Posts

During the Second World War, the Soviet Union used more women in combat than any other country. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet women sprang to join the war effort, enlisting as nurses, clerks, cooks, manufacturing etc. Among them were hundreds of remarkable snipers. Industrialized global warfare, as seen during the World Wars, called for the involvement of massive numbers of human beings. At the time, most societies were still starkly divided along gender lines, with certain jobs being seen as solely for men and others for women....

Russian spy laughing through his execution in Finland, 1942. A Soviet spy laughs at his executioner in a picture taken in Rukajärvi, in East Karelia, in November 1942. It has been thought within the Finnish Defence Forces that the decision to withhold pictures of the fate of Russian prisoners of war and spies may also have been prompted by concerns that pro-Soviet elements in Finnish society could have used the images for propaganda purposes....

En route to Europe. With the permission of the Chilean government in 1889, eleven Selk’nam natives including an 8-year-old were taken to Europe to be exhibited in Human Zoos . The Patagonian Indians were a rarity. Between 1878 and 1900, three groups of natives belonging to indigenous groups of Tehuelche, Selknam, and Kawésqar were shipped to Europe to be exposed in Human Zoos. They were photographed, measured, weighed, and were expected to perform every day....

In the 1990s, South Korea’s streets began to pulse with a new kind of energy. Young people were discovering their own voices through fashion, experimenting with looks that reflected both local creativity and Western influence. It was a time when K-Pop was just taking shape, and with it came a shift in how youth dressed and expressed themselves. The group Seo Taiji and Boys led the way, blending hip-hop and rap with casual, oversized streetwear—baggy pants, baseball caps, and sneakers that carried the rhythm of a changing generation....

Pam Grier is an American actress, who came to limelight after starring in numerous blaxploitation films, such as ‘The Big Bird Cage’ , ‘Coffy’ , ‘Foxy Brown’ and ‘Sheba Baby’ . Criticized for her blaxploitation roles, she made a comeback with Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Jackie Brown’ and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Pam Griet became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive women, beginning with Jack Hill’s Coffy (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers....

William Bullard, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, worked as a photographer without a studio, visiting clients around the town with his camera strapped to his bicycle. From 1897 to 1917, Bullard, who was white, took portraits of his predominantly black and Native American neighbors capturing them in their yards, gardens, and living rooms. Bullard identified over 80% of his sitters in his logbook, making this collection especially rare among extant photographic collections of people of color taken before World War I and enabling the photographs to tell specific stories about individuals and recreate a more accurate historical context....

The history of women’s workwear tells a unique story about the events of the twentieth century and the changing role of women. The amount of control that women have had over their clothes depended largely on what type of job she had. In domestic service, the largest source of employment at the time, women had very little control over what they wore. It was driven by whatever the boss prescribed for the role....

The first atomic bomb, The Gadget, 1945. The nuclear test of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon was codenamed Trinity, but the atomic device was nicknamed The Gadget . The date of the Trinity test is usually considered to be the beginning of the Atomic Age. The gadget was an implosion-type plutonium device, similar in design to the Fat Man bomb used three weeks later in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan....

Poles arrived in Iran (Persia) by the end of 1942. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact against Poland, the Soviet Union acquired over half of the territory of the Second Polish Republic. Within months, in order to de-Polonize annexed lands, the Soviet NKVD rounded up and deported between 320,000 and 1 million Polish nationals to the eastern parts of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia....

The marine named her “Miss Hap” because, he explained, “she was born at the wrong place at the wrong time”. In the middle of the Korean War , this kitten found herself an orphan. Luckily, she found her way into the hands of Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor. He adopted the two-week-old kitten and gave her the name “Miss Hap” because he explained, “she was born at the wrong place at the wrong time”....

Allied troops wade to evacuation ships off the beach at Dunkirk. Dunkirk was the largest of the multiple evacuations of British, French and Belgian troops from Northern France following the Allied loss of the Battle of France. Over the course of the evacuation, 330,000 men were transported from Dunkirk and the surrounding beaches to the UK. The operation has become somewhat of a legend in Great Britain, thanks to the contribution of a large contingent of small boats (mostly pleasure cruisers, powerboats and fishing boats) crewed by civilians....

One of the large cast-iron book alcoves that lined the Main Hall. Built in 1874 on the site reserved for an opera house, the Old Cincinnati Library was a thing of wonder. With five levels of cast iron shelving, a fabulous foyer, checkerboard marble floors, and an atrium lit by a skylight ceiling, the place was breathtaking. Unfortunately, that magnificent maze of books is now lost forever. Patrons entered on Vine Street beneath the busts of William Shakespeare, John Milton, and Benjamin Franklin....

A DeLorean outside a company office. 1981. DeLorean DMC-12, an innovative sports car, produced from 1981–1983, with gull-wing doors and stainless-steel body panels. It should have been the commercial coup of the century, leading to massive worldwide sales. For this was the car chosen to star in the blockbusting Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–90). Unfortunately, the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) had already gone bust, and production of the car had ended before the first movie was released....

RMS Olympic was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods during 1910–13, interrupted only by the brief tenure of the slightly larger Titanic (which had the same dimensions but higher gross register tonnage) before the German SS Imperator went into service in June 1913. Olympic also held the title of the largest British-built liner until RMS Queen Mary was launched in 1934, interrupted only by the short careers of Titanic and Britannic....

This picture is usually captioned as “Two Armenian women pose with their rifles before going to battle against the Ottomans, 1895.” The story behind the famous picture of two Armenian women posing with their rifles is complicated and still mysterious. The picture was taken in 1895, during the Hamidians massacres where thousands of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were assassinated. The woman on the left has been identified as Eghisapet Sultania, the other woman is still unidentified....

In 1908, photographer Lewis Hine was hired by the American Child Protection Council to report and document the working conditions and exploitation of children (or as they were called: underage laborers) across the United States. He traveled around the country, interviewing thousands of children in working settings and documenting the harsh reality through photographs such as the bike messengers , newsies , miners , etc. Hine traveled to Eastport, the birthplace of the American sardine industry, where a lot of children were still working in the sardine business....

These amazing color photographs show the streets of Los Angeles between the 1940s and 1960s. During the early 20th century, Los Angeles continued to boom and by the early 1920s, it had overtaken San Francisco in size. By 1939 it had a population of over 1.5 million. The Biltmore Hotel was built in 1923. Also in 1923, the famous Hollywood sign was first erected. Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was built in 1927....

The history of coal smoke in Pittsburgh is one of the most well-known examples of environmental pollution in American history. At its height, the smoke produced by the city’s industries was so thick that it was said to block out the sun. The scale of the problem is revealed in these pictures from the Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection at the archives of the University of Pittsburgh. The smoke, which lasted for decades, had a significant impact on the health and quality of life of Pittsburgh’s residents, as well as on the environment....

For over a century, women have been told what their bodies should look like—and just as importantly, what they shouldn’t. Among the most enduring expectations has been the removal of body hair. While many women still follow this unwritten rule, others have chosen to ignore it altogether, embracing their natural appearance without apology. That defiance has even extended to some of the world’s most visible public figures, turning body hair into a quiet but powerful form of rebellion....

Soldiers from the French African colonies holding a position at Boucle du Doubs, near Besancon, France, winter of 1944. Soldiers from the French African colonies holding a position at Boucle du Doubs, near Besancon, France, winter of 1944. These soldiers are part of Senegalese Free French troops. They are armed with a British Bren and an American 1903 Springfield. The helmets are American ones, emblazoned with the anchor emblem of the French Colonial forces....