- The ‘white’ slave children of New Orleans in rare photographs, 1863
On January 30, 1864, Harper’s Weekly started to publish portraits of children captioned “Emancipated Slaves—White and Colored,” as part of a publicity campaign to raise funds for schools for recently emancipated slaves in New Orleans.
The children featured in these photographs drew attention to the fact that slavery was not solely a matter of color. If a child’s mother was a slave, then he or she was a slave as well.
The images included children with predominantly European features photographed alongside dark-skinned adult slaves with typically African features. It was intended to shock the viewing audiences with a reminder that slaves shared their humanity, and evidence that slaves did not belong in the category of the “Other”.
- An unknown and young Madonna in Michael McDonnell’s photoshoots, 1978-1979
- The only known picture of President Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe together, 1962
This black and white image, taken by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton, is the only known photograph of JFK and Monroe together. Monroe is still wearing the infamously tight-fighting, sheer rhinestone-studded dress she wore when singing earlier at Madison Square Garden.
President Kennedy, whose head is tilted slightly is looking down while listening to Marilyn. His brother, Robert Kennedy, is standing next to the pair looking on. Singer Harry Belafonte is in the background and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who served as an advisor in the Kennedy White House, is standing off to the side smiling.
- The Black Monday of 1987 in historical photographs, 1987
The Stock Market crash of 1929 wasn’t the only market crash in the 20th century though. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6% on “Black Monday” in the Stock Market Crash of 1987, the greatest single day loss in history.
That said, no single stock market crash has ever had such devastating effects as 1929 as yet.
- The strange world of military research at Natick Soldier Systems Center, 1970-1990
The Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC) is responsible for the technology, research, development, engineering, fielding, and sustainment of U.S. military’s food, clothing, shelters, airdrop systems, and Soldier support items.
- Sketches used by the Soviet police to identify suspects based on ethnicity, 1960s
- The only two illegal photos taken inside the US Supreme Court in session, 1932-1937
- Pablo Escobar poses for a family photo outside of the White House, 1981
In this infamous photograph, we see the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar standing in front of the White House in Washington, DC. The boy standing beside Escobar is his only son. He also took his family on a first-class trip to Disneyland at about the same time.
- The last picture of Adolf Hitler, 1945
This last known picture of Hitler was taken approximately two days prior to his death as he stands outside his Berlin bunker entrance surveying the devastating bomb damage.
- Using a traditional blade, 17-year-old Yamaguchi assassinates politician Asanuma in Tokyo, 1960
The photo was taken directly after Yamaguchi stabbed Asanuma and is seen here attempting a second stab though he is restrained before that happens.
- German soldier returns home only to find his family no longer there, 1946
- A Japanese boy standing at attention after having brought his dead younger brother to a cremation pyre, 1945
- Last public appearance of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, 1976
- American pilots resting with a Japanese skull, 1944
- The remains of the astronaut Vladimir Komarov, a man who fell from space, 1967
Mankind’s road to the stars had its unsung heroes. One of them was the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. His spaceflight on Soyuz 1 made him the first Soviet cosmonaut to fly into outer space more than once, and he became the first human to die on a space mission—he was killed when the Soyuz 1 space capsule crashed after re-entry on April 24, 1967, due to a parachute failure.
- Niagara Falls without water, 1969
For six months in the summer and fall of 1969, Niagara’s American Falls were “de-watered”, as the Army Corps of Engineers conducted a geological survey of the falls’ rock face, concerned that it was becoming destabilized by erosion. These stark images reveal North America’s iconic – and most powerful – waterfall to be almost as dry as a desert.
Source: Rare Historical Photos