Historical photographs

From the first blurry daguerreotypes, to modern digital pictures, photos have one thing in common - capturing still moments for all time. And in my opinion, there is nothing more powerful in creating emotions than a good picture. History is full of them. So, i thought, we could have a thread were we could post our favorite photos from history, pictures of significant historical events, or anything otherwise interesting Also it would be nice, and informative, if a little info could go with the pictures posted.

So, I will make a start with this:


This is one of the 2 known photos of the "Tank man" of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The man appears to be standing still, holding two bags, while the tanks are approaching in the distance. A few moments later, the column of Tanks would stop, as the unknown person refused to leave his spot - at least for a while, before someone else came and took him away. More info about the unknown "Tank man" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

A photograph of war, and one of the most iconic WWII photos:


December 29, 1940. The dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul's in London, emerges from the smoke of raging fires. At the same moment heroic fire crews around the cathedral were fighting to save the monument from destruction. A symbol of the endurance of the British people against the Luftwaffe bombings.

Sorry if this is a little too grim...



Personal story bout this photo. My journalism teacher in High School was a Marine MP advisor during Vietnam and was attached to a South Vietnamese police unit. Evidently this was Mr. White's unit and in fact he said he was just off screen when this photo was taken. The backstory he gave us was that this was the police chief and he had just been told that a entire group of his officers had been ambushed and executed while off duty in a restaurant. The next second they being up this prisoner.

This doesn't defend cold blooded execution, but explains his mindset in this famous photo.

From 1911 this photo was taken at Borodino for the 100th anniversary of the battle. The building, a monastery, was build at the site of the fleches and the pictures looks west towards the French lines.

1984 - NASA astronaut Dale Gardner during space shuttle mission STS-51A holds a "FOR SALE" sign in space, in a nod to the malfunctioned satellites he and another astronaut, Joe Allen salvaged while flying in jetpacks

Iconic photo of Vladimir Herzog, a dissident journalist against the Brazilian military dictatorship, which tortured him to death and claimed he committed suicide:

Moderator Action: Image removed - please keep them family-friendly.

Images taken of veterans of the Napoleonic wars in 1858 wearing original uniforms. Bunch more here: https://library.brown.edu/collections/askb/veterans.php

Quartermaster Fabry, 1st Hussars

The Christmas truce, 1914. British and German soldiers pose together for the camera. A gallant gesture of humanity, by people who were captured inside the madness of the most inhumane machine of war, a war that turned men into beasts ... captured forever in photographic film.

Don't let a bit of football to get in the way.

This photo's always been very striking to me. This is a shot of Confederate troops marching through Fredrick, Maryland, in 1862 on their way to Sharpsburg, MD.

What sticks with me is how, unlike the overflow of canned photos of the war; portraits, mock battles, posed bodies, etc., this is just a live snapshot of actual soldiers marching off to death and destruction. It appears that somebody happened to notice a camera in the window and his mates just turned to see what he was looking at.

The old thread has a lot of good stuff.

This one by Bugfatty on the first page is pretty cool:

Bugfatty300 said:

This is a photograph I took of a photograph at the Cerro Buffa museum in Zacatecas. One of Pancho Villa's men with a punt gun. There was no caption and I can't read the cursive writing on the photo.

What practical use they would have had for such a ludicrously oversized weapon is anyone's guess. Maybe it was just loot that Villa's men found in the city after the battle.

Click to expand...

There's some good ones in that thread. I was particular struck by this pair, taken on the Polish border just after the end of the war:


German and Soviet soldiers chatting over a tank.


Heinz Guderian chatting to a Soviet officer during a joint victory parade in Brest.

EDIT: And, for different reasons, this one:


Some kind soul bringing cakes to pro-democracy soldiers during the Romanian revolution of 1989.

A sort of early fax-machine, printing out a daily paper to the receiver in a house (circa 1938?)

This is the first ever picture of a human being, taken in the Boulevard du Temple in Paris in 1838:


Due to the exposure time of the photograph being over 10 minutes, the street appears empty because the traffic was moving too fast to be captured. The exception was the man in the bottom left corner who was having his shoes polished and so he stood still long enough. Unknown to him, he became the first human being ever captured in film - although probably the shoe polisher can also be seen, if just by a little.

I wonder, are there any modern photos taken from around the same point of view ? It would be interesting to see a comparison.