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[Zombine]

Picture of all the Kennedy children one summer day.

 

[shinobi602]

It's truly utterly amazing and astounding how much the colorizing of the old photos really humanizes the scenes. I can't speak for everyone else, but they really make them come to life in an unbelievable way--one can really feel what it's like to be right there at that moment and place in time.

Yea, I remember reading a study or observation about how color has a huge impact on our relation to a photo vs a black and white picture. Makes sense.

Some more:

Stroll along the boardwalk & beach of Atlantic City, New Jersey, ca 1905.

Abraham Lincoln , circa 1860.

An Ojibwe Native American spearfishing, Minnesota, 1908.

Black man drinking at 'Colored' water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (July 1939)

Mark Twain visits the Houses of Parliament in London. (July 2nd, 1907)

Niagara Street, Buffalo, N.Y. (1908)

Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1907.

Thomas Edison. New Jersey, 1911

Booker T. Washington in his Tuskegee University office, ca. 1906.

General Robert E. Lee a week after surrendering to General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War - April 16, 1865.

President Wilson at the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Coney Island, New York, ca. 1905. "Luna Park, Promenade".

18 year old Russian girl being liberated from Dachau (April 29th, 1945)

President Ulysses S. Grant & family at their Long Branch, N.J. vacation house in 1870.

Civil war veterans: A Union veteran and a Confederate veteran shake hands at the Assembly Tent at Gettysburg anniversary, c. 1913

Dom Pedro II, the last Emperor of Brazil, 1876.

 

[The Albatross]

This one just blows my mind. I get that there had to be veterans of the civil war at this time but the eras just seem so far away from each other in my mind that it almost doesn't seem possible that this is real.

Aye. What's very odd to think is that there was less time between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II, than the beginning of World War II and today.

I think of World War II as a contemporary event, but the Civil War as something we're rather disconnected from, and yet, a person my age (31) during the dawn of World War II would remember living amongst veterans of the Civil War, just as a person my age today would remember living amongst veterans of World War II.

(not to say that there aren't any veterans of WWII around today, but I just distinctly remember growing up amongst WWII vets, all of my grandparents, great uncles, and great aunts, served for instance, and there are certainly fewer alive today than then)

 

[Sesuadra]

You're telling me that this commander had went into battle with nothing but a set of bagpipes, a bow & quiver of arrows, & a bloody claymore?! And (almost) nothing could stop him?

Yes.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

Since no one has done Jonestown (not that long ago but definitely fits in the crazy section):

Brochure of Jim Jones's People's Temple:

Jim Jones awarded for his humanitarian work in San Francisco:

Jim Jones's Congregation:

Church Members in California:

Entrance to Jonestown:

Kids of Jonestown:

People's Temples kids congregation in Jonestown:

Nightly music worship at Jonestown

Congressman Leo Ryan arriving to inspect Jonestown:

Brief video of the visit going well

NSFW: picture of Leo Ryan and the news crew murdered by the Jonestown militia

NSFW: Jonestown after the mass suicide

NSFW: More images of the aftermath of Jonestown

NSFW: Mother and child suicide/murder

NSFW: Jim Jones's bloated body

 

[StudioTan]

Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1907.

This one is amazing. Beautiful shot and recolour.

 

[LoveCake]

(The Rooftop Runs of the "Biorobots" - Chernobyl)

Some of the highest doses of radiation were sustained by the workers enlisted to clear debris from Chernobyl’s rooftops. After the explosion, the facility was covered in pieces of highly contaminated graphite, the substance that had been used instead of water to cool the reactor and slow the fission reaction in the Chernobyl plant design.

Initially, authorities tried to use robots to do the job of removing the dangerous debris, but after a few days the high levels of radiation damaged the electronic circuitry of the machines.

The job had to be done by human hands, and so a subset of the workers who became known as "biorobots," were deployed to the rooftops. They would run up to the rooftop for minutes or less, removing just a few shovels of waste before a new crew of liquidators would take their turn. Workers recall feeling pain in their eyes and a lead taste in their mouth due to the high radiation levels.

 

[joedan]

Like out of a horror movie. And is that Doc Oc from Spiderman in a tuxedo on the far right?

 

[The Albatross]

Yea, I remember reading a study or observation about how color has a huge impact on our relation to a photo vs a black and white picture. Makes sense.

Some more:

Stroll along the boardwalk & beach of Atlantic City, New Jersey, ca 1905.




Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1907.

All I can think of here is how freaking hot it had to be and how they're all in full-length dresses and wool suits.

