50 Extremely Fascinating Pictures Of People Throughout History I Can Pretty Much Guarantee You’ve Never Heard Of

1.

The very first iteration of Ronald McDonald was created by Willard Scott in 1963:

2.

The two people depicted in Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” actually exist. This is what they looked like:

3.

This is Margaret Gorman, the woman who won the very first Miss America competition in 1921:

4.

This is Stephan Bibrowski, otherwise known as Lionel the Lion-faced Man. Stephan had a condition known as hypertrichosis that caused hair to grow up to eight inches long all over his body including, obviously, his face:

5.

This is George Hackenschmidt, the man credited with inventing the bench press:

6.

This is Conrad Veidt, the man whose performance in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs inspired the look of the iconic villain the Joker:

7.

This is Daniel Lambert, a British man who was known as the world’s heaviest person in the 18th century:

8.

This is Maud Wagner, who is widely believed to be the first female professional tattoo artist in the US:

9.

This is Selma Burke, the woman who designed the portrait of Franklin Roosevelt that’s still on the dime to this day:

10.

This is John Smith, a Chippewa man who was reported to be 137 years old at the time of his death:

11.

This is Ralph Lincoln, the 11th-generation cousin of Abraham Lincoln:

12.

This is Franz Reichelt sporting a homemade parachute suit that he was confident would save him if he jumped off the Eiffel Tower:

13.

This is Jacques Plante, who in 1959 became the first goalie to ever wear a protective face mask:

14.

In 1964, Randy Gardner, pictured here, set the world record for the longest time without sleeping after staying awake 264 hours:

15.

This is Maurice Tillet, a wrestler who some say the beloved character Shrek was based on:

16.

This man, Gay Jewel, was declared the “world’s heaviest man” in 1899:

17.

In 1907, world-class swimmer Annette Kellerman was arrested for indecency after she wore a bathing suit like this one to Revere Beach in Massachusetts:

18.

This is Rumeysa Gelgi, the world’s tallest woman:

19.

This is Valentine Tapley, a man who, in 1860, vowed never to cut his beard again if Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Here’s him in 1896:

20.

This is Albert Woolson, the last surviving Civil War veteran:

21.

This is Ham the chimpanzee, the first ape launched into space:

22.

This is Charlotte and Marjorie Collyer, a mother and daughter who survived the wreck of the Titanic in 1912:

23.

In 1903, Edward Llewellen (left) made history by breaking the world record and catching the biggest sea bass ever caught off the coast of Catalina Island:

24.

Here’s Hannes de Jong, the 1970 Pole Sitting World Champion, well, sitting on a pole:

25.

This is Chandra Bahadur, the shortest man in recorded history:

26.

This is Ahmet Ali Çelikten, a man who is generally considered to be one of the first Black pilots — and perhaps the very first:

27.

This is a wax sculpture of Thomas Wedders, the man whose 7.5-inch nose was apparently the largest nose in history:

28.

This is Emma Lilian Todd, the first woman to design an airplane:

29.

This is Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls while inside a barrel:

30.

This is William Hutchings, one of the last surviving American Revolutionary War veterans:

31.

This is Apo Whang-Od, a 106-year-old woman who is quite possibly the oldest tattoo artist on the planet:

32.

This is Lonnie Johnson, inventor of the Super Soaker, enjoying his invention:

33.

This is Mary Ann Bevan, a widow who was given the title of “World’s Ugliest Woman” in 1920:

34.

This is 455 pound Piet van der Zwaard AKA the “fattest man in Europe” in 1955:

35.

This man, Paul Karason, had his skin turn permanently blue after spending years ingesting colloidal silver:

36.

This is Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived:

37.

This is Charles Ponzi, the infamous scammer ponzi schemes got their name from:

38.

This picture, taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839, is generally accepted as the first “selfie”:

39.

In 1909, pigs finally flew. Icarus the pig (right) went on a short flight with John Moore-Brabazon and finally did the impossible:

40.

This is Civil War veteran Jacob Miller, a man who was shot right between the eyes and lived for 17 more years:

41.

This is Herman the Cat, a cat who was given the title of expert mouser aboard a US Coast Guard ship during World War II:

42.

This is a South African baboon who worked as a signalman and assisted an amputee officer at a railway station in the 1800s. He is the second baboon to fill this role:

43.

This is a picture of 107-year-old Civil War veteran Bill Lundy posing with a fighter jet in 1955:

44.

This is what a French beach looked like in 1925:

45.

This is the Dynasphere, a giant wheel vehicle invented by Dr. J. A. Purves that could go as a fast as 30 MPH:

46.

This is Anna M. Jarvis, the inventor of Mother’s Day:

47.

This is the Peel P50, designed by Cyril Cannell, the smallest car ever produced:

48.

This is astronaut Joseph P. Allen IV doing maintenance on a satellite in the middle of the cold, dark void of space:

49.

This is a picture of a meeting of the New York chapter of the “Fat Men’s Club” circa 1930:

50.

This is beautician Max Factor with his invention, the beauty calibrator, a device designed to show which parts of a woman’s face needed more or less make-up: