75 Absolutely Extraordinary And Rare Historical Pictures That Will Completely And Totally Transform How You Think About The Past

1.

Here’s Albert Einstein with his sister, Maja Einstein… can you see the resemblance?

2.

This is American soldier Ivan Babcock in 1945 wearing the recovered Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, found hidden deep inside a German castle:

3.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, President Truman undertook a gut renovation of the White House. This is what it looked like inside during construction:

4.

Here’s another section of the White House, the Blue Room, under construction during that same period:

And here’s what the Blue Room looks like today:

5.

Here’s what the first Allied landing on Normandy’s beaches looked like from above on D-Day, June 6th, 1944:

6.

Speaking of World War II, this was the scene in New York’s Times Square on the day Germany unconditional surrender:

7.

This is the window from which Charles Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped in 1932, sparking one of the most infamous criminal cases in American history:

8.

This is John Clem, known as the “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga.” At just 12 years old, he fought for the Union in the Civil War and went on to become the youngest noncommissioned officer in U.S. military history:

Here he is as a much older man in 1916 after being promoted to major general:

9.

This is what the eastern end of 13,000 miles of the Great Wall of China looks like…

And this is what the western end of the Great Wall of China looks like, stretching out into the Gobi Desert:

10.

Here’s a very brave photographer riding in a plane about to drop a nuclear test bomb on the Marshall Islands:

11.

And here’s a photo of a bomb going off in the Marshall Islands, taken during one of the U.S. nuclear tests there:

12.

Speaking of which, this dome was installed over Runit Island in the Marshall Islands in order to cover the crater left from a nuclear bomb test and contain the radioactive materials:

13.

Here’s a picture of Judy Garland hanging back stage with the Munchkins, taking some time to herself on the set of The Wizard of Oz:

14.

This is a picture of astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott looking extremely chill after landing the Gemini 8 in the Pacific Ocean:

15.

This is a British reconnaissance photo taken in 1941 near Bergen, Norway, that helped locate the German battleship Bismarck, known as the “most powerful vessel afloat,” and led to a massive mobilization of Allied ships and the ship’s eventual sinking:

16.

This is a prototype combat helmet developed during World War I designed to protect the wearer’s eyes from flying debris:

17.

Speaking of World War I, here’s a photo of a hospitalized World War I soldier being handed the magical early 20th-century cure-all… a pack of cigarettes:

18.

In the late 1800s, Niagara Falls actually froze over solid enough for people to walk on it:

19.

This is what Mount Rushmore before the presidential heads were carved into it…

And this is Mount Rushmore today:

20.

This is what the Eiffel Tower looked like while it was under construction in 1888:

And here’s what it looked like a few years after it was finished at the 1900 Paris Exposition:

21.

This is the scene inside a bar on Dec. 5, 1933, the day Prohibition was repealed:

…and this is a scene outside a bar, much later in the night:

22.

In 1921, over 80,000 people attended heavyweight championship boxing match between Georges Carpentier and Jack Dempsey:

Here’s what that fight looked like from above:

23.

Did you know the penny is officially retired? Here’s the U.S. Treasurer showing off the very last penny ever minted, last week on November 12th:

24.

This is what New York City’s Central Park looked like during the Great Depression:

25.

Only one photo of the infamous Billy the Kid exists. Here’s a look at him:

26.

Pope Leo was apparently a big Blues Brothers fan. Here he is in 1982, dressing the part of a man on a mission from God:

27.

This is a picture of a Russian farm worker and his family listening to a radio for one of the first times:

28.

This is a World War I soldier wearing an experimental weapon designed for charging enemy trenches:

29.

This is Jeanne Calment, the longest-lived person ever verified. Here she is at the tender age of 120 years and 239 days:

She apparently ate two pounds of chocolate a week and smoked until age 119, passing away at age 122:

And here she is as a slightly younger woman in 1895:

30.

On the day their rocket blasted off to the Moon, the Apollo 11 astronauts enjoyed a breakfast of steak and eggs, chosen to minimize bathroom needs during the early stages of the flight:

31.

In 1940, a German fighter-bomber was shot down over England and promptly paraded through the streets of London:

32.

This is Alfred Stratton, an 18-year-old who lost both arms in the Civil War after being struck by a cannonball. He survived the war but passed away a little over a decade later, at the age of 29 or 30:

33.

In the 1890s, an upright Roman statue, the Statue of Antinous, was found intact and on its pedestal beneath the surface of the ground:

34.

This is 12-year-old Hussein Abdul Rasoul, a young worker on Howard Carter’s expedition, who discovered the first step that ultimately led to the entrance of Tutankhamun’s tomb:

35.

Here’s what the entrance to the tomb looked like after it had been cleared and uncovered:

36.

And here’s Howard Carter inspecting the just-then-found sarcophagus of Tutankhamun in 1922:

37.