*edit*

Well... Easter Sunday was March 31 that year, so maybe fat Tuesday wasn't too unbearably hot.

 

[More_Badass]

Like out of a horror movie. And is that Doc Oc from Spiderman in a tuxedo on the far right?

Lol, it's Slenderman

 

[CreepingFear]

All I can think of here is how freaking hot it had to be and how they're all in full-length dresses and wool suits.

*edit*

Well... Easter Sunday was March 31 that year, so maybe fat Tuesday wasn't too unbearably hot.

When did the tradition of beads and showing boobs start?

 

[Dai101]

AMAZING. Those colored pictures are just breath taking.

 

[Sp3ratus]

When did the tradition of beads and showing boobs start?

Apparently, both have been going on for quite some time:

During the late 1800’s, inexpensive necklaces made of glass beads began to be tossed into the crowds by the parade krewes.
http://www.punchbowl.com/p/history-of-mardi-gras-beads

Women showing their breasts during Mardi Gras has been documented since 1889, when the Times-Democrat decried the "degree of immodesty exhibited by nearly all female masqueraders seen on the streets." The practice was mostly limited to tourists in the upper Bourbon Street area. In the crowded streets of the French Quarter, generally avoided by locals on Mardi Gras Day, flashers on balconies cause crowds to form on the streets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Mardi_Gras#Exposure_and_Mardi_Gras

Also, absolutely stunning photos, shinobi, especially that one of Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1907.

 

[Minion101]

Photograph of "fat man" from circus freak show circa 1900.

So there you go. Yesterday's freakshow is now today's walmart customer.

 

[Daria Morgendorffer]

Thanks everybody for posting all these great pictures and for keeping this amazing thread alive, really my favourite thread in years.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Photograph of "fat man" from circus freak show circa 1900.

So there you go. Yesterday's freakshow is now today's walmart customer.

Well, as seen earlier in the thread, yesterday's "human zoos" were Black people so...

 

[Lender]

vietnamese orphans being translated to the usa

This was called operation baby lift. Sadly, one of those planes carrying lots of children crashed because of rapid decompression, as a result of poor maintenance. Over 150 people died, including around 80 children iirc.

 

[Patrick S.]

18 year old Russian girl being liberated from Dachau (April 29th, 1945)

Holy shit man, we Germans really were fucking motherfuckers What did that girl ever do to anyone??? And the trend towards hatred against the foreign is getting stronger all the time again

 

[StayDead]

Holy shit man, we Germans really were fucking motherfuckers What did that girl ever do to anyone??? And the trend towards hatred against the foreign is getting stronger all the time again

The ironic thing is that the Germans had rather humane POW camps compared to some nations. They seemed to treat war prisoners with respect had they not fallen into the categories sent to concentration camps. Although maybe it's because the POW camps were often ran by Wermacht units rather than SS units. There is a chance I'm wrong and I'd love to learn more about the subject so if anyone has any info that'd be great. I love learning about WW2 history.

I'm not saying it was perfect for POWs either, but they certainly treated POWs better than the Japanese and Russians did. I haven't really learnt about POW camps apart from those three nations so I'm not sure how it compares, but Russian POW camps were awful. It didn't help either that when the German POW camps in Russia were liberated most of the soldiers were ordered to be executed (the captured ones) as he was worried they'd have been indoctrinated by the Germans IIRC.

 

[Minion101]

The ironic thing is that the Germans had rather humane POW camps compared to some nations. They seemed to treat war prisoners with respect had they not fallen into the categories sent to concentration camps. Although maybe it's because the POW camps were often ran by Wermacht units rather than SS units. There is a chance I'm wrong and I'd love to learn more about the subject so if anyone has any info that'd be great. I love learning about WW2 history.

I'm not saying it was perfect for POWs either, but they certainly treated POWs better than the Japanese and Russians did. I haven't really learnt about POW camps apart from those three nations so I'm not sure how it compares, but Russian POW camps were awful. It didn't help either that when the German POW camps in Russia were liberated most of the soldiers were ordered to be executed (the captured ones) as he was worried they'd have been indoctrinated by the Germans IIRC.

Yup, however it got hard to feed people toward the end of the war when the Allies were blowing up your supply trucks.

 

[Patrick S.]

Seeing this half starved 18 year old girl, who at first glance I had thought was a sixty year old man, I can see no signs of anything resembling respect. For every prisoner who had the luck of being mostly left alone to rot in peace, there were x thousand gassed and burned or cut to pieces by people like Mengele.

Edit: you are making a distinction between "regular" POW camp and extermination camp, right? I haven't really read anything about how POW-camps were run or how the conditions were in them, tbh.

