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Historical Photos From Points of View You've Never Seen Before
While a photo can be worth a thousand words, historical photos are worth so much more than that. A good historical photo can throw us into a different time and place, enabling us to empathize with a particular moment that is otherwise hard to imagine.
In this article, we gathered some amazing photos that capture historical moments that are worth reflecting on.
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*All of the photos are real, with no photo-shopping or editing whatsoever.
Ronald McDonald
Willard Scott was a local TV star in Washington who played Bozo the Clown before he played Ronald MacDonald.
Bozo was a huge hit with the kids back in the day, so when the show went off the air, MacDonald’s approached Scott offering to create a new clown character to serve as their mascot.
Everett Collection/Shutterstock (10278393a)
It's rumored the MacDonald’s employ only one actor at a time to play Ronald in commercials and official events.
1940s Fashion
This bra design was really popular in the 1940s and '50s. Just think of that when you criticize modern fashion again.
Snap/Shutterstock (390900c)
Women have used a variety of garments and devices to cover the appearance of their chest. Some type of bra even appears in the 14th century! In the late 19th century, bras replaced the corset as the most widely used means of chest support and by the early 20th century, garments more closely resembling contemporary bras had emerged.
Playing Football
A high school soccer team, early 1910s.
Also known as gridiron, what is today one of the most popular sports in the U.S., American football has evolved from the sports of soccer and rugby.
The first football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams.
Photo by Mark Jay Goebel/Getty Images
The National Football League (NFL), a group of professional teams, was originally established in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association.
The Three Stooges in Yellowstone
Whether you watched them or not, The Three Stooges is one of the most classic and legendary comedies of all time. And if you look to the bottom of the picture, you’ll see that the handwritten part on the bottom of the photograph says “The ‘Three Stooges’ Sept. 1969.”
Back in 2019, a Reddit user posted this throw-back photo of their grandpa from exactly half a century before, posing with two of the three stooges. How incredible!
Image via Imgur
The caption from the post states: “My grandpa worked as a park ranger in Yellowstone, where he took this photo of The Three Stooges when they visited. 1969."
Satisfied Audience
Marilyn Monroe performing for the thousands of allied troops in Korea, February 11th, 1954.
Nara Archives/Shutterstock (2093027a)
In January 1954, Monroe married Joe DiMaggio and the two jetted off to Japan for their honeymoon. DiMaggio attended his baseball clinics while Monroe took a solo detour to Korea, which had been recently divided by the armistice which ended the Korean War the previous year. She embarked on a tour that took place in American military bases, and included 10 shows for an estimated 100,000 servicemen.
2025-05-21theprimarymark
Historical Photos From Points of View You've Never Seen Before
1940s Fashion
This bra design was really popular in the 1940s and '50s. Just think of that when you criticize modern fashion again.
Snap/Shutterstock (390900c)
Women have used a variety of garments and devices to cover the appearance of their chest. Some type of bra even appears in the 14th century! In the late 19th century, bras replaced the corset as the most widely used means of chest support and by the early 20th century, garments more closely resembling contemporary bras had emerged.
Playing Football
A high school soccer team, early 1910s.
Also known as gridiron, what is today one of the most popular sports in the U.S., American football has evolved from the sports of soccer and rugby.
The first football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams.
Photo by Mark Jay Goebel/Getty Images
The National Football League (NFL), a group of professional teams, was originally established in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association.
The Three Stooges in Yellowstone
Whether you watched them or not, The Three Stooges is one of the most classic and legendary comedies of all time. And if you look to the bottom of the picture, you’ll see that the handwritten part on the bottom of the photograph says “The ‘Three Stooges’ Sept. 1969.”
Back in 2019, a Reddit user posted this throw-back photo of their grandpa from exactly half a century before, posing with two of the three stooges. How incredible!
Image via Imgur
The caption from the post states: “My grandpa worked as a park ranger in Yellowstone, where he took this photo of The Three Stooges when they visited. 1969."
Satisfied Audience
Marilyn Monroe performing for the thousands of allied troops in Korea, February 11th, 1954.
Nara Archives/Shutterstock (2093027a)
In January 1954, Monroe married Joe DiMaggio and the two jetted off to Japan for their honeymoon. DiMaggio attended his baseball clinics while Monroe took a solo detour to Korea, which had been recently divided by the armistice which ended the Korean War the previous year. She embarked on a tour that took place in American military bases, and included 10 shows for an estimated 100,000 servicemen.
Kiss Goodbye
American soldiers saying goodbye to their loved ones before leaving to Egypt in 1963.
Image via Imgur
The North Yemen Civil War was fought in North Yemen from 1962 to 1970. On the royalist side Jordan and Saudi Arabia supplied military aid, and Britain gave covert support, while the republicans were supported by Egypt and were supplied warplanes from the Soviet Union.
A Giant Harmonica
The harmonica was invented in China thousands of years ago, which makes it one of the oldest musical instruments in the world. But it was only introduced in the United Sates at the beginning of the 19th century!
