35 Utterly Unique Photos From History You’ve Probably Never Seen
I’m a huge history nerd, so I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit digging through old archives, documentaries, and dusty corners of the internet looking for fascinating moments from the past.
That’s why it always surprises me when I come across photos I’ve genuinely never seen before.
These images capture history in a way textbooks never could, showing small, human moments that feel almost unreal decades later.
Even if you think you’ve seen it all, these rare snapshots prove there’s always more hiding out there, waiting to remind us just how strange, beautiful, and unpredictable our history really is.
1. On this day in 1996 the Port Arthur Massacre in Australia began, 35 people were killed and 23 were wounded. Australia immediately went about reforming gun laws and around 650,000 firearms were collected and destroyed. This photo shows some of the guns collected.
2. Mary Vincent photographed in 1978. 15yo Mary survived being assaulted, having her arms cut off with an axe by her attacker, being thrown down a 30 ft cliff and left for dead. She packed the stumps with mud and climbed back up, walked 3 miles naked in search of help. I’ve linked to her story below.
3. Tsar Nicholas II lighting a smoke for Anastasia in 1916.
4. Bob Marley with a bandaged toe on his tour bus,1977. The same toe that would ultimately lead to his death in 1981
5. Former first lady Jackie Kennedy, who lost her husband in 1963, offers her condolences to Coretta Scott King at Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral. April 9, 1968.
6. My grandmother and her friend, 1940s
7. Pope Francis (then Jorge Mario Bergoglio) riding a subway in Argentina. He was once a bouncer at a nightclub.
8. Thought to be the last photo of Anne Frank, taken while she leaning over the balcony of her apartment in 1941.
9. Anna Nicole Smith with her ex-husband and son, 1986
10. Survivors in Dachau berate an SS guard captured by U.S. troops, while in the background American soldiers summarily execute other camp guards. April 29, 1945
11. Penha Goes, a 22-year-old woman from the Yanomani tribe in Amazonas, Brazil. Photographed by Ricardo Stuckert in 1997. Stuckert revisited Penha Goes in 2015 and found her still living in the same village.
12. Florence Thompson, the Migrant Mother in Dorothea Lange’s famous 1936 photo, holds up her likeness during an interview after her identity was made known, October 10, 1978
13. On the left is David Reimer on the right is Brenda Reimer. They’re the same person, as a child he was a victim of a botched circumcision, so on the advice of one doctor, the family decided to have him castrated and raise him as a girl. At age 13 he began living as a boy again.
14. Mary Brocks, a young mother of 9 from Liverpool, reads a bedtime story to her children, which included both triplets and twins in 1963. She was just 25 years old at the time.
15. Meet Yuri Knorozov, the linguist who deciphered the Maya script, 1953. He listed his cat Asya as a co-author on his work but the editors always removed her. He always used this photo with Asya as his author photo and got angry whenever editors cropped her out.
16. Jamie Lee Curtis visiting her dad, Tony Curtis, on the set of “Some Like It Hot” (1959)
17. Jewish people protesting in Ellis Island against their deportation back in Germany, 1936.
18. John McCain being captured by Vietnamese civilians, Hanoi, 1967.
19. Actress Anita Ekberg defending herself from the Paparazzi with a bow and arrow after being relentlessly followed by them all night. Taken outside of her home in 1960.
20. Elton John acts as one of Ryan White’s pallbearers after the 18yr olds death due to AIDS-related illness. April the 8th 1990. Ryan had caught the disease via a blood transfusion while still a baby. He was ostracised by his community in Indiana and barred from attending school.
21. In 1971, civil rights activist Ann Atwater and Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis, initially bitter enemies, were brought together to co-chair a community event in Durham, North Carolina, leading to an unexpected friendship and Ellis renouncing the Klan.
22. 22 yr-old Charlie Johns reading the bible to his 9 yr-old bride, Eunice Winstead. They married in 1937 and went on to have 9 children together.
23. In 1963, Félicette, a tuxedo cat, became the first and only cat in space. Launched by French scientists, she spent 15 minutes in a rocket before returning to Earth. Euthanised soon after, her story faded until a 2017 campaign led to a memorial in her honour three years later.
24. Adrian Street, a Welsh professional wrestler, pictured with his father, a coal miner (1974) Street later became known for ripping out chunks of Jimmy Savile’s hair during a wrestling match after Savile had bragged about assaulting underage girls.
25. A plainclothes Policeman blocks a razor attack in Glasgow, 1971.
26. Jerry Stiller with son Ben in 1979
27. On January 19, 1981, heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali was so upset when he learned that a Vietnam veteran was going to commit suicide near his house that he rushed to the scene just four minutes later and personally saved the man. He then escorted the veteran to the hospital.
28. Actor James Spader and John F. Kennedy Jr. at the premiere of the film Saturday Night Fever, 1977.
29. Dr. Joe Medicine Crow, last war chief of the Crow Nation — while serving in the U.S. Army during WWII, he met the four requirements for becoming a war chief. He led a raid against a German position, disarming them and taking them prisoner. He then stole their horses. He died in 2016, aged 102.
30. Green Beret Captain Richard Flaherty (standing at 4’9” and weighing 97 pounds) stands next to 6’6” Pfc. Nipps, 1971.
31. In 1910, Louis and Temple Abernathy decided to cross America by horseback without adult supervision, from Oklahoma to Manhattan. They were just 10 and 6 years old. To get back home, they bought a car and drove it while their horses returned by train. In 1913 they made the same trip on a motorcycle.
32. Last known photo of John Allen Chau, an American missionary sent to convert the isolated people of North Sentinel Island. In 2018, he bribed Indian fishermen to illegally smuggle him into the island’s protected waters. He was last seen being dragged along the shore, his body shot full of arrows.
33. On this day in 1996, Beck Weathers was left for dead on Everest. His team even called his wife to say he had died. But hours later, frostbitten and barely alive, he stunned everyone by walking back into camp.
34. Rare Devil Horn / Bikini Sunrise captured in Quatar during partial eclipse
35. Arnold Schwarzenegger with his older brother Meinhard, 1967. Meinhard, died in a car crash on May 20, 1971. He was driving drunk and died instantly. Arnold did not attend his funeral.