 

[StayDead]

Seeing this half starved 18 year old girl, who at first glance I had thought was a sixty year old man, I can see no signs of anything resembling respect. For every prisoner who had the luck of being mostly left alone to rot in peace, there were x thousand gassed and burned or cut to pieces by people like Mengele.

Edit: you are making a distinction between "regular" POW camp and extermination camp, right? I haven't really read anything about how POW-camps were run or how the conditions were in them, tbh.

Yeah, from what I understand the Wermacht treated POWs pretty well. As I said I might be wrong and it's something I'm fascinated in learning more about if anyone has any resources on the subject.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Anti-Iraq War demonstration in Venice in March 2003. These kinds of streets are usually rather empty on normal days, and without the tourists Venice is pretty much a ghost town. That time though the city was full of people marching for peace.

Spoiler

I took that picture

 

[dluu13]

What is up with the woman on the left? Is she laughing?

Super creepy.

Well, they just escaped the death train. I'd be happy too.

 

[The Giant]

All these colourised photos are just WOW!

 

[lazygecko]

The ironic thing is that the Germans had rather humane POW camps compared to some nations. They seemed to treat war prisoners with respect had they not fallen into the categories sent to concentration camps. Although maybe it's because the POW camps were often ran by Wermacht units rather than SS units. There is a chance I'm wrong and I'd love to learn more about the subject so if anyone has any info that'd be great. I love learning about WW2 history.

I'm not saying it was perfect for POWs either, but they certainly treated POWs better than the Japanese and Russians did. I haven't really learnt about POW camps apart from those three nations so I'm not sure how it compares, but Russian POW camps were awful. It didn't help either that when the German POW camps in Russia were liberated most of the soldiers were ordered to be executed (the captured ones) as he was worried they'd have been indoctrinated by the Germans IIRC.

I think it was mostly western POWs like French and British troops that were treated in accordance with Geneva conventions. No such courtesy for eastern ones as they were pretty much taught to view them as sub-human. No real fear of being under significant threat of reprisals on that front initially probably contributed significantly as well.

 

[LuuKyK]

Yeah its fascinating how cool these re-colored photos look.

 

[spazchicken]

Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1907.

This is what people who complain about a "lack of color" in games must wish or think the world really looks like.

 

[LilWayneSuckz]

Thank you for the Jonestown photos, I've heard of it before but never bothered to research it. Terrifying.

 

[Quirah]

Great thread but couldn't see a single Ottoman related photo in a history thread. Here I come!

Turkish officers give a saluting farewell to the last sultanate of the Ottoman Empire(1922)

Medical students late 1900's

Ottoman cavalry mounted on camels

First black pilot in history, WWI - Ottoman Empire

Ice cream merchant, 1898

Harem dress

A tree-dressed sniper that caught by Anzacs in 1915, Gallipoli

and founder of the modern Turkey, Ataturk on a swing

 

[Chichikov]

I think it was mostly western POWs like French and British troops that were treated in accordance with Geneva conventions. No such courtesy for eastern ones as they were pretty much taught to view them as sub-human. No real fear of being under significant threat of reprisals on that front initially probably contributed significantly as well.

Yeah, prison camps on the eastern front were absolutely the stuff of nightmares (and many of the survivors ended up in gulags after the war, because as Stalin famously said "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors").
By the way, even on the western front there were a whole lot of summary executions, random reprisal killings and acts of unthinkable brutality, on both sides, though it pales in comparison to what happened in the east.

And once again, let me post a non depressing picture (nothing wrong with war pictures or anything, there are some awesome ones in this thread, but lightening up the mood is not a bad thing) -

Julius Erving in Rucker park, I think 1971, he wasn't the best player in history, but damn, he had the prettiest smoothest game ever -

Bob Dylan goes electric for the first time at the Newport Folk Festival, July 25th 1965 (50 years anniversary in 2 days! someone make a thread) -

First black pilot in history, WWI - Ottoman Empire

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther could walk, Martin Luther walked so Barack Obama could run, Ahmet Ali Çelikten was like, yeah, I've been flying for a while bitches.

Spoiler

Didn't know about him, super cool.

 

[Rest]

What is up with the woman on the left? Is she laughing?

Super creepy.

She's free.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

O.C. Marsh (paleontologist of Yale Peabody Museum) with Red Cloud (Lakota Chief) circa 1880 which means it's probably after Marsh spoke to the Grant administration in Washington on Red Cloud's/Sioux tribe's behalf.

