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Rust’s Cessna 172, resting near Red Square sometime after his landing. Rust is standing on the right in the photo, wearing colored overalls. It all began in May of 1987. Mathias Rust was fed up with the Cold War tension between the United States and the Soviet Union so he planned to create an “imaginary bridge” to the East. He left Uetersen in his rented Reims Cessna F172P D-ECJB, which was modified by removing some of the seats and replacing them with auxiliary fuel tanks....

The Northrop XB-35 stands as a testament to the audacious spirit of innovation that defined the aviation industry during the early 1940s. Developed by Northrop Corporation in collaboration with the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), the XB-35 was an experimental aircraft that pushed the boundaries of aeronautical engineering. With its revolutionary flying wing design, impressive payload capacity, and ambitious goals, the XB-35 aimed to revolutionize long-range strategic bombing....

Las Vegas is known as the city of lights and, at one time, that light was the glow of an atomic detonation in the Nevada desert. Starting in 1951, the US Army began testing nuclear ordnances just 65 miles from Sin City. At night, the glow of the bombs lit up the sky, and mushroom clouds could be spotted rising over the horizon during the day. In classical American fashion, fear was not the only reaction....

Women boxing on a roof, 1938. They are all wearing dance shoes so they are probably performers for a variety show. Since no one had decent air conditioning back then, practicing their acts outside on the roof was better than in a stuffy theater. Someone must have thought it’d make a good candid photo. The blonde girl is probably hitting her, but more of a stunt punch than a real one....

A young German soldier, 1944 This picture is taken probably by the end of the war when really young and old citizens were enlisted for soldiers. Most likely a member of the 12th SS Panzer Division “Hitlerjugend” which sustained 43% casualties during the Normandy campaign. SS recruiters for the division accepted boys as young as 14 into the ranks. Also by judging from the helmet cover he has on, it looks to be the “pea” pattern cameo type which did not show up until late ’44/early ’45....

An Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) ‘spotter’ at a 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun site. 1942. These are rarely seen color pictures from the Second World War featured in the book “The Second World War in Colour” by the Imperial War Museum. Many are being published for the first time and shed light behind the scenes of the conflict. Color film was quite rare in World War II. The majority of the photos taken during the war were in black and white, and color photography as a whole was still a relatively new technique....

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, New York City’s subway system was one of the most dangerous places a person could be. Lucky for those of us who never had the chance to see it, Swiss photographer Willy Spiller was there, and the dark and atmospheric series of photos he took has now come to be known as Hell On Wheels. These photographs are a joyous and soulful trip in the bygone era of the New York subway system....

The bustling offices of the 1950s and 1960s reflected the spirit of the American dream — a world of opportunity, independence, and ambition neatly tucked behind desks, typewriters, and rotary phones. It was an era when the secretarial profession reigned supreme, becoming the most common occupation for American women. Behind every powerful executive stood a skilled secretary who not only kept the office running smoothly but also embodied the poise and professionalism of the time....

The sun rises on Endurance after the darkness of winter. In August 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. The expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen’s South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton’s words, the “one great main object of Antarctic journeyings”....

From the 1960s to the late 1980s, New York City’s iconic Times Square was a difficult place to be. Felony and crime rates were high, despite heightened police existence. A plethora of go-go bars, sex shops, peep show establishments, and adult theaters became symbols of the city’s very apparent decay. These vintage historical photographs, taken by photographers Andreas Feininger and Maggie Hop, give us a glimpse of Time Square at the peak of its social and urban degradation....

As the 20th century approached, Native American communities faced mounting challenges to their existence and traditional ways of life. After the Civil War, large numbers of white settlers moved westward, spurred on by the expansion of railroads. This migration reshaped the frontier, impacting the land and its inhabitants profoundly. Settlers not only cultivated the land but also hunted American bison extensively. Native American tribes often found themselves outnumbered in conflicts with both settlers and the U....

Elizabeth Taylor, born in 1932, was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. She then became the highest-paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the American Film Institute named her the seventh-greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood cinema....

The “Big Three” – Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill – meet at the Tehran Conference, 1943. The Tehran was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held in the Soviet Union’s embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first of the World War II conferences of the “Big Three” Allied leaders (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom)....

African-Americans displaced by the Great Ohio River Flood line up at a relief station in Louisville, Kentucky. 1937. Many Americans first encountered the phrase “the American Way” on huge billboards that by 1938 had sprouted in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns. Shopping for groceries, heading to work, or entering an empty stretch of highway, they were suddenly confronted by a giant tableau of a cheerful American family picnicking, greeting Dad at the end of workday, or taking a Sunday drive with the family dog....

The world of marketing and advertising has witnessed numerous brand icons that have left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness. Among these iconic figures, one stands out with its unique blend of charm and terror: the Michelin Man . The story of the Michelin Man begins in 1894 when the Michelin brothers, André and Édouard, founded the Michelin Tire Company in France. Seeking a distinctive brand identity, they turned to the world of advertising....

Though there were drive-ins as early as the 1910s, the first patented drive-in was opened on June 6, 1933, by Richard Hollingshead in New Jersey. It offered room for 400 vehicles. He created it as a solution for people unable to comfortably fit into smaller movie theater seats after creating a mini drive-in for his mother. Appealing to families, Hollingshead advertised his drive-in as a place where “The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are....

Kayakers near Ammassalik. August, 1889. These images of Greenland, taken by the Danish physician and photographer Krabbe, focus on the way of life and the inhabitants (Danish Greenlanders and indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people) of this isolated Arctic area. The homes and boats of the Greenlanders are dominated by the foreboding expanses of the vast and isolated island. Greenland was unknown to Europeans until the 10th century when it was discovered by Icelandic Vikings....

The 1980s were an era of radical fashion transformations, and amid the neon colors and flamboyant styles, legwarmers emerged as an iconic trend that left an indelible mark on the fashion world. These knitted tubes, originally designed for dancers to keep their legs warm during rehearsals and performances, underwent a spectacular metamorphosis, becoming a cultural fad that captivated the masses. Legwarmers were originally designed for practical use by dancers to keep their legs warm during rehearsals and performances....

The night they ended Prohibition, December 5th, 1933. Originally intended to prevent crime and drunkenness, it soon became clear that Prohibition did just the opposite, as illegal speakeasies became prevalent and bootlegging essentially led to the establishment of organized crime in the United States. Ironically, America’s thirst for alcohol increased during Prohibition, and organized crime rose up to replace formerly legal methods of production and distribution. Passed by Congress in 1917 and ratified by 1919, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcohol within the United States ....

These are the offices of the Central Social Institution of Prague (Czechoslovakia back then) in 1937 and it contained the largest vertical letter file cabinets in the world. The office consists of cabinets arranged from floor to ceiling tiers covering over 4,000 square feet containing over 3000 drawers 10 feet high (3 meters). The builder designed special electric-operated elevator desks which rise, fall, and move left or right at the push of a button, to stop just before the desired drawer....