1.
Here’s silent film star Dorothy Gulliver portraying the role of a lifetime, Humpty Dumpty:
2.
Here’s a man flying above New Jersey demonstrating the very safe pastime of wingwalking:
3.
These are the contestants of a “spaghetti-swooshing” contest, a competition to see who can eat a bowl of pasta the fastest without using their hands:
4.
Here’s Barbara Clack using the best waterskis money can buy – human water skis:
5.
This, in all its glory, is apparently the first wedding ever held on a parachute. The groom, Arno Rudolphi, said of his wife, “No man on Earth was good enough for her”:
6.
Speaking of unconventional weddings, here are some underwater nuptials featuring a bride, a groom, a reverend, and 3,000 fish:
7.
Here’s a puppeteer and his not-terrifying at all puppet that definitely won’t watch you sleep tonight:
8.
Here’s some proto-Photoshop featuring a now headless man sticking his tongue out:
9.
This is inventor Fred J. Snyder wearing a device to invert his vision and, unsurprisingly, having a difficult time adjusting to it:
10.
Here’s an EXTREMELY focused nun, Sister Mary Ellen, about to bowl a strike:
11.
Here’s a bunch of dudes with missile cones on their heads, for some reason:
12.
Here’s a very relaxing scene of two people enjoying lunch while a cowboy on a massive steer jumps right over them:
13.
Here’s a sheep and a goose sharing an elevator together at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel:
14.
Here’s golfer Joe Kirkwood summarily executing his caddy, uh, I mean, hitting a golf ball out of his mouth:
15.
Here are a bunch of workers at an orchard, showing us how safe and relaxing that type of work was back in the day:
16.
Nothing too historical here, just a fun picture of some men with a mustachioed giant snowman named “Father of the Glaciers” they built in the early 1900s:
17.
You asked for it, so here’s a Dutch man straddling a model village and definitely not dancing a jig for berries and cream:
18.
This absolutely scandalous image depicts a woman and her forbidden lover… a robot with a giant head:
19.
Here’s a woman with what I assume to be the world’s largest donut and the world’s smallest cup of coffee:
20.
Here’s a whole bunch of nuns shooting hoops:
21.
This is John Smith, a Chippewa man who was reported to be 137 years old at the time of his death, enjoying a pipe:
22.
This is the beginning of the world’s strangest race, featuring a runner, a man with a dog, a bike, a motorcycle, and a couple of cars:
23.
Here are two women wearing what I will affectionately refer to as “just a bunch of crap on our heads” hats:
24.
Here’s a young couple riding a penny-farthing underwater, as all young couples did back in the day:
25.
This is woman undergoing an early beauty procedure meant to remove freckles:
26.
This is Duke, the saxophone playing tiger, playing, well, saxophone:
27.
These are two astronauts demonstrating the versatility of NASA’s new spacesuit, which the astronauts flying in Project Mercury would eventually wear:
28.
Here’s Babe Ruth himself swinging a bat, dressed as an admiral for some reason:
29.
Naturally, here’s a big ol’ ape making a very important phone call:
30.
Here’s a whole bunch of waterskiers wishing you a Happy New Year, 1970:
31.
This is Sister Euphemia having an absolute blast on a rocketship ride at Disneyland:
32.
Here’s another high-flying daredevil demonstrating proper plane-flying protocol:
33.
Here’s Sister Magdalene about to absolutely TEAR the stitches off the ball:
34.
This is, evidently, the monkey chief of police gazing on in his official duties:
35.
Here are three guys wearing three barrels as they galavant through the countryside in 1910:
36.
Speaking of threes, here are three men drinking three margaritas under a large portrait of an even bigger margaritas:
37.
This is apparently a hypnotized woman suspended between two chairs, looking quite comfortable:
38.
Here’s a man and a kangaroo going jump for jump on a trampoline:
39.
As you can plainly see, this is your typical goat pushing a typical stroller full of dogs:
40.
Movie theater etiquette has always been a top priority for Americans. This slide, circa 1912, would be shown before movies to remind filmgoers to maintain some decorum:
41.
People did what they had to do during Prohibition. Here’s an enterprising young woman pouring liquor out of a secret compartment in her cane into a cup, circa 1922:
42.
This very relaxing and not at all terrifying picture shows two women wearing special gigantic masks made for a Mardi Gras celebration in Venice Beach, California in 1932:
43.
This is S. Shapiro and his invention, the Shapson Aquaplane, about to be tested by a very brave young woman:
44.
Here’s a picture of a bunch of soldiers with comically oversized jumbo weapons, practicing how to use them:
45.
Here’s a photo of a hospitalized World War I soldier being handed the magical early 20th-century cure-all… a pack of cigarettes:
46.
Here’s a young woman dressed as “NIGHT” for Halloween in the early 1900s:
47.
Among the more unusual events at the 1908 Olympics was the sport of Bicycle Polo. Here are the German and Irish teams facing off in a match for the ages:
48.
Here’s a young enterprising fellow and the wooden bicycle he built:
49.
This, in all its glory, is a meeting of the Swansea Cycling Club of Toronto around 1901:
50.
Finally, here’s a man commandeering his very strange yet powerful invention, the one… the only… the Goat-Mobile: