Beautiful Vintage Photos Bring the Past to Life

Hayworth came into prominence during that strange time in Hollywood when starlets were stripped of everything that made them unique so they could be placed into any film that their contract requested.

Even though Hayworth had her name changed (she was born Margarita Carmen Cansino) and had her hair thinned by electrolysis she brought a seriousness and joy to her roles. Director George Cukor told The New York Times:

She had natural elegance. I saw that immediately, before they fixed her hair, something I may have contributed to did ask for Rita on her first loan out, ‘Susan and God,’ where she really had little to do. Yes, I knew, right away, she wasn't just another pretty girl. Rita made some of her material better than it was.

Sophia Loren has been one of the most eye catching actress since her debut in the 1951 film Quo Vadis when she was only 17 years old. Since then she’s appeared in a myriad of roles. In all that time it’s never felt like she’s made a misstep.

When asked if there’s anything she would have done differently with her life, Loren offered this sage advice:

In a long, long career like I had—and by the way, I have—it’s very difficult to be able to criticize some of the moments that you do by yourself that you never tell to other people. It’s a very normal thing to do because you cannot every time have a big victory – no, there have been moments, maybe weak moments, where you did something that you are not really very happy about.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a crush on Brigitte Bardot. A cinema idol for multiple generations of people, her inherent French mystique brought her from Paris and cast her into stardom at a young age. 

As one of the most famous women on the planet throughout the 1950s and ‘60s the one thing that she didn’t have was anonymity, something that she so deeply wanted. She explained to The Guardian:

I don’t know what it means to sit quietly in a bistro, on a terrace, or in the theatre without being approached by someone.

America faced one of its lowest lows on October 29, 1929 when Wall Street investors traded nearly 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange, losing billions of dollars and breaking thousands of investors in one day.

Black Tuesday was the final day of a six day anarchic whirlwind at the Stock Exchange with investment bankers attempting to stabilize the market by buying massive blocks of stock. On Tuesday, stock prices completely collapsed.

This nadir of the Stock Exchange didn’t just wipe out the coffers of investors, it caused the industrialized world to spiral out of control, pushing the United States into the Great Depression.

There’s something fun about this photo of these three luminaries at the top of their field. Aside from being the tallest, smallest, and biggest people on the planet what do you think that these men had to talk about… aside from their bets of course.

Photos like this, which show people who are at the fringes of the human race, have always been fascinating for viewers. Whether it be a morbid need to see how someone else lives or just the enjoyment of seeing something so strange saved to celluloid.

These men clearly made the best of the curveballs life has thrown them. They deserve a good round of poker.

The Mona Lisa is one of the most - if not THE MOST - well known and beloved painting in the world and it’s been stolen multiple times but during World War 2 the painting was sitting pretty in the Louvre, meaning that it had to be kept safe from the Nazis.

Jacques Jaujard, director of France's National Museums, concocted a plot to keep the art in the Louvre, including the Mona Lisa, from falling into the hands of Nazis.

On August 25, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union announced their Nonaggression Pact and Jaujard closed the three days “for repairs.” During this time the Louvre staff removed paintings from their frames (if that was a possibility), moved statues, and placed these items in wooden crates.

The crates were then marked with red dots to mark the significance of the art (the Mona Lisa received three dots) and on August 28, 1939, hundreds of trucks carrying 1,000 creates of artifacts and 268 crates of paintings to the Loire Valley where the art was kept far from bombing targets. 

This photo from 1954 of Arsenal goalkeeper Jack Kelsey looking into the fog for an elusive ball is often mistaken for a viral story from 1937. In that story a game was played during such a foggy day that a goal keeper stayed on the pitch for 15 minutes until after the game was called.