This is Otto Richter, a German Jew, and his wife protesting at Ellis Island to oppose his deportation back to Nazi Germany after he was found without proper immigration documents in 1936:

38.

This is what California’s Highway 101 looked like in 1912:

39.

In 1921, Canada developed Defence Scheme 1, a contingency plan outlining how it would invade the United States if the need ever arose:

40.

This photo shows a group of men “penny hanging,” a practice where you’d pay a penny or two for a rope to lean over and sleep on for the night. Some say it’s where the term “hangover” came from, but that’s not quite true:

Here’s another picture of some men actually penny hanging in real life:

41.

In 1931, Al Capone and his son attended a charity baseball game, where they had the privilege of meeting Gabby “Old Tomato Face” Hartnett of the Cubs:

42.

This is a mannequin called “The Machine,” used to practice childbirth, first developed in the 18th century by the French midwife Angélique du Coudray:

43.

This is what the Louvre Pyramid looked like while it was under construction in the late 1980s:

44.

Speaking of France, here are two construction workers passing a flag through the breakthrough hole in the English Channel:

45.

These are apparently the requirements for being a flight attendant for one airline in 1954:

46.

This is how big the anchor chains of a ship are:

47.

This is the terrifying mask Edward Paisnel, also known as the Beast of Jersey, wore during his attacks on victims:

48.

This is the first-ever photograph of an operation, taken in 1847 in Boston:

49.

This is a group of unemployed workers in 1930 during the Great Depression, offering to do a day’s work for a dollar and each wearing a sign stating the type of work they can do:

50.

Back in the early 20th century, people were allowed to climb all over the Great Pyramid of Egypt:

… Even if they were definitely not wearing pyramid-climbing-appropriate gear:

51.

And here’s another group of tourists casually standing on top of the Great Pyramid in heels:

52.

Released in 1983, this is what the first commercially available cellphone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X looked like:

53.

Speaking of presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower was actually an avid painter. Here he is painting his three grandchildren and daughter-in-law:

54.

See that big earthen pimple? That’s what Mount Vesuvius looks like from space:

55.

This horrifying thing is a vintage swimming mask that was designed to protect the skin from the sun and presumably terrify the neighborhood children:

56.

Did you know that Fidel Castro was an avid baseball fan? Here he is on the mound, throwing some absolute CHEDDAR toward a batter:

While we’re at it, here’s Che Guevara playing first base on the same team as Castro:

57.

This is the Palazzo Braschi, which served as the political headquarters of Fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini during the 1930s:

Here’s what the same building looks like today:

58.

This is Audrey Munson, often called “America’s first supermodel,” pictured in the early 1900s. She appeared in films, worked as a model and artist, and spent much of her life speaking out for better treatment and equality in the workplace:

You can still see sculptures modeled after her across New York City, including this one atop Manhattan’s Municipal Building:

59.

This is Queen’s Freddie Mercury (although I’m sure you already knew that), pictured here at 12 years old as a schoolboy in India:

60.

Here’s a sweet picture of a Navajo baby in a traditional papoose being greeted by a friendly lamb:

61.

In case you want to feel bad about your finances, here’s an ad for some extremely cheap homes from 1955:

62.

This is Dorothea Lambert Chambers, seven-time Wimbledon champion and Olympic gold medalist, competing at the 1919 Wimbledon. She ultimately lost this match to another player, Suzanne Lenglen:

63.

Did you know a group of Japanese samurai visited the Great Sphinx of Giza in 1864? Well, they did:

64.

In post-World War I Germany, inflation was so bad that money was basically worthless and children would sometimes use the bills as building blocks:

65.

This is George Metesky, known as the “Mad Bomber of New York.” He spent 16 years terrorizing the city, planting bombs in public places that injured at least 15 people:

66.

On a lighter note, here’s perhaps the most ironic picture ever: a man transporting a huge load of used tires stopped on the side of the road with a flat tire:

67.

This is American swimmer Gertrude Ederle, who became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926:

68.

Here’s a group of guys racing on ostriches in the 1930s:

69.

This fantastically named man is Sol C. Korn, pictured here in 1945 doing what he did best, individually testing cigarettes:

70.

Here’s a Native American man looking down at the newly built Central Pacific Railroad in California:

71.

This is boxer Hattie “The Mad Hatter” Madders, named the “Most Scary Woman in the UK” during the 1880s. And yeah, you can see why:

72.

Here’s what a tattoo parlor looked like in the early 1900s, specifically in 1919:

73.

This is Kate Ward, also known as Camberley Kate, perhaps the greatest dog lover in history. Over her lifetime, she rescued more than 600 stray dogs from the streets of England:

74.

This 1912 photo shows a woman on New York’s Lower East Side carrying an enormous box of goods on her head:

75.

Finally, here’s a man commandeering his very strange yet powerful invention, the one… the only… the Goat-Mobile: