50 historical photos that will make you look at the world otherwise (51 photos)

You can devour history books to please your teachers, but nothing is more graphic than historical photographs that show the wonders and horrors of the past. This collection of photographs that capture unique moments in history reveal what made people proud, moved them to tears, or left them heartbroken. Buckle up, relax, and enjoy the journey back in time.





1. A German soldier disobeys a direct order and helps a boy separated from his family cross the newly erected Berlin Wall. 1961



2. A San Francisco police officer scolds a man for not wearing a mask during the 1918 flu pandemic





3. In 1969, when black Americans were still banned from swimming with whites, host Mister Rogers invited Officer Clemmons onto his show and suggested that he join him cool your feet in a foot bath



4. Princess Diana, bare-chested, shakes hands with an AIDS patient, 1991



5. Charles Thompson greets new classmates at School No. 27 in September 1954 years



The Supreme Court ruled racial segregation unconstitutional less than four months ago. Charles was the only African-American student at the school. Photo by Richard Stacks for The Baltimore Sun.

6. Dutch resistance fighters celebrate the news of Adolf Hitler's death, April 1945



7. Michelangelo's David was bricked up to protect it from bombs during WWII



8. Jewish prisoners being released from the "death train", 1945 year



9. Margaret Hamilton and the handwritten navigation software she developed with her MIT team for the Apollo project



10. A Serbian soldier sleeps next to his father, who visited him on the front lines near Belgrade, 1914/1915 year



11. Louis Armstrong plays for his wife. Egypt, 1961



12. A man arrested for cross-dressing exits a police van. New York, 1939



13. A man rides a white bus in Durban to protest South Africa's apartheid policies. 1986



14. A young Queen Elizabeth II serving as a mechanic in World War II. 1939



15. An American soldier shelters a wounded Japanese boy from the rain in the cockpit of an airplane during the Battle of Saipan, while he awaits transport to a field hospital. July 1944



16. Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father, in the attic where they hid from the Nazis. He was the only survivor of the family. 1960



17. Ruby Bridges, the first African-American girl in an all-white elementary school in the South, 1960



Fun fact: Ruby is only 66 now, and she even has an Instagram account.

18. The execution of 17-year-old Yugoslav partisan Lepa Radić near Gradiska in 1943. When the Nazis offered to reveal her accomplices in exchange for her life, she replied: "They will reveal themselves when villains like you are destroyed!"



19. Freddie Mercury with his mother, 1947



20. Albert Einstein, his secretary Helen (left) and daughter Margaret (right) receive U.S. citizenship to avoid returning to Nazi Germany, 1940 year



21. A German soldier returns home to find that there is no one to return to. Frankfurt, 1946



22. The tallest Nazi soldier, Jakob Nacken, 2.21 meters tall, chats with Canadian Corporal Bob Roberts (1.60 m) after surrendering to him. France, September 1944.



23. Soldiers returning from World War II, 1945



24. "Basket for drunkards". In the 1960s, Istanbul bars hired people to carry drunks home



25. On June 8, 1958, 19-year-old David Isom crossed the line separating blacks from whites at a Florida swimming pool, prompting authorities to later shut down the establishment



26. A hired reader diligently reads aloud to workers at a Cuban cigar factory (around 1900-1910). Most of the workers were illiterate, so factories hired people to read novels, poetry, non-fiction, and newspapers aloud



27. May 20, 1910: The first and last photograph of nine kings of Europe together



28. A released prisoner points out a Nazi guard who was particularly cruel to prisoners in Buchenwald



29. World War I. A Canadian soldier comforts a wounded Belgian baby whose mother was killed by an artillery shell. November 1918.



30. Rosa Parks after her arrest in February 1956



31. A French woman greets an American soldier two days after her liberation. Strasbourg, France, November 22, 1944



32. September 3, 1967: The day Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right



33. A Ukrainian immigrant celebrates Stalin's death by offering free borscht to anyone who wants it, 1953 year



34. Keshia Thomas, 18, protects a fallen man suspected of being a Ku Klux Klan member from an angry crowd of protesters. Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, 1996



35. Into the Jaws of Death. June 6, 1944



36. Nikola Tesla, the last photo of the scientist. January 1, 1943



37. A nurse with a sick child during a smallpox epidemic. Wroclaw, Poland, 1963



38. A crowd in Times Square in New York City celebrates the surrender of Germany. May 7, 1945



39. Portrait of Arctic explorer Peter Freuchen and his wife, fashion illustrator Dagmar Cohn. 1947



40. Ruth Lee, a manager at a Chinese restaurant, put up a Chinese flag to avoid being mistaken for Japanese while sunbathing on a Miami beach. December 15, 1941



41. Gangsters hide their faces during the trial of Al Capone, 1931



42. Soviet citizens study the "Wall of Grief" at the "Week of Conscience" exhibition on Stalinist crimes in November 1988 years



43. Teenagers on a date in a diner, USA, 1950s



44. Allied soldiers impersonate Hitler on his balcony in the Reich Chancellery, 1945 year



45. B-25 bombers fly past Mount Vesuvius in Italy during the volcano's eruption in March 1944. While the battle was going on in the sky, the eruption killed 57 people and completely destroyed the villages of San Sebastiano and San Giorgio



46. The cabin of an airplane in 1930



47. A nuclear explosion less than one millisecond after detonation, 1952



48. George Willig climbs the south tower of the World Trade Center in 1977. It took him three and a half hours to reach the roof, where he was arrested and fined one dollar and ten cents - one penny for each floor.



49. The first Nintendo office in Kyoto, Japan. 1889



50. A Ku Klux Klan member takes cover behind a black police officer after a crowd of protesters surrounded a Klan meeting in Austin, Texas. 1983