30 Rare Historical Photos That Show A Side Of History Nobody Talks About
We all think we know history from textbooks and documentaries, but sometimes a single photograph can reveal something completely unexpected.
These rare images capture those surprising moments that didn’t make it into the history books. They make you see the past like never before.
1. The World Trade Center under construction in 1970. Designed by Minoru Yamasaki, work began on the foundations in 1966, with tower construction starting in 1968. The complex opened to the public in 1973.
2. Katherine Johnson, an African American mathematician, played a foundational role at NASA.
3. This Is A Picture Of Hannah Stilley, And It Was Taken In 1840. Why Is This Important? She Was Born In 1749 And That Makes Her The Earliest Born Human Being To Ever Have Their Picture Taken..
4. A Police Officer And His Dog Riding A Motorcycle, 1930
5. In 1929, Vivian Bales Embarked On A Remarkable Journey That Would Cement Her Place In History. Over The Course Of 78 Days, She Rode Her 1929 Harley Davidson Across The Country, Covering A Staggering 5,000 Miles
6. Rosa Parks’ Mugshot. Thursday, December 1, 1955 Montgomery, Alabama USA
7. Behind the Scenes of “Godzilla” in 1954. The film opened in Japan in 1954 and sold approximately 9.6 million tickets, gaining a lot of money for the time.
8. An old woman who fled the warzone with her cow, sits on a bench in Amiens, France, 28th March 1918.
9. Wiring one of the first IBM computers, 1958
10. This Photo Was Taken Of Miners At The End Of Their Shift During The Gilded Age Before They Were Unionized
11. Curious East End children look down a tight alley in Bow, London, while one boy steadies himself between the walls in this 1914 photo by Norah Smyth.
12. A married couple who had been separated for 10 months were reunited at a women’s camp in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1948.
13. The Bicyclers, 1946 by Hermann Landshoff
14. What 5 megabytes of computer data looked like in 1966: 62,500 punched cards, taking four days to load.
15. Phototherapy of neonatal jaundice Nurse sister Jean Ward invented this kind of treatment back in 1956
16. Students listening to music during art class, 1957.
17. The Postman. Bulgaria, 1971 by Jacko Vassilev
18. Mask against Depression, 1937
19. Dance teacher Patsy Swayze, center, with her daughter-in-law Lisa Niemi and son Patrick Swayze, 1978
20. Brooklyn bridge under construction in 1880
21. The first interracial marriage in Mississippi, 1970. 3 years earlier, the 1967 Loving v. Virginia SCOTUS ruling legalized interracial marriage in the US.
22. Sabrina Chebichi Kenyan athlete who won a marathon in 1973 barefoot and wearing a dress
23. A sailor “meets” his baby for the first time after fourteen months at sea, 1940s.
24. Aboriginal Tasmanian Fanny Cochrane Smith singing into her phonograph in 1903. Without her efforts to preserve her culture we would have no audio traces of the Tasmanian language. Pretty OSC.
25. Dorothy Counts, the first black girl to attend an all-white school in the U.S., being taunted by her white classmates at Harry Harding High School in Charlotte, 1957.
26. The Israeli Siege of West Beirut in 1982, photographed by Catherine Leroy
27. The 1970 hijacking of a JAL flight by the Red Army
28. Jim Morrison in Teotihuacán, Mexico, 1969
29. Tourists take tea atop the Great Pyramid, 1938.
30. “The couple had been married for 18 months and had a 6-month-old daughter. The 160th Infantry Regiment was departing for training camp, part of the Korean War troop call-up on Sept. 6, 1950.”