Basically, South Dakota's Black Hills were full of gold which threatened the Sioux tribe's relations with the government/army. Marsh wanted to dig for fossils there and promised money and telling the president to leave them alone.

What makes this crazy after further reading is it was all for nothing. Despite Marsh's efforts and the battles and moving their land, they were screwed (surprise). A quote in his later years: "They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one--They promised to take our land...and they took it."

I've been fascinated with the "Bone Wars" between Marsh and Cope (a rival paleontologist and other half of the "great dinosaur rush") because I'm a dino nut and it's close to home being a CT resident. Further reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars

 

[Downhome]

I have a few to share, but I'm not sure if it fits with the theme of the thread. If so, I'll post more later.

The first two are very personal to me, as they feature members of my family. I know for sure that my great grandfather and great grandmother are pictured sitting in the car at the wheel, but I'm not sure on the others. On of them is wearing a WWI uniform, so I guess going by that and the age of my great grandparents that this was taken sometime right after WWI...

The next one is my grandfather with a smoke in his mouth pouring a huge drink to a friend. This was on one of their "wagon train" trips that they continued even as they all got up in age, and would camp out and just have a great time together as they did when they were much younger...

This one is a photograph I found at a local auction a while back and I bought it for a couple of bucks because of how terribly absurd it was and because I collect all sorts of old and vintage entertainment industry photographs and material. I assume it's either from the days of Vaudeville or silent film since it looks to me like some sort of publicity shot. I have never been able to figure out who is featured in the photo though. Yes, it's offensive, but it's still history. I'll let you make out what it is for yourself, but it's pretty blatant...

Here are a few that I found of various old bands. I love these images so much. I just wish I could find some more detailed information about them! They each have one thing in common. Can you see what I mean?

 

[Amir0x]

All I can think of here is how freaking hot it had to be and how they're all in full-length dresses and wool suits.

*edit*

Well... Easter Sunday was March 31 that year, so maybe fat Tuesday wasn't too unbearably hot.

I remember asking some people in Williamsburg Virginia this question about being hot, and they said something about the way the fabric was designed actually allowed a lot of air to circulate and it is actually pretty bearable even though it was like 102 degrees that day.

Dunno how true that is though.

 

[ZeroMaverick]

Philippe Petit walking a high-wire between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. There is a documentary covering it called Man On Wire that is definitely worth the watch.

There's also an excellent novel based on this, written by Colum McCann, called Let the Great World Spin.

So good.

 

[Fatalah]

In May 1947, LIFE magazine devoted a full page to a picture taken by a photography student named Robert Wiles. The photograph is extraordinary in several ways—not least because it remains, seven decades later, one of the most famous portraits of suicide ever made.

 

[Zim]

While seeing the Civil War vet next to the jet, it reminded me of this video of an eye witness to the Lincoln Assassination on a game show in 1956. http://youtu.be/I_iq5yzJ-Dk

 

[shinobi602]

Martin Luther King Jr. & other Civil Rights leaders meeting with President John F. Kennedy & Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Oval Office during the Civil Rights March.

Bavarian grandfather and Prussian grandson displaying the old and new uniforms of the German army, 1st of February, 1913.

A Civil Rights demonstration in the 60s, an African-American woman stares down a man donning the Confederate flag on his hard-hat.

Daughter of a resettled farmer, 1935.

26th President Theodore Roosevelt in his office, c. 1900.

Manzanar Relocation Centre - Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry, 2 July 1942.

Civil War Powder Monkey - Charleston, South Carolina, 1865.

General Joseph Hooker mounted on a horse, ca. 1862.

"Alex", prize German police dog, "smokes cigarettes n' everything." 1923

Hancock homestead. Sun River, Montana - (July 1910)

Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, 1907.

Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, and Henry Ford, Ft. Myers, Florida. March 1914.

Operation Overlord: D-Day, (June 6th, 1944)

Edgar Allan Poe, 1848.

 

[The Llama]

Its taken me 2 days to read this entire thread, but damn its a good one. Lots of pics I haven't seen before. Keep it coming!

 

[anonymous_abc]

Since no one has done Jonestown (not that long ago but definitely fits in the crazy section):

I take it you also listened to the last episode of Sword and Scale then?

