We all know that if you don’t learn your history, you’re doomed to repeat it. In the case of most of these rare historical photos, you really don’t want to repeat them.
School does a pretty good job of covering the basics, but these black and white photos uncover sides of our collective history on earth that often go unseen. Some are disturbing, but they’re all fascinating. Take a look.
1.) Not a hatless head in this crowd of New Yorkers in 1939.
2.) The Punt Gun: able to shoot over a pound of ammunition in a single shot and depleted stocks of waterfowl. It was banned in 1860.
3.) The day Sweden switched sides of the road in 1967, known as Dagen H.
4.) The testing of a bulletproof vest in 1923.
5.) A German soldier balancing on a trained horse in 1935.
6.) The crowded and happy ship bringing back troops to New York harbor after V-Day in 1945.
7.) The first bananas arriving in Norway in 1905.
8.) General Ambrose Burnsides, the Civil War commander whose unusual facial hairstyle gave sideburns their name.
9.) 17-year-old assassin using a traditional Japanese blade to kill socialist politician Asanuma in Tokyo in 1960.
10.) Portrait of hockey goalie Terry Sawchuk before face masks became standard in 1966.
11.) 1944 renderings by the US government of possible disguises Hitler might attempt.
12.) Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a candid moment captured by his bodyguard.
13.) The USS Galena in 1862 showing battle damage.
14.) The iceberg that sunk the Titanic in 1912.
15.) Young German communist being executed in 1919.
16.) German soldiers watching footage of concentration camps in 1945.
17.) Adolf Hitler spotted in a crowd cheering on the start of World War I in 1914.
18.) Children showing the blatant class divide of pre-war Britain in 1937.
(via eBaum’s World.)
I think it’s time to re-write some textbooks.
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