The building contributed much to German history and was considered by the Red Army the symbol of their enemy. Soviets finally captured the Reichstag on 2 May 1945. Next to Joe Rosenthal’s photo of raising the flag on Iwo Jima, Yevgeny Khaldei’s photo of Soviet soldiers raising a flag on top of the Reichstag building in Berlin is perhaps the most famous photo of World War II. But unlike the Iwo Jima photo, Khaldei’s Reichstag photo was both staged and doctored....

Before the advent of the washing machine, laundry was often done in a communal setting. Villages across Europe that could afford it built a washhouse, sometimes known by the French name of lavoir. Water was channeled from a stream or spring and fed into a building, possibly just a roof with no walls. This washhouse usually contained two basins – one for washing and the other for rinsing – through which the water was constantly flowing, as well as a stone lip inclined towards the water against which the wet laundry could be beaten....

This collection shows captivating photographs that capture the essence of grocery stores from days gone by: Kroger, Winn-Dixie, A&P, Safeway, Big Bear, Lucky, Food Giant, Fazio’s, Gamble-Skogmo, Food Fair, etc. From the moment you stepped through the store entrances to the final checkout experience, these images offer a delightful journey into the past. The post-World War II economic boom brought about increased disposable income for many families, enabling them to embrace a more modern, convenient lifestyle....

The two finely dressed gentlemen demonstrate a variety of defensive moves that involve chokeholds, body slams, kicks, chops, and arm twists. Each two-picture spread depicts the moment of confrontation between two glowering men followed by the appropriate maneuver, although what they are doing ranges from the bizarre and the obscure to the plainly improbable. The album provides a rich example of a late Victorian instructional handbook, produced during a period when photography was tapped by thousands for its pedagogical potential....

He tried three times before passing the entrance exam; he applied to be trained for the cavalry rather than the infantry because the required grade was lower and he was not required to learn mathematics, which he disliked. At Sandhurst Churchill had a new start. “I was no longer handicapped by past neglect of Latin, French, or Mathematics. We had now to learn fresh things and we all started equal....

Those sunglasses are privately own, probably pretty expensive. Sunglasses were only issued for Afrika Korps troops and for motorcycles, but not for infantry. Based on previous battlefield successes, the Germans were expecting fierce fighting, but winning Stalingrad with reasonable losses. Up until that point, when it comes to ground war, Germany had only experienced “setbacks”, such as the Battle of Moscow, following which, they continued to encircle and destroy the Soviets in the Spring of 1942....

Finding the stumps of gigantic trees that had been felled by logging companies still rooted in the ground, they saw a great opportunity. Many of these huge stumps stood a full 10 feet high but were undesirable as lumber because they tended to swell down toward their base, making the wood grain uneven. For select stumps, the newly arrived farmers found other uses. A few of the largest were leveled off and fashioned into platforms where “stump dances” were held to the driving tones of fiddles and mandolins....

The custom of skull elongation called by the natives Lipombo, was a status symbol among the Mangbetu ruling classes, it denoted majesty, beauty, power, and higher intelligence. Deformation usually begins just a month after birth for the next couple of years until the desired shape has been reached or the child rejects the apparatus. The practice began dying out in the 1950s with the arrival of more Europeans and westernization....

The full database contains over 25,000 records that cover personnel of multiple concentration camps. Of those, thousands relate to people who worked at Auschwitz—which was not a single camp, but a network of camps that both enslaved and killed Jews, Poles, political prisoners, Roma people, homosexuals, the mentally ill and disabled, and others. Various estimates indicate that the Auschwitz Auschwitz was garrisoned by 700 commanders and guards in 1941, about 2 thousand in June 1942, about 3 thousand in April 1944, and about 3,300 SS men and female overseers in August 1944....

After the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1....

After all, Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbors were on the right side of the road, most of Europe was on the right side of the road, and Swedish cars had left-hand steering. Sweden’s early automotive era relied on imported American automobiles. Sweden had, nevertheless, maintained a dominant left-hand traffic system since the mid-18th century. Initially, the usage of American cars (with drivers positioned on the left side of the vehicle) in left-hand traffic was advantageous to early drivers....

In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens. The opening of the subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication....

Hindenburg, the massive German airship caught fire while attempting to land near Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 people aboard, plus one ground crew member. Of the 97 passengers and crew members on board, 62 managed to survive. The horrifying incident was captured by reporters and photographers and replayed on radio broadcasts, in newsprint, and on newsreels. News of the disaster led to a public loss of confidence in airship travel, ending an era....

Hachiko wasn’t just a pet; he was the faithful companion of a university professor, dutifully awaiting his master’s return from work at the local train station each evening. Tragedy struck when the professor passed away suddenly, leaving Hachiko to continue his vigil at the station for nearly a decade. Undeterred by the occasional disapproval of the station employees, Hachiko persisted in his daily routine. Over time, Hachiko’s unwavering dedication touched the hearts of the station staff, transforming him into an international sensation and an emblem of loyalty....

He had become a vegetarian at that point in his life and lived on only milk, bread, honey, and vegetable juices. Tesla spent days in a park surrounded by the creatures that mattered most to him—pigeons—and his sleepless nights working over mathematical equations and scientific problems in his head. On 7 January 1943, at the age of 86, Tesla died alone in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. His body was later found by maid Alice Monaghan after she had entered Tesla’s room, ignoring the “do not disturb” sign that Tesla had placed on his door two days earlier....

There’s a memorial outside St Paul’s dedicated to them. On December 29-30, 1940 the Germans deliberately targeted London with incendiary bombs during a period of low tide in the Thames, so the firemen had to work through deep mud all night to get the water to save the city. What resulted was called The Second Great Fire of London. 29 bombs fell around the Cathedral, and one actually hit the dome and fell through....

One would think that combining these two revolutionary innovations would be a natural step, but the truth is far more intriguing than that. Similar to many first-generation technologies, the first “car phone” was both bulky and cumbersome, hardly practical for everyday use. The history of car phones dates back to the early 1940s when Bell Labs developed the first mobile telephone service. This service originated was first used in St....

They also visited India’s most recognizable monument, the Taj Mahal, and were the guests of honor for India’s Republic Day Parade that year. The first picture shows HM Queen Elizabeth II addressing a crowd of several thousand at Ramlila Grounds between New and Old Delhi. Loudspeakers on stands permeate the sea of faces listening to HM The Queen. Though Britain and the empire emerged victorious from the Second World War, the effects of the conflict were profound, both at home and abroad....

In this exploration, we’ve gathered around 20 inventions from the past – some practical, some not so much. It’s like opening a time capsule filled with interesting stories. From devices that aimed to make life easier to ones that might leave you scratching your head, each gadget has its own tale. Picture a time when the future was uncertain, and innovation took unexpected turns, some useful, and some a bit quirky....

The Soviet Union, too, had been heavily affected. Borders were redrawn and homecomings, expulsions, and burials were under way. But the massive efforts to rebuild had just begun. Despite their wartime alliance, tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States and Great Britain Allies during World War II, the USA and the USSR became competitors on the world stage and engaged in the Cold War, so called because it never resulted in overt, declared hot war between the two powers but was instead characterized by espionage, political subversion and proxy wars....