The story that this photo is often misattributed to comes from a game played on Christmas Day in 1937 when Chelsea played Stamford Ridge. Due to a dense fog the game had to be called after 61 minutes. Unfortunately no one told Stamford Bridge’s goalkeeper. He later explained:

I paced up and down my goal-line, happy in the knowledge that Chelsea were being pinned in their own half. ‘The boys must be giving the Pensioners the hammer,’ I thought smugly, as I stamped my feet for warmth… After a long time a figure loomed out of the curtain of fog in front of me. It was a policeman, and he gaped at me incredulously. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he gasped. ‘The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago. The field’s completely empty’. And when I groped my way to the dressing-room, the rest of the Charlton team, already out of the bath and in their civvies, were convulsed with laughter.

This photo is absolutely breathtaking. Imagine wading out into the tide driven waters of the ocean with a live fire hanging over your head as the only thing to use while fishing with a spear.

Hawaiians have been using spears to fish in shallow water for generations, usually strong woods like kauila, o`a, koai`e, and uhiuhi. These spears had to be six or seven feet long, and of course they had to have a sharp point at the end.

They lit their night excursions and enticed fish to their spears with the light of kukui-nut torches made of coconut leaves attached to homemade poles. If they needed a brighter light they burned the nuts in a large piece of bamboo. 

Albert Einstein wasn’t the kind of egg head who just liked to pal around with other scientists and talk math all day. He was imaginative, funny, and he thought of himself as an artist so it makes sense that he enjoyed Chaplin’s work.

The two were introduced by Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Studios, and after a dinner at Chaplin’s the two became close friends. Chaplin and Einstein attended the premiere of City Lights together in 1931 along with Einstein’s wife Elsa. 

Supposedly Einstein said that he was envious of Chaplin’s fame because without a word the world understands him, to which Chaplin replied, “But your fame is even greater… the world admires you when nobody understands you.”

During World War I Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence had an extremely unique position in the Middle East. He worked as a British demolition artist working with Arab rebel allies to attack bridges and isolated depots belonging to the Ottoman Empire.

Aside from being the subject of Lawrence Of Arabia, Lawrence was the most prolific demolition expert of the era. He says that he blew up 79 bridges along the railway, destroying bridges so they had to be torn down before they could be reconstructed.

Lawrence did so much damage to the Ottoman railways that many of them are still standing today, the Turkish military just left some of the rubble rather than tear it down. Much of the destroyed railways still stand today.

Measuring at a minuscule 30 inches in height, Henry Behrens was the smallest man in the world during his life. He weighed only about 32 pounds and he toured the world with Burton Lester’s troupe of little people.

In the late 1940s and ‘50s Behrens was a bit of a fascination with people who were “abnormal” or out of the usual. This kind of obsession didn’t bother Behrens, he loved being in the spotlight and all the pleasures that it brought him. Why else would he be dancing with a cat? You don’t put yourself in danger of getting scratched if you don’t want to be famous.

For just over an hour and a half following the assassination of John F. Kennedy the United States was without a president. On November 22, 1963, the world was shocked when Kennedy was shot in broad daylight while driving through Dallas.

Still in the grips of chaos and confusion, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president on Air Force One as it sat on the tarmac at Dallas’ Love Field.

This photo shows the anxiety of the moment, as Johnson is flanked by a blood stained First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and his wife Lady Bird Johnson. Johnson’s new cabinet and FBI agents watch on, uncertain of how the future is going to play out.

Taken by Felice Beato, the original version of this photo was hand colored by the photographer. He preferred to take full-length portraits taken in the studio in order to focus on the traditional costumes and traditions of the culture that fascinated him.

His photos of Japan and Japanese traditions featured vignetting around the edges in order to give them a more painterly quality. The traditional armored costume shown here was worn by the samurai, a soldier of a noble class who carried out the wishes of Japan’s rulers from the 12th century until the 1800s.

It's not exactly clear what the samurai is holding in his hand, but even if its a tickle weapon this guy has enough sharp implements on him that will make you want to keep your distance.

Throughout his 40 years as a photographer Ernst Haas staggered the line between photojournalist and artist. When taking photos of soldiers returning from World War 2 it’s impossible not to provide some kind of look into history regardless of the artfulness of the work.

