This Day in History: 13 Photos That Show Life in the Past Better Than Lectures and Textbooks (14 photos)

Old photographs are a kind of time machine for us, contemporaries.





They preserve not only faces, but also the spirit of the era. Like Krampus in the trenches of the First World War, Picasso in the rays of the Mediterranean sun and a studio worker who became an accidental symbol of everyday life. This selection of 13 photographs, where a whole world is hidden behind each frame. Discover and rethink them anew.

1. Forgotten in the Ice



Einar Mikkelsen, a Danish explorer, was photographed in 1912 after spending two and a half years in forced isolation in Greenland with his colleague Iver Iversen. They endured complete isolation, hunger, and hallucinations while waiting for rescue.

2. Moscow workers present flowers to a wounded Red Army soldier (1943)





Anna Kiseleva and Zoya Yemelyanova, workers at a plant in Moscow's Leninsky District, present flowers to Senior Lieutenant Iosif Stepanovich Lazun of the 755th Rifle Regiment of the 217th Rifle Division of the Bryansk Front. He was wounded by shrapnel during the fighting in the Oryol direction.

After his recovery, from October 1943, Iosif Lazun served as assistant to the head of the medical unit of Hospital No. 2312 for the slightly wounded.

3. A stunning view



American soldiers stand and admire the view of the mountains from the window of the large living room of the now destroyed Berghof, Hitler's former residence. Berchtesgaden, May 1945.

4. July 3, 1940: Chisinau celebrates the annexation of Bessarabia



Children give flowers to Red Army soldiers during a parade in Chisinau dedicated to the incorporation of Bessarabia into the USSR.

5. June 28, 1880: Australian outlaw Ned Kelly captured in Glenrowan



Ned and his comrades made unique armor weighing more than 40 kilograms from scrap materials in an ordinary village forge. Kelly's armor had many marks from bullets.

The effectiveness of the armor caused such a sensation that the famous English writer Arthur Conan Doyle recommended using it for the British infantry. Similar models of armor began to be developed and tested in different armies of the world.

6. June 3, 1945: A German looks at a huge portrait of Stalin on Unter den Linden Boulevard in Berlin



7. May 27, 1937: The now iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opened to pedestrian traffic



A suspension bridge over the Golden Gate Strait in California, USA. Connects the city of San Francisco on the northern San Francisco Peninsula and the southern part of Marin County, near the suburb of Sausalito. On the first day, 200,000 people paid 25 cents to walk across it. 18,000 people lined up before dawn, and 15,000 pedestrians crossed the world's longest suspension bridge every hour.

8. 1972. Pictured: Maria (Matryona) Rasputina, daughter of the "elder" Grigory Rasputin



After leaving in 1920, she received US citizenship and lived in Los Angeles until her death in 1977.

9. 1937. An unusual poker accessory - a mask that helps to maintain a "poker face"



10. Photograph of Central Park during the Great Depression (New York, 1933)



This is what New York's main park looked like when the States were going through their darkest times.

11. Pablo Picasso in his studio in Cannes, France, 1956



During this period, the 75-year-old Picasso created his late works, experimenting with ceramics and painting.

12. Austro-Hungarian soldier dressed as Krampus, the Christmas demon, 1917



An Austro-Hungarian soldier transformed into the mythological Krampus to celebrate Christmas in the trenches of World War I. Krampus is a folkloric antithesis of St. Nicholas, punishing naughty children (a tradition of the Alps and Bavaria).

13. A tailor at Alexanderplatz in Berlin steams a coat in front of a curious crowd, 1960s



The scene shows an era when many services were provided publicly due to a lack of space. Such street "workshops" were part of the city's color scheme.