The harmonica was an immediate hit - it was easy to construct, cheap, and small (well, usually). Learning to play it was also easy, so it became especially popular with folk and blues musicians.
Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images
In the photo, two girls are playing a giant Blue Bird harmonica, in a music store in London's Regent Street in 1938.
Designing Disneyland
Disney was a true visionary. He wanted to build a place where children and adults can have fun together and developed the idea for years.
In the photo here, he's seen standing next to a model of Disneyland c. 1954.
He took inspiration from playgrounds, the World Exposition and Henry Ford's history museum and more.
Photo by Earl Theisen/Getty Images
Opening day was reserved for journalists, but out of 30,000 attendees, only half were invited - the rest got in with fake tickets.
Polluted Skies
1969: Before the creation of the EPA, New York was one of America's most polluted cities.
Beginning in the late 1950s and the 1960s, increasing public concern about the impact that human activity has on the environment was heard by the government.
Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock (5885154a)
In 1962, Silent Spring, a book by Rachel Carson, alerted the public about the destructive effects of pesticides on the environment. That led to the rise of civil groups fighting for environmental causes. As a result, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in December 1970.
“Screen Time” of the ‘70s
Pictured here is a group of college students living in the female dorms during the ‘70s. This historical picture embodies what life was like back in the day, before cell phones and personal computers.
Image via Imgur
The new wave of college students these days might not even know what a pay-phone is, let alone understand what it meant to have to have a limited amount of phone time, as well as, share the same phones with the whole floor.
Wright Brothers' First Flight
The first ever airplane flight happened on December 17, 1903. It lasted 12 seconds and the new record was set later that day - 59 seconds.
Image via Imgur
The brothers' fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three-axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium.
The Second Twin Tower
The tragic attacks on September 11th, 2001, caught the entire country off guard. But what was even worse, was that after one building was hit, no one expected them to hit the second one as well.
Screenshot from "ABC News"
We also thought this photo wasn’t real—but it turns out to be a very real indeed. While trying to set up their broadcasting of the first building on fire, ABC News was setting up their cameras, only to catch the plane crashing into the second building, before we see the camera man and broadcaster running for cover. We can’t even imagine the feelings of these folks.
Shiny and New
The Boy Scouts have always taken charity and good deeds seriously, but back in the ‘50s, they took it a step further with a fundraising week they liked to call “Bob a Job Week.”
Image by Gabrielle Sousa/MJ
During this week, each Scout did odd jobs in exchange for a “bob” or a shilling at the time. This photo shows a boy scout engaging in some major shoeshining to get their fair share of some change.
Uniform check
Back in the '60s, commercial passenger flights were becoming more and more affordable - and airlines were trying to make themselves more appealing and enticing for potential customers. One thing they did to promote themselves was the introduction of ever more skimpy uniforms for their flight crews. Various airlines became known for their "adventurous" outfits - but the trend, blissfully, blew over by the mid '70s.
Daily Mail /Shutterstock (1438547a)
Here, Boac Stewardess Patricia Bleasdale is Wearing The New Paper Dress Uniform At London Airport
Up the Walls
Our moms used to yell that we were driving them up the walls with our shenanigans, but these women seem to be taking the phrase a little too literally. Said to be taken at a Russian mental institute in the ‘50s, we’re having a hard time being okay with what we’re looking at.
Image by Gabrielle Sousa/MJ
How these women have managed to climb up the walls and keep themselves ssupsended like this, we’re not exactly sure. We never knew levitating was possible, but these women make us believe in anything.
Looking for employment in 1930
"I know 3 trades, I speak 3 languages, fought for 3 years, have 3 children and no work for 3 months. But I only want one job."
Image via Imgur
During the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1933, people did whatever they could to find jobs. It is considered the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world.
The HMS Daphne
Rescued slaves crowd the deck of the HMS Daphne, 1868.
HMS Daphne was an Amazon-class sloop of the Royal Navy that focused on anti-slavery operations off the east coast of Africa. As vessels were carrying slaves on the main slaving route of Zanzibar to Aden, the Royal Navy was tasked to provide a strong 'policing’ presence in the western Indian Ocean.
Image via Wikipedia
After Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, the royal nave sent many ships on the mission to stop slave trade.
Easter Eggs
U.S. soldiers of 969th Field Artillery Battalion decorate shells they're delivering to the front line in Germany, 1944.
Image via Wikipedia
The United States joined the second world war in 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They joined the allied countries that consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom to fight the Axis powers, also known as the Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, which included Italy, Germany and Japan. The American sentiment was generally anti-German, even before the country joined the war.
Jesse Owens wins gold in Nazi Germany, 1936
Despite all the hate, he proved to be the best!
Owens was an American track and field athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist in the 1936 Games that took place in Nazi Germany. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and as a black man he, according to ESPN, "single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy."
Image via Wikipedia
The Jesse Owens Award is the US' Track and Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete.