His photo essay “Homecoming” show the confusion and desperation of post war Europe, especially when on the hunt for lost relatives among the survivors of concentration camps. The photo essay was a hit and Haas received a number of job offers from the success - all of which he turned down. He explained:

What I want is to stay free, so that I can carry out my ideas... I don’t think there are many editors who could give me the assignments I give myself.

Following their engagement, John F. Kennedy and Jacquelyn Bouvier went on a trip to to the Kennedy family home in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod with a reporter in tow to capture their newly engaged bliss.

An entire issue of Life Magazine was dedicated to their engagement photos. It was published on July 20 with the headline “Senator Kennedy Goes a-Courting.” It’s clear that Jackie loves John in these photos, but she later explained that her love wasn’t meant to be taken as putting him on a pedestal: 

Now, I think that I should have known that he was magic all along. I did know it — but I should have guessed that it would be too much to ask to grow old with and see our children grow up together. So now, he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man.

As strange as it may sound, Civil War veterans were still alive and kicking well into the 20th century. Famously, the last surviving Civil War veteran passed away in 1956, although it’s likely that there were a few more kicking around at the same time.

During the Civil War there young men were conscripted into battle if they could hold a gun and follow orders, which means that some veterans likely had entire adult lives to lead after they served in the bloodiest war fought on American soil. Imagine the kinds of stories that guys like this must have had.

The life of Winston Churchill was sculpted by his dedication to Great Britain and its army. As a member of the 4th Queen's Hussar's Cavalry the young Churchill recognized that he was serving during “the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian Era,” a time when England was totally unchallenged as a military force.

During his time as a member of Hussar’s Cavalry Churchill’s time was divided between a seven month summer training season of training and five months of extended leave.

During a period of leave in 1895 Churchill took off for Cuba in order to have a personal adventure before shipping off to India with the rest of his regiment.

We tend to think of Albert Einstein as this vaulted genius who handed down theories and equations from on high, but he was nothing like that. Einstein didn’t see himself as God’s gift to intellect, but as an artist whose medium was science. In 1929 he told the Saturday Evening Post:

I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am… [but] I would have been surprised if I had been wrong… I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

By combining knowledge, imagination, and inspiration Einstein was able to open himself up to discoveries that many scientists and heavy thinkers would likely ignore.

Explorations of the Arctic were all the rage at the turn of the century. Explorers were competing with one another to be the first person to reach the South Pole and in 1911 British explorer Robert Falcon Scott set out on the Terra Nova Expedition to make his mark on history.

The party experienced intense blizzards, animals that dropped due to the bone chilling cold, and claims that the men were on nothing more than a “pole hunt.”

On January 16, 1912, after nearly a year of hardship Scott’s team set out across the Great Ice Barrier and journeyed through white nothingness until they reached a flag, they’d been beaten to the poll by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen by a month.

We tend of think of Charlie Chaplin as his most famous character the Tramp, but he was nothing like the bowler hat wearing, down on his luck man that he portrayed onscreen.

He started his life as a boy in poverty, the son of a failing actress, but he quickly took to the stage and made his way to America from London. It didn’t take long before he was a sensation. While performing in the New York vaudeville world the concept of the Tramp came to him via memories of his father. He explained:

It was just released whole from somewhere deep within my father, it was really my father’s alter ego, the little boy who never grew up: ragged, cold, hungry, but still thumbing his nose at the world.

Salvador Dalí is a timeless artist that never really feels in places at any decade, but in the early 20th century he was turning heads with his surreal paintings and post modern visual experiments. His early trips to New York City helped the artist form a broader idea of his art form and inspired him throughout the rest of his life.

On his first trip to the city with his wife Gala, Dalí travelled on board the Champlain from France and that his cabin was on one of the lower decks near the machine rooms.

Patroness Caresse Crosby notes that Dalí flourished where some members of the ship might have been agitated. He noted, “I am next to the engine, so that I’ll get there quicker.”

During World War 2 men were pulled away from the amor force in order to enlist in the fight against Japan and Germany. To fill the void left in the labor market women took on jobs in manufacturing, utilities, and transportation.

