The 1930s was a defining decade for automotive design, during which time the car evolved from its horse-drawn ancestry into an integrally engineered, aerodynamic, desirable product to meet the demands of the public. This was true nowhere more than in Germa…
These vintage ads for cocaine and cocaine paraphernalia show how crazy and disturbing the 1970s were. It was a time when it was normal to see advertisements offering all kinds of coke equipment such as a spray to ease irritated nostrils, products to keep t…
In 1942, Office of War Information photographer Alfred T. Palmer visited Fort Knox and captured these spectacular photos of tank crews in training. With the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the American Army prepared with the creation of the Armored Forc…
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, strongmen more often exhibited their incredible power as circus performers and entertainers than as competitive athletes. Originating in Europe and spreading to the United States, physical culturists incl…
Throughout world history, camouflage has been used to prevent an enemy from noticing a hidden object. A tank can camouflage itself among trees and the surrounding terrain, a submarine can lurk beneath the waves and it’s by default hidden, but what about ca…
In the summer of 1975, at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, a team of NASA and Stanford University researchers led by physicist Dr. Gerard O’Neill imagined what the future space colonies would look like. The goal was to build a 10,000-person or…
During the early years of World War II, various initiatives were undertaken by the US government in order to increase the public’s support for the American war effort. In 1942, photographer Jack Delano was tasked with capturing a young American man, George …
When the Irish talk about the “Land War,” they have in mind either three phases of anti-landlord agitation in the late nineteenth century, or, more narrowly, the first of these phases, which lasted from 1879 until 1882. The movement emerged during a sev…
These incredible vintage photos show how one of the world's greatest engineering feats was created in 1906-1915 to bring water to New York City. In 1905, the city's newly established Board of Water Supply launched the Catskill Aqueduct project, which would…
Arguably one of the best-known and most recognizable bridges in the world, Tower Bridge was built in the late nineteenth century and immediately acclaimed as a feat of Victorian engineering. Designed to ease road traffic while maintaining river access, it w…
The Rutland State Fair in Rutland, Vermont, renamed the Vermont State Fair in 1972, is one of the oldest state fairs in the United States. It started in 1846 and originally started out as a one-day event. By 1849, the fair had become so popular the Rutland …
Frank Hurley was an Australian photographer who became the Australian Imperial Forces’ second official war photographer. When he arrived at the Western Front his rank was honorary captain, but the troops, seeing how he took risks to get his pictures, dubbe…
In 1972, the United States federal government, which was looking to document living conditions among Native American communities, employed the services of photographer Terry Eiler to visit the south-west of the country and give an outsider view into the li…
Not many people know that the famous American author Jack London was also a skilled documentary photographer and photojournalist. He took thousands of pictures over the years from the slums of London’s East End to the islands of the South Pacific. In 19…
For thousands of years, humans could only speculate what the Earth looked like. This changed on August 23, 1966, when the world received its first view of Earth taken by a spacecraft from the vicinity of the Moon. The photo was shot from a distance of a…
Known as the “world’s largest log cabin,” the Forestry Building was constructed as part of Portland’s Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition of 1905. The cabin was an enormous structure, measuring 206 feet long (62m), 102 feet wide (31m) and 72 feet high (2…
These amazing vintage photos show what it was like to go holiday shopping in New York City in the 1910s. At the turn of the century, department stores in NYC amped up window displays in an attempt to charm window shoppers into actually coming into the store. …
All NASA astronaut groups were given a series of survival courses to prepare them for expected landings in remote, inhospitable areas. The objective of preparing the crews this way was to give them confidence and the ability to deal with an emergency or of…
During the era of silent film, recommendations for behavior were displayed on title cards before a screening, offering advice including "Ladies, kindly remove your hats", "Loud talking or whistling not allowed", "Please applaud with hands only", etc. The Li…
The only thing as impressive as the Empire State Building are the men who built it and during that time rules for construction workers were a lot laxer than they are today. The hardworking men way up high who were moving girders, riveting, painting, and even j…