 

[Mad Season]

Deputy Mayor Ernst Kurt Lisso and his family after committing suicide by cyanide to avoid capture by US troops, 1945

 

[Mad Season]

In 1984, photographer Steve McCurry shot a portrait titled “Afghan Girl” that would become the defining image of his career and one of the most famous National Geographic covers ever published. In 2002, McCurry was able to locate the subject, Sharbat Gula, and learn her story. National Geographic then published a fascinating piece telling the story of the photo, the search, and the subject:

The reunion between the woman with green eyes and the photographer was quiet. On the subject of married women, cultural tradition is strict. She must not look—and certainly must not smile—at a man who is not her husband. She did not smile at McCurry. Her expression, he said, was flat. She cannot understand how her picture has touched so many. She does not know the power of those eyes.

Some interesting facts: McCurry shot the photo on Kodachrome using a Nikon FM2 and Nikkor 105mm f/2.5. Gula’s identity was confirmed by comparing her iris to the Afghan Girl’s. Although she had never seen her famous portrait, Gula distinctly remembers sitting for the photo — it was one of the only times in her life that she had a photo taken of her.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

How do these colorized photos work exactly? Are they just making their best guess as to what the color would be or is there more to it.

 

[El_Chino]

Since no one has done Jonestown (not that long ago but definitely fits in the crazy section):

Brochure of Jim Jones's People's Temple:

Jim Jones awarded for his humanitarian work in San Francisco:

Jim Jones's Congregation:


Church Members in California:


Entrance to Jonestown:

Kids of Jonestown:

People's Temples kids congregation in Jonestown:

Nightly music worship at Jonestown


Congressman Leo Ryan arriving to inspect Jonestown:

Brief video of the visit going well

NSFW: picture of Leo Ryan and the news crew murdered by the Jonestown militia

NSFW: Jonestown after the mass suicide

NSFW: More images of the aftermath of Jonestown

NSFW: Mother and child suicide/murder

NSFW: Jim Jones's bloated body

This man was a real piece of shit.

 

[Engell]

(The Rooftop Runs of the "Biorobots" - Chernobyl)

Some of the highest doses of radiation were sustained by the workers enlisted to clear debris from Chernobyl’s rooftops. After the explosion, the facility was covered in pieces of highly contaminated graphite, the substance that had been used instead of water to cool the reactor and slow the fission reaction in the Chernobyl plant design.

Pretty scary stuff, wonder if they where actually told how dangerous this was. You can even see that the radiation "ate" the film roll i the lower part of the picture.

 

[mooksoup]

Strangely beautiful mugshots from 1920's Sydney police archives

VALERIE LOWE, 15 FEBRUARY 1922
"Valerie Lowe and Joseph Messenger were arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings. "

HERBERT ELLIS, SYDNEY, AROUND 1920
"Ellis is found in numerous police records of the 1910s, 20s and 30s. He is variously listed as a housebreaker, a shop breaker, a safe breaker, a receiver and a
suspected person."

EUGENIA FALLENI, ALIAS HARRY CRAWFORD, 1920
"When 'Harry Leon Crawford', hotel cleaner of Stanmore was arrested and charged with wife murder he was revealed to be in fact Eugenia Falleni (sometimes spelt as Eugeni), a woman and mother, who had been passing as a man since
1899."

Full archive here

 

[Slay]

The last erruption of Santorini volcano (Greece) in 1950

it's really a non event, compared to the massive bronze age erruption, but the volcano is considered unpredictable.


The massive Greek forest fires of 2007 as seen from space, they claimed the lifes of 70 people. The most tragic incident was the death of a mother with her four children near the Makistos village.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Since no one has done Jonestown (not that long ago but definitely fits in the crazy section):

Brochure of Jim Jones's People's Temple:

Jim Jones awarded for his humanitarian work in San Francisco:

Jim Jones's Congregation:


Church Members in California:


Entrance to Jonestown:

Kids of Jonestown:

People's Temples kids congregation in Jonestown:

Nightly music worship at Jonestown


Congressman Leo Ryan arriving to inspect Jonestown:

Brief video of the visit going well

NSFW: picture of Leo Ryan and the news crew murdered by the Jonestown militia

NSFW: Jonestown after the mass suicide

NSFW: More images of the aftermath of Jonestown

NSFW: Mother and child suicide/murder

NSFW: Jim Jones's bloated body

That man really was a piece of shit. When I learned about this years ago, I listened to "the death tape". Its a recording of the final moments in Jonestown. I'm only linking this because of its historical significance and relevance to this post. Its an audiotape recording of 900 people dying including children so be warned that it is disturbing. One woman tries to argue with him about what is about to happen and is shut down by everyone. Its hard to listen to but the audio really made this whole thing more real to me.

Warning: disturbing audio of Jonestown mass murder/suicide
https://archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

Elton John plays to a sold out concert at Dodgers Stadium in LA. (1975)