Celebrations
Celebrations of the victory over Nazi Germany. Moscow, May 9th, 1945.
Victory Day is celebrated by most allied countries on May 8th, but the Soviet Union chose to celebrate it one day later, on May 9th.
Sovfoto/Universal Images Group/Shutterstock (3829477a)
In this stunning photograph, the Soviet capital of Moscow is lit up in celebration of the long awaited victory over the Nazis, and the end of a long, greulling and deeply traumatic war.
The last photograph of the Titanic afloat, 1912
This photograph was taken by John Morrogh at around 2 PM on April 11th 1912 as Titanic was leaving Queenstown, Ireland. It's confirmed that this is the last photo of the famous liner.
Image via Imgur
The Titanic drowned in April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. An estimated 2,224 passengers and crew were aboard, and more than 1,500 died, making it one of the deadliest commercial peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.
Polar Bears Exploring the Arctic
When we think about the Soviet Union in the ‘50s, our minds might quickly rush to the post war despair. But even in moments of hardships, there are always moments of purity and joy.
Image via Imgur
Just like this touching candid 1950 photograph of Soviet Union soldiers feeding polar bears during an Arctic Exploration. This might’ve been the first time that these beautiful creatures have ever seen something like a tank before, and seem to be quite excited about it.
Building Rushmore
This is a staged photo of a worker hanging from Jefferson’s eye lid on Mount Rushmore c. 1934.
Everett Collection/Shutterstock (10282427a)
Sculpting the American presidents on Mount Rushmore was a huge task that took almost 13 years to complete. 400 people worked to carve the presidents into the mountainside. The original plan was to carve their bodies as well, but that proved to be too ambitious - the project ran out of time and money and had to stop with the heads.
Claude Monet
This photo shows Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter, in 1923. Monet (1840-1926) stands in front of one of the vast canvases of the waterlilies he painted in the last years of his lives in his garden at Giverny.
Monet was a rebel back in the day. He founded the Impressionist movement, which focused on drawing reality as the artist sees it, and not realistically.
Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images
Tragically, Monet started losing his sight in his later years, and had to draw the little he could see.
Futuristic Postcards
It's fun to look at an image from 1900 depicting what the Germans imagined the year 2000 would look like. Totally real, right?
Image via Imgur
To be honest, the sentiment depicted in the postcard is very much true - today, people DO have wings! Humans have developed technologies in the past century that help us travel in short times, talk to people on the other side of the world. Our metaphorical wings allow us to never stay grounded.
Train of Tomorrow
Mid-20th century America was obsessed with the future. The new prosperity of the country after the war made everybody optimistic, and car companies were doing better than ever.
Future-minded engineers and designers competed on designing the perfect vehicle for the modern American family.
Underwood Archives/UIG/Shutterstock (3838192a)
In this photo, we see an observation lounge car of General Motor's "Train of Tomorrow" in 1947. The train is now on a national exhibit tour of the major cities in the US.
Exposing the Sphinx
The Great Sphinx of Giza partially excavated, 1860's.
Image via Wikipedia
The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. It is located on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians c. 2558–2532 BC.
Cars of the Modern Age
The 1950' were the Era of the Automobile in the States. American families had more income than ever and were moving to the suburbs. Cars were a status symbol of prosperity and modernization - which is why many cars of that era are design to look like airplanes!
Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images
In the photo, we see models pose with a collection of General Motors' cars in Michigan in 1956.
Behind the Scenes of "Star Wars"
Actors Peter Mayhew, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher (1956-2016), and Kenny Baker (1934-2016), co-stars in the first Star Wars trilogy, are pictured in the UK at May 20, 1980.
Photo by Chris Ball/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Filming Star Wars was as thrilling as watching it, and the series' co-stars became close friends during shooting. Carrie fisher was known for her sense of humor and love of pranks - she'd chase other cast members with squirt guns and make Mark Hamill walk around the set in her outfits and ridiculous floral robes just for fun.
Dolly Parton and Carl Dean
If you couldn’t tell by that glamorous hair-do, then we’re happy to present to you one super cute couple pic of Dolly Parton and the love of her life, Carl Dean.
This vintage picture was taken in 1966, the same year that the two of them exchanged their ‘I Dos’ and tied the knot.
Image via Imgur
In a 2018 interview with People, Dolly Parton shared, “I always joke and laugh when people ask me what's the key to my long marriage and lasting love. I always say ‘Stay gone!’ and there’s a lot of truth to that. I travel a lot, but we really enjoy each other when we’re together and the little things we do.”
Anthony Bourdain’s Apartment Kitchen
Anthony Bourdain was one of the most cherished and iconic chefs in the whole world.
In this photograph from 1986, a 30-year-old Bourdain is prepping a delicious meal in his New York City apartment.
It wouldn’t be until a few years later that he would become the famous culinary expert that we know and love today.
Image via Imgur
He wasn’t just famous for what he put on the plate, but also what he whipped up together in his books, like in his famous 2000’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.