Today’s technological advances along with the collection of information and antique relics provided by historians over the years have allowed us to get a scoop into the past and have a somewhat accurate idea of how society was living 100 years ago.
However, even with all this access there still numerous strange and amazing things documented that we might not even know about! these are some of the strangest, unique, and even heartbreaking photos from all around the world…
1. In 1919, the temperance movement secured ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Bottles and barrels of whiskey and beer were destroyed in 1923-1924.
2. In 1900, acetylene was first used in welding torches, it is a gas capable of reaching 3000º. It not only has the capacity to burn incredibly fast but it burns also with great power which was perfect for melting metals. This is how a welding helmet used to look back in 1941.
3. On January 30, 1948, Mohahandas Karanchaans Gandhi was on his way to a square near his home in New Delhi where about 500 people were waiting for him to say a community prayer. A man approached him with his hands together as a sign of prayer. When he was in front of him, he shot three bullets into his chest. This photo shows all of his belongings.
4. The Great Sphinx of Giza is one of the most extraordinary monuments in all of Egypt. The ancient Egyptians built the Great Sphinx of Giza, believed to be around 2500 BC. It was built using rock extracted from the same Giza plain and probably dates back to the reign of Chephren (around 2520-2494 BC), in the heart of the ancient Egyptian Empire. The photo shows the excavation of the Sphinx when it was discovered in 1850.
5. The Cyclomer was a human-powered vehicle capable of operation on both land and water. Using 4 rectangular air-filled floats for buoyancy, propelled with two fan blades which have been attached to the spokes, this bike is or was supposed to help people cross the water a quite innovative project for 1930s.
6. Hitler Youth was an organization that trained young men preparing them for war, recruiting around 8.8 million members, however, numbers decreased drastically little over one million once the war began. The photo shows an injured young soldier in Germany in the trenches during World War II in 1945.
7. The Belgian geologist André Dumont discovered coal in the Campine basin in 1900. The Belgian Province Limburg, encouraged entrepreneurs from Liège to open coal mines, mainly producing coal for the steel industry. The photo shows around 18 men (possibly more), all coal miners huddled in an elevator after a long day’s work at a coal mine.
8. The so-called Mammoth camera, the largest camera in the world. It was built in the United States in the year 1900 and weighed approximately 450 kilos. The size of the glass plates was 130 x 240 cm.
9. A mother embraces her newborn baby after giving birth in 1941. The mother must wear her civilian respirator mask, while she tries to protect her baby by encasing him in a baby gas helmet, which buckles up around the baby’s bottom. The bellows on her baby’s gas mask are pumped by the mother to provide the baby with air.
10. In 1910 this hydrogalvanic therapy became famous for rehabilitating and stimulating atrophied muscles. Its inventor was the German doctor Paul Schnee. Nowadays people still get hydrogalvanic therapy or «galvanic baths» although it is done with a more scientific method with oppositely charged metal plates and spa-like environments.
11. After an investment of $17 million, Walt Disney finally achieved his dream on July 17, 1955, and created a world where his characters and settings would come to life and this is how the Disney Employee canteen looked back in 1961.
12. In the 19th century, Zhan Shichai became a very famous giant who traveled all around Europe, the United States, and Australia with his stage name «Chang, the Chinese giant». Born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province in the 1840s his height was claimed to be over 8 feet.
13. The first known photograph of an obscene gesture happened on Opening Day, 1886 when the baseball player Charles Radbourn gives the photographer the middle finger. What could the man have said to upset him so much?
14. During the Second World War, the future Queen of England, Elizabeth II, served in the territorial women’s auxiliary service as a mechanic and ambulance driver. In this photo, she is holding a watch in her hands, a gift from her colleagues.
15. This photograph shows Nikola Tesla sitting in his lab in Colorado Springs next to a fully functioning Tesla coil. The photograph was taken by Dickenson V. Alley using a multi-exposure technique.
16. This is how jobhunting looked like in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Millions of people were out of work across the United States, this is a photo of a man unable to find a job locally. Not only this man, but many had to travel from place to place, hoping to find some work.
17. In 1967 Sweden initiated a driving change, switching driving on the left to the right side of the road. This photo shows the first morning when people attempted to drive on the right side of the road.
18. Frenchman Edouard de Laboulaye proposed the idea of a monument for the United States for the first time back in 1865. after ten years, the sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was assigned to this project. This is The Statue of Liberty under construction in a workshop in Paris 1884.
Have you seen any of these photos before?