Article created by: Ieva Pečiulytė
Photos play an important role in our understanding of history. They provide additional details about people, places, and events from different eras that written records sometimes simply cannot portray. Thanks to the surviving images, the past feels more tangible and relatable.
The Instagram account 'History in Black & White' is an excellent example of this. Trying its best to share historical pictures in their original form, the account allows us to take a look at everyday life and pivotal moments that otherwise wouldn't be available to us.
More info: Instagram
- Read More: This Instagram Account Shares Historical Pics In Their Original Form, And These 28 Are Just Wow
#1
A young boy playing the banjo to his dog in 1920.
Image credits: historyblackandwhite
#2
Private James Hendrix of the 101st Airborne, playing guitar at Fort Campbell Kentucky in 1962. Jimi Hendrix went on to become one of the most influential guitarists of all time.
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#3
a cat escaping from the Animal Rescue League in Boston, Massachusetts in 1940
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#4
Harriet Tubman photographed in 1911 at the age of 89.
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#5
A little girl holding her pet toad at a pet show at Venice Beach, California, USA in 1936.
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#6
Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet for his wife Lucille in front of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Greater Cairo, Egypt, in 1961.
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#7
Statue of David by Michelangelo, encased in bricks to prevent damage from bombs, during World War 2. Photograph taken in the 1940s.
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#8
Roland, a 4,000 pound elephant seal, getting a snow bath from his handler at Berlin Zoo, Germany in c. 1930.
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#9
Oda Nobuyoshi, Japanese Civil Rights activist and dentist during the Meiji Era. Photograph taken in 1880 when he was 20-years-old.
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#10
A helmeted bulldog guarding a family outside a block of flats during the Blitz on the 15th October 1940
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#11
Cow shoes used by moonshiners during the Prohibition Era to hide their footprints, June 18th, 1924.
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#12
Photograph of the oldest house in Hamburg, Germany taken in 1898. It was built in 1524 and, despite protests from locals, was demolished on the 8 December 1910.
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#13
Mercury Trains photographed in 1936. Mercury was the name used by the New York Central Railroad for a family of daytime streamliner passenger trains operating between midwestern cities. The Mercury’s started operating in 1936 and lasted until 1959.
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#14
A 16-year-old Bill Clinton, future 42nd President of the United States, shaking hands with 35th US President John F. Kennedy at a American Legion Boys Nation event on July 24th, 1963.
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#15
A large crowd in Times Square, New York City celebrating the surrender of Germany, May 7th, 1945.
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#16
Amiens Cathedral photographed during World War I showing the walls lined with sandbags in order to protect the building from artillery. Taken in Amiens, France in 1918.
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#17
Robert Wadlow, the tallest man to ever live, with his family in c. 1930s. Wadlow stood at 8 ft 11.1 in (272 cm) tall.
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#18
A group of Japanese Samurai photographed in front of the Sphinx in Giza, Egypt during a visit to the country, 1864.
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#19
An open-air school in the Netherlands photographed in 1957.
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#20
Sadie Pfeifer, a young girl working at the Lancaster Cotton Mills in Lancaster, South Carolina, in 30 November 1908. At the time of the photograph, Sadie had worked at the mill for half a year.
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#21
One of the largest and heaviest horses ever recorded, Brooklyn Supreme, photographed in c. 1940s. He stood 19.2 hands (198 cm (6 ft 6 in)) tall and weighed 3,200 lb (1,451 kg).
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#22
A young Prince Charles standing between his grandmother, The Queen Mother (left), and aunt, Princess Margaret (right), at his mother Queen Elizabeth's coronation on 2 June 1953
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#23
Salvador Dali on a ship arriving in New York, United States on the 7 December 1936.
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#24
British veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and his wife sitting for a photograph in the 1860s. This veteran served in the Peninsular War which took place from 1807 to 1814 and saw Bourbon Spain assisted by Great Britain against the First French Empire for control of the Iberian Peninsula.
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#25
Future King George V of the United Kingdom sitting next to his cousin, future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia while posing for a photograph at Marlborough House in London, England in c. 1893. George and Nicholas shared the same maternal grandparents.
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#26
What is now the fully developed Las Vegas strip, 1955.
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#27
A beggar running alongside the carriage of King George V of the United Kingdom somewhere in London, England, 1920.
Image credits: historyblackandwhite
#28
The tallest (Cornelius Bruns), shortest (Unknown), and fattest (Cannon Colossus) men in Europe playing cards and drinking together in 1913.
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