Nearly 2 million women from all over the country took up jobs on assembly lines and in plants where they produced pieces of armaments and machinery for the war effort.

During the war the amount of women in the workplace increased from 27 percent to 37 percent, meaning nearly one out of every four married women were working outside of the home by 1945. These women were just as important to winning World War 2 as the men overseas and we salute them.

As a member of the White Rose Resistance Sophie Scholl was one of the few Germans who worked against the Naxis out in the open. Or as out in the open as she could. Her group was an underground non-violent resistance movement who passed out flyers and passively resisted the Nazi movement.

She was arrested at the University of Munich on February 18, 1943 while she and members of her group were distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. She dumped a suitcase full of fliers over a staircase at the university so they’d all float down, but she was spotted by a worker who was sympathetic to the Nazi cause.

Scholl was sent to People Court on February 21, 1943 and sentenced to execution. Her final words were:

Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go... What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?

After the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 no one was allowed to cross regardless of if they were a child, a worker, or even someone who was lost on one side of the wall by accident. If you were in the east when it went up that’s where you stayed.

In 1963 a border pass agreement was reached which allowed the people of West Berlin to visit the eastern side of the city.

This small humanitarian effort wasn’t a perfect solution but it created some relief for the people who were still in shock after the wall went up. After all, many of the people of Germany hadn’t seen their family for at least two years. It took another 25 years before the wall came down permanently.

There’s no spy with a story as murky as Mata Hari, the dancer turned spy during World War I who combined sexuality and espionage to catch a grasp of the public’s minds in both fiction and reality.

Even before she was a star Mata Hari was amazing at impersonating a different figure. Her early dances saw her masquerading as Lady MacLeod, the daughter of an English lord even though she used an Eastern dancing style.

Mara Hari’s career as a spy was short lived even if it did become thing of legend. She pawned herself off to various military leaders, which earned her a place in front of a firing squad on Oct. 15, 1917. She refused a blindfold and blew a kiss to the men taking her life.

By the end of World War 2 much of Europe was in rubbles regardless of which side of the fighting they were on. Poland saw some of the most devastating destruction of the war, leaving the country a waste land where once beautiful structures stood.

Survivors tried to get back to regular life, but how do you go back to the before times when your city has fallen apart. Photographers did their best to make life feel normal, if not beautiful by creating back drops that made it look as if the war had never happened - or if it did that the subject didn’t know anything of it, that they hadn’t been affected.

It may seem like these people were ignoring the horrors of war, but this is the only way they could get through it.

After four years of Nazi occupation Paris was finally liberated on August 25, 1944. The writing was on the wall for German forces so they didn’t put up much of a fight when the French 2nd Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division rolled into town to take back the city of lights.

According to legend Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison in Paris, to destroy the Eiffel Tower and burn the city to the ground rather than allow it to be liberated. Rather than destroy so much beauty Choltitz simply surrendered to the forces.

Two days later there was a liberation march through the Champs d’Elysees, Paris was once again free.

Going into the Battle of Normandy, a horrendous fight that lasted from June 1944 to August 1944 over the control of Western Europe must have been a stomach churning experience for these soldiers.

As some 156,000 American, British and Canadian soldiers made their way towards 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region did they know that they would be fighting non stop for almost a month?

The fighting began on June 6, but it was meant to start a day earlier. A bad weather delay held off the attack for 24 hours, as the troops shipped out Eisenhower told them:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.

The dust bowl made Americans migrants in their own country, running from the devastation of their homes and farms to pacific coast in search of a seasonal job. These hard working Americans were seen as nothing more than intruders who wanted to suck the government coffers dry.

Enticed to California by flyers offering jobs as crop hands, these migrant workers were derided by California residents who were also looking for work during the Great Depression.

Many of the immigrants who came in search of work were mired in poverty, and the lucky ones were given jobs picking seasonal fruit and vegetables for barely any money.

When Germany took over much Europe at the onset of World War 2 it was like a shock akin to being thrown into a cold bath. No one expected the Nazis to move as quickly as they did and with such brutality.

