerful weapon found a horrifying use – executions. Cannons became instruments of torture, with condemned prisoners strapped to their muzzles and blasted to pieces. These disturbing photographs and depictions capture a forgotten chapter in history. The identities of these unfortunate souls, placed before the cannons with their backs to the inevitable, are lost to time....

Berlin after the War was a post-apocalyptic world. One of the largest and most modern cities in Europe was left a wasteland. There were vast piles of rubble everywhere. Other areas were rows of building walls with collapsed interiors — the skeletons of a destroyed city. The irreplaceable architectural gems of the Schlüter, Knobelsdorf, Schadow, and Schinkel were annihilated. Palaces, museums, churches, monuments, and cultural sites fell victim to the bombs....

The Soviet Union was many things at once: a superpower, a planned economy, a tightly controlled state, and a society of more than 280 million individuals spread across vast and varied territories. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, the USSR projected strength through its global ambitions, its military parades, and its achievements in science and industry. But behind the public image lay a quieter, more complex reality—one shaped by the routines of daily life, the rhythms of work and rest, and the persistence of people navigating an often rigid system....

In the decades following World War II, architecture in Eastern Europe underwent a radical transformation, guided not only by necessity but by ideology. Under the umbrella of Socialist Modernism, countries within the Communist bloc embarked on an ambitious architectural campaign aimed at expressing the values of a new political and social order. Functionality, scale, and permanence were paramount, and the aesthetic that emerged—particularly through the widespread use of Brutalism—reflected a fusion of utopian intent and industrial pragmatism....

Bowden showing off the Spacelander. 1946. (Photo by J. A. Hampton) The Spacelander bicycle was designed by Benjamin Bowden for the 1946 exhibition Britain Can Make It . Originally known as the Classic, the streamlined design was said to represent what the bicycle of the future was supposed to look like. Its curving lines and amoeba-like voids represent the mutation of the prewar streamlined style into a new expression based on organic, rather than machine-made, forms....

The Miss America beauty pageant, a cherished American tradition, has been a symbol of grace, talent, and beauty for nearly a century. Since its inception in the early 1920s, this iconic pageant has not only celebrated the accomplishments and charisma of young women from across the nation but has also mirrored the societal shifts and evolving ideals of America. The origins of beauty pageants in the United States can be traced back to the late 19th century....

These stunning photographs of car wrecks in the 1930s were captured by Leslie Jones, a famous photographer who worked for the Boston Herald-Traveler from 1917 to 1956. Jones documented daily life in Boston and surrounding areas and some 40,000 of his negatives have been preserved. One of his favorite things was the documenting of car accidents. In the 1930s, he rushed to the scenes of hundreds of crashes, fender-benders, pileups, and captured the aftermaths in photos that ranged from morbid and tragic to bizarre and comical....

The eyes of madness. A shell shocked soldier in a trench during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette during the Somme Offensive in September 1916. His eyes express the madness of the war. The soldier looks like he has gone insane from what he has seen. At that moment in time everything he’s been raised to work within, the social constructs which make up every part of his life just exploded and shattered to nothing, and he’s lying there, slumped in a trench, afraid for his life, hearing and seeing death around him, his entire psyche broken....

TIME magazine decided to create a list of the 100 most influential pictures ever taken. They teamed up with curators, historians, photo editors, and famous photographers around the world for this task. “No formula makes for iconic photos,” the editors said. “Some images are on our list because they were the first of their kind, others because they shaped the way we think. And some cut because they directly changed the way we live....

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia witnessed one of the most shocking police actions in American history. A standoff with the radical group known as MOVE escalated into a full-scale assault that ended with a bomb being dropped on a residential neighborhood. The explosion and resulting fire killed 11 people, destroyed 61 homes, and left more than 250 residents homeless. Rare photos from that day capture not only the devastation but also the extraordinary breakdown of trust between a city and its people....

Celebration of Victory in Moscow’s Red Square, Soviet Union. May 9, 1945. At 1:10 a.m. on May 9, 1945, night owls in the USSR heard a radio report that Nazi Germany had officially surrendered to the Soviet Union. Up to 30 million soldiers and civilians were dead, the Soviet Union had lost a third of its national wealth, cities such as Stalingrad had been reduced to lunar landscapes, and an entire generation of men had been decimated....

Late during the summer of 1914, train stations all over Europe echoed with the sound of leather boots and the clattering of weapons as millions of enthusiastic young soldiers mobilized for the most glorious conflict since the Napoleonic Wars. In the eyes of many men, pride and honor glowed in competition with the excitement of a wonderful adventure and the knowledge of righting some perceived infringement on the interests of their respective nation....

If you ever wondered what people did during the long winters before smartphones and TV… Well, here you go. Meet the Noonans, an uncommon family of 15 living in 1920s Lawrence, Massachusetts Their massive family was so unusual that photographer Leslie Jones from the Boston-Herald Traveler visited their home to document scenes of the family. Jones’ photographs capture the sprawling brood in detail, from the eldest teenage daughters to the new baby....

The Siege of Leningrad was a brutal and devastating military campaign that lasted for 872 days, from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, during World War II. Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, was then the second-largest city in the Soviet Union and a crucial industrial and cultural center. The siege was a critical moment in the war, and the outcome of the battle would have a significant impact on the outcome of the war....

AP photojournalist Horst Faas took this iconic photo on June 18, 1965, during the Vietnam War with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Battalion on defense duty at Phouc Vinh airstrip in South Vietnam. The headband message “War is Hell” typified an acerbic attitude of many young American soldiers who were likely drafted and sent to the remote southeastern Asia jungles to engage in deadly and terrifying combat. A lot of the soldiers wrote graffiti on their helmets with inscriptions of their attitudes about where they were and why they were there....