He passed down his love for photography to Maria, his third daughter, who was responsible for coloring most of the pictures. Within a year of the last pictures, the Russian Revolution took place. The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the family was exiled. Following the February Revolution, the Romanov family and their loyal servants were imprisoned in the Alexander Palace before being moved to Tobolsk and then Yekaterinburg, where they were killed, allegedly at the express command of Vladimir Lenin....

The girl’s parents initially thought their daughter was suffering from a massive abdominal tumor, but after being examined by doctors in Pisco, Peru, they discovered she was seven months pregnant. Dr. Geraldo Lozada became Lina’s attending doctor, fully taking over the case. Dr. Lozada took Lina to a more advanced hospital in Lima to confirm the pregnancy diagnosis. The diagnosis was confirmed. Lina was born with a rare condition called “precocious puberty”....

As she was a reporter, it was the only time Ginestà was carrying a gun. The rifle she is carrying is M1916 Spanish Mauser, manufactured at the famous Oviedo factory in Spain for the Spanish Army. Marina was a member of Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (Socialist Youth), the youth organization mainly directed by Partido Comunista de España (PCE, Communist Party of Spain). As the war broke out, she served as a reporter and a translator assisting Mikhail Koltsov, a correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Pravda....

This collection shows photographs from World War Two that are not necessarily odd, let’s just say not quite normal, and by the book. The conflict involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–1945. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes, left unsettled by World War I. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history....

In that time, Petra has gone from an early settlement to a crucial and wealthy trading hub in the region, and then to a forgotten and abandoned city, hidden from the eyes of the Western world for centuries. The city was rediscovered, so to speak, only in the 19th century, quickly becoming a point of strong interest from archeologists, historians, and other curious folks. Today, Petra is one of Jordan’s greatest symbols and it draws hundreds of thousands of tourists every year from all over the world....

These sofas were characterized by their modular and versatile nature, often consisting of individual seating units that could be rearranged to create various seating configurations. The earliest use of the word “playpen” cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1902. Constructed with an array of materials, Playpen Sofas were a visual feast. Plush upholstery in vibrant, earthy hues, adorned with bold patterns and textures, was the hallmark of these sofas....

Finland’s stand against Soviet aggression aroused the world’s admiration. The Winter War, however, proved to be only a curtain-raiser for Finland’s growing entanglement in World War II. The underlying cause of the Winter War was Soviet concern about Nazi Germany’s expansionism. With a population of only 3.5 million, Finland itself was not a threat to the Soviet Union, but its territory, located strategically near Leningrad, could be used as a base by the Germans....

If it seems like today’s kids have gotten “softer” compared to the kids decades ago, perhaps it’s because playgrounds have gotten softer as well. Thanks to state laws and personal injury lawyers, the landscape of the typical playground has changed a lot over the years, making it a safer and more “educationally interactive” environment. On the other hand, maybe those rough-and-tumble recreation areas of yesteryear served as an early life lesson that the world was a harsh and unforgiving place....

The exact size of the iceberg will probably never be known but, according to early newspaper reports the height and length of the iceberg were approximated at 15-30 meters high and 60-120 meters. One of the many icebergs suspected of having sunk the Titanic, this iceberg was photographed in the morning of April 15, from the board of the ship “Prinz Adalbert”. The photograph was taken by the chief steward of the liner, just a few miles south of where the “Titanic” went down....

His spaceflight on Soyuz 1 made him the first Soviet cosmonaut to fly into outer space more than once, and he became the first human to die on a space mission—he was killed when the Soyuz 1 space capsule crashed after re-entry on April 24, 1967, due to a parachute failure. However, because he died when the capsule crashed into the ground, he is not considered the first human fatality in outer space....

The most famous conference was the October 1927 Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons, where the world’s most notable physicists met to discuss the newly formulated quantum theory. The leading figures were Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Einstein, disenchanted with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, remarked “God does not play dice”. Bohr replied: “Einstein, stop telling God what to do”. 17 of the 29 attendees were or became Nobel Prize winners, including Marie Curie, who alone among them, had won Nobel Prizes in two separate scientific disciplines....

This belief is deeply rooted in the Tibetan Buddhist faith that an individual’s spirit remains, even after the physical body dies. The 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet died in 1933. At that time, the Tibetan people began the search to identify his reincarnation, their future leader. In 1937, Lhamo Thondup, later named Tenzin Gyatso, was identified as the 14the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Lhamo Thondup (translated to “Wish-Fulfilling Goddess”) was born on July 6, 1935, to a poor family in the town of Taktser, situated in the Amdo region of northeastern Tibet....

The 1960s were a time of cultural change and tumult, an era that brought the peace movement, hippie communes, and sweeping trends in music, art, and fashion. Rejecting consumerism, rebellious youth embraced psychedelic clothing as a creative reflection of the changing culture. Considered unconventional and anti-establishment, psychedelic clothing style design can be seen in fur-trimmed vests, wide bell-bottom denim trousers, flowing caftans, and floral embellishments, used on both men’s and women’s garments....

Each letter received at home assured loved ones that their serviceman was still alive and well when he wrote that letter. For the troops, letters from home were the single biggest morale booster, and a force with high morale fights better. The logistical task of sending and delivering all these letters proved quite the challenge, especially when transporting the mail across the Atlantic Ocean. Mail sent via cargo ships was slow to arrive, taking up to a month....

After all, if the notions that drove motorists to the open road in the first place, namely the yearning for independence and personal freedom, could be extended beyond the car to the various activities associated with travel, there would be money to be made. Drive-in eateries date back to 1921 when a Texas chain of restaurants called the Pig Stand began incorporating the practice. At drive-ins, customers would park their car and immediately be met by carhops who would take orders and deliver them to the kitchen....

They established a company called Ahuzat-Bayit and with the financial assistance of the Jewish National Fund purchased some twelve acres of sand dunes, north of Jaffa. In April, 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. This gathering is considered the official date of the establishment of Tel Aviv. The lottery was organized by Akiva Arye Weiss, president of the building society....

Lucas’s success as a writer and director with American Graffiti (1973) gained him the backing of 20th Century Fox, which put up $9.5 million for the production of the first Star Wars film. The film, directed by Lucas, was in production for four years, with scenes shot in Tunisia and Death Valley, California, and on soundstages in England. When it was released on May 25, 1977, Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope) met with runaway success....

As we explore these photographs, we catch glimpses of a young Gardner navigating this era of rapid change, embodying the essence of the glamorous Hollywood that would become synonymous with her name. Ava Lavinia Gardner, born on December 24, 1922, in Grabtown, North Carolina, would grow up to become one of the most enduring and charming figures in the history of Hollywood. Raised in a modest family, Gardner’s journey from a small rural town to the silver screen epitomized the quintessential American dream....

Hides were prepared and shipped to the East and Europe (mainly Germany) for processing into leather. Homesteaders collected bones from carcasses left by hunters. Bison bones were used in refining sugar, and in making fertilizer and fine bone china. Bison bones’ price was from $2.50 to $15.00 a ton. When modern Europeans arrived in North America, an estimated 50 million bison inhabited the continent. After the great slaughter of American bison during the 1800s, the number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541....

The description of the photo states that the B-17s are using radar. 7 B-17Fs were modified to carry the H2S 9.1 cm wavelength (10 GHz) S-band radar in a teardrop-shaped dome under the nose. Later, 12 B-17s were modified to carry an American-built version of the H2X 3 cm wavelength (3 GHz) X-band radar under the nose. All the modified aircraft were assigned to the 812th Bombardment Squadron (squadron code “MI”) of the 482nd Bombardment Group....