As the war went on resistance fighters from across the continent formed their own secret groups and struck back at the Germans, slowly winning their countries back.

The Dutch resistance group helped the allies with counterintelligence, domestic sabotage, and communications within the occupied country and in 1944 the southern part of the country was liberated, it took another eight months to regain control of the Northern part of the Netherlands.

It’s no surprise that JFK and Jacqueline Bouvier had a storybook wedding, after all they were America’s couple. Stealing away to Rhode Island for their nuptials on September 12, 1953, they were the focus of media scrutiny the likes had never seen before.

Their union was as close as the United States has ever gotten to a royal wedding, with hundreds of kookie-loos outside of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church waiting to see the newlyweds.

Following a blessing from Pope Pius XII, the couple were married by Richard Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston and a close personal friend of the Kennedy family.

Well known cheek and literary genius Oscar Wilde spent much of his time on Earth either writing brilliant works of salacious art or dishing out sass like he was getting paid for it.

In 1882 he came to the United States and spent a year traveling across its wide expanses and visiting cities like San Francisco. During that time he gave 150 lectures and ended up speaking to 200,000 people. At one point he even spent the night in a silver mine in Colorado, an evening that he loved. He explained:

I dined with the men down there. They were great, strong, well-formed men, of graceful attitude and free motion. Poems everyone one of them. A complete democracy underground. I find people less rough and coarse in such places. There is no chance for roughness. The revolver is their book of etiquette.

Born in Edinburgh in 1875, Marie of Romania was wed to Crown Prince Ferdinand in 1892. She gave up her life in the fields of England to become a beloved monarch in Eastern Europe. Researchers say that it’s because of her that Ferdinand allied himself with the English against Germany.

After more than 20 years in the wilds of Romania, the King and Queen went on a diplomatic tour of Western Europe in 1924. They visited France, Switzerland, Belgium and the United Kingdom where they were openly welcomed by King George V who announced welcomed the couple saying:

Apart from the common aims, which we pursue, there are other and dear ties between us. Her Majesty the Queen, my dear cousin, is British born.

Martin Luther King Jr. spearheaded the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, delivering fiery speeches that called for the end of segregation, not through violence but through loving your neighbor in spite of their faults (no matter how racist they might be) and turning the other cheek.

Six months after the March on Washington novelist Robert Penn Warren spoke to King about how he wanted to use non-violence to create an integrated society. King explained:

I think [violence and hatred] will end up creating many more social problems than they solve, and I'm thinking of a very strong love. I'm not, I'm thinking, I'm thinking of love in action and not something where you say, 'Love your enemies,' and just leave it at that, but you love your enemies to the point that you're willing to sit-in at a lunch counter in order to help them find themselves. You're willing to go to jail.

Quite possibly the most important Democrat National Convention that ever occurred happened in July 1960, when Senator John F. Kennedy scratched and clawed his way to a nomination for Democratic candidate with his brother at his side as campaign manager.

Kennedy was facing off against multiple old guard Democrats but his fiery, take no prisoners attitude caught the elder statesmen off guard and he earned his spot at the top of the card. Taken by John Loengard, this photo shows a moment between the two brothers where John was telling Robert about his pick for VP. Loengard explains:

I was doing a story on Bobby Kennedy. The morning after Jack was nominated, we went up to his room. The brothers talked very quietly, and Jack told Bobby he wasn’t going to choose [labor union leader] Walter Reuther for Vice President. . . . I waited outside for Bobby to come out. When he did, he was furious. We were walking back down the stairs, and Bobby was hitting his hand like this, saying ‘Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.’ You know, he really hated [Lyndon] Johnson.

During World War 2 everyone throughout the allied nations wanted to do their part for the war effort, even Princess Elizabeth. She wanted to be apart of the effort so badly that she spent months pestering her father to allow her to do something for her country.

Finally, when she was 18 years old, she was allowed to join the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service where she trained as a mechanic and a truck driver while also acting as an ambulance driver.

Queen Elizabeth may seem stuffy, but during World War 2 she was gung ho as anyone to make sure that freedom rang throughout Europe.

Rosa Parks was working long hours as a seamstress in a department store in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, when she boarded a bus on December 1, 1955.

As the bus became crowded with white passengers she was told to move to the back but she stayed put and was arrested for the crime of sitting calmly in a seat while black. Park’s arrest led to a 13 month boycott of Montgomery’s city busses - one of the first and largest acts of black activism in the country at the time.

The boycott not only put a spotlight on the Civil Rights movement but it made the 26 year old Martin Luther King Jr. into the national concern as a leader for a new era of American politics.

When the RMS Titanic went down into the Atlantic Ocean on the night of April 14, 1912, many children on board lost their parents to the waves. However, the only children who lost their mother and father was twin boys Michel and Edmond Navratil.

These boys survived the sinking of the Titanic by making their way onto the Collapsable D, the ninth and final life-saving vessel. After the boys were placed onto the lifeboat by their father he was told to remain on board the doomed ship.

Until the French children could be taken back to their home country to be taken care of by a family member they were watched over by a Titanic survivor who spoke French. In a strange twist of fate authorities discovered that the children’s mother was alive in Nice, France.

Their mother had no idea that her boys were being taken to France by their father. She had full custody of the boys and thought that they’d been kidnapped, she had no idea how right she was.

Taken two years before his death, this photo shows Leo Tolstoy basking in the love of his family. His writing at the time dealt with his coming end and the way he believed that love was the most important thing to him in his final days. He wrote:

Love is life. Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

He passed away at the age of 82 from pneumonia. Thousands of Russian peasants lined the streets at his funeral procession in spite of the police’s attempts to keep them away.

Jesse Owens bolted to stardom during the 1936 Olympics that took place in Nazi Germany. At the time the Amateur Athletic Union was unsure if American athletes should compete in Berlin. It was agreed that America would attend by a narrow margin but Owens says that he didn’t care about politics, he just wanted to show that he was the best of the best.

Owens was encouraged to boycott the games by Civil Rights groups, but he decided to compete none the less. Upon arrival in Berlin Owens had a cold reception. Racial epithets were spat at him and he dealt with all manner of mistreatment.

When the games got underway Owens crammed those racist epithets down the throats of Hitler and Nazis when he won four gold medals, more than any American track and field athlete at any one Olympic Games.

A lover of the cinema, Winston Churchill, was a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin. Even though they were politically at odds Churchill and Chaplin were admirers of one another and Chaplin was Churchill’s guest at Chartwell two times in his life.

When Churchill visited the United States in 1929 he and Chaplin hung out a few times, first at a party organized by William Randolph Hearst and later at the Bitmore Hotel for dinner.

Following the premiere of City Lights in 1931, Chaplin went to England and was met by beloved crowds and he ended up dining with Churchill at his home, entertaining his children with tricks, and bantering about revolutionaries like Ghandi.

Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 women weren’t allowed to wear their traditional veils and the police were ordered to remove any headscarves that they saw. At the time women were excited about wearing Westernized clothing, including jeans, miniskirts, and short-sleeved tops.

Young women dressed up, they went to the beach and they had picnics. According to Professor Haleh Afshar from Tehran University:

Picnics are an important part of Iranian culture and are very popular amongst the middle classes. This has not changed since the revolution. The difference is, nowadays, men and women sitting together are much more self-aware and show more restraint in their interactions.

In five short years Grace Kelly went from an unknown actress to one of the most sought after stars in the world - and then she became a literal princess. She grew up the daughter of a three time Olympic gold medallist who owned a construction company worth millions and a mother who was champion swimmer and cover model. Kelly was nurtured to be successful on the big screen.

After high school she refused to take her parent’s money and paid her way with modeling gigs. She nabbed a Cosmo cover and took whatever print ads came her way.

Even though she was stunningly beautiful and whip smart success still eluded her. After she was cast in Mogambo things turned around. When audiences saw her shoot her sweetheart on screen they were enamored. She received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and the Golden Globe.