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Due to technical limitations of the earliest phone lines, every telephone required its own physical line strung between a house or business to a phone exchange where the call was manually connected by a live operator. The somewhat quixotic result of so many individual lines was the construction of elaborate and unsightly towers that carried hundreds to thousands of phone lines through the air. In Stockholm, Sweden, the central telephone exchange was the Telefontornet, a giant tower designed around 1890 that connected some 5,000 lines that sprawled in every direction across the city....

Officials say that they recover an average of 20 people per year who chose Niagara Falls as the place to end their lives. But there are those who choose to go over Niagara Falls in the name of adventure, not suicide. The first person to ride over the falls and live to tell the tale was not a famous daredevil or performer, but a widowed teacher named Annie Edson Taylor....

Roundups were held within a specific rangeland area and were not used to move cattle from one point to another. Instead, roundups were the process of gathering and collecting all the cattle grazing in that specific area. Roundups took place twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. The spring roundup was the opportunity to gather all the calves together to get them branded and counted so a rancher knew an estimate of how many calves were born that year....

During the Crimean War in the 1850s was when men started to really show off a variety of different facial hair styles. Beards had been banned in the British Army until this time, however, the freezing temperatures and harsh winters meant that it was impossible to keep clean-shaven. By the time the troops returned home, beards had marked the shape of a hero. It was from this heroic period when men who had never been in the army, started to grow beards....

They began dating in January 1942 and were married in June of that year, just 18 days after Marilyn (then Norma Jean Baker) celebrated her 16th birthday. James’ family lived next door to Grace Goddard, a friend of Norma Jean’s mother, Gladys, who was frequently in psychiatric hospitals. After living in a handful of foster homes, Norma Jean was taken in by Grace and her husband, who wanted to move across the country and couldn’t take her with them....

The first months of 1968 had brought a renaissance of political and cultural life in what was then Czechoslovakia. Journalists and students were calling for an end to censorship, public rallies in support of reform erupted in Prague and beyond, and that year’s May Day commemorations were seized upon by those demanding greater freedoms. Upon assuming the Czechoslovak leadership in January by becoming the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubcek quickly declared his intention to push ahead with liberalizations that included freedom of speech and religion, an end to censorship and travel restrictions, and industrial and agricultural reforms....

The snipers in the picture: First row – Guard Staff Sergeant, VN Stepanova: 20 kills, Guard Sgt JP Belousova: 80 kills, Guard Sgt AE Vinogradova: 83 kills. Second row – Guard Lieutenant EK Zhibovskaya: 24 kills, Guard Sgt KF Marinkin: 79 kills, Guard Sgt OS Marenkina: 70 kills. Third row – Guard Lieutenant NP Belobrova: 70 kills, Lieutenant N. Lobkovsky: 89 kills, Guard Lieutenant VI Artamonova: 89 kills, Guard Staff Sergeant MG Zubchenko: 83 kills....

At the heart of the film’s success was Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose portrayal of the unstoppable cyborg assassin became one of the most iconic roles in cinema history. Directed by James Cameron on a modest budget, the movie defied expectations, becoming a global phenomenon that launched a franchise and cemented Schwarzenegger as a Hollywood superstar. These behind-the-scenes photos offer a rare glimpse into the making of the film, capturing Schwarzenegger during key moments of production....

At the time, the peninsula was still at war, as the Korean War had broken out in late June 1950. Among the U.N. forces defending the South Korean side against the North were many Canadian soldiers. They were stationed along the western front abutting the Imjingang River and they were on their guard against any intrusion from the north. A biting wind howled across the riverside, however, and almost froze the gun-toting soldiers as well as the river....

Whatever his precise age, his well-lined face indicates a man who led a long and full life. He fought, he fished, he counseled, he rode horses and trains, he appeared in moving pictures, he sold postcards. He had eight wives and no children, but an adopted son Tom Smith. The exact age of John Smith at the time of his death has been a subject of controversy. Federal Commissioner of Indian Enrollment Ransom J....

Built in 1958, it is the only one in the Firebird trio to have a direct impact on the design of General Motors production vehicles. The influence is evident in the 1959 Cadillac. The Firebird III’s sculpted surfaces and dramatic rocker panel tuck-under found their way onto the Cadillac’s design, while the 1961 model adopted the Firebird’s distinctive “rear skegs” – a subtle yet impactful homage. It featured minimal chrome and avoided parallel lines, presenting a radical departure from traditional design....

Despite his day job as a bookkeeper, Keith managed to find time to pursue his interest in photography. He traveled from his home in the Kensington area to parts of South Philadelphia to photograph residents in front of their homes. He even experimented with night photography from the roof of the family house, within which he maintained his darkroom. Never asking for payment for his pictures, often he gifted them to the people he photographed....

The idea of striking it rich led over 100,000 people from all walks of life to abandon their homes and embark on an extended, life-threatening journey across treacherous, icy valleys and harrowing rocky terrain. Most of these stampeders did not get rich, but a good number decided to stay in Alaska and Yukon afterwards, quickly transforming its population. Between 1897 and 1907 prospectors founded more than fifty gold-mining camps in various parts of Alaska, some of which, such as Nome and Fairbanks, grew into major towns....

The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges called the Falkland War: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb”. Thus, describing how useless the islands were to both nations, as bald men do not have hair and have no use of a comb. The Falklands War was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control....

The Volkswagen name however wasn’t to become official until a few years down the line. The new car was initially tagged the Porsche Type 60, then christened the KdF-Wagen, KdF being the initials of the leisure arm of the Third Reich (Kraft durch Freude or Strength through Joy). October 1935 saw the first Type 60 prototype, known as the “V1” ready. By 1936, testing of the first three “V3” prototypes, built in Porsche’s Stuttgart shop, began....

The long trip to Uzbekistan failed in its main goal after cloud cover blocked any sights of the solar eclipse, but the journey was not a waste of time. With his German-made camera that enabled natural color images to be produced, Prokudin-Gorsky explored the backstreets of Samarkand and Bukhara, capturing rare color photographs unlike any that had been taken before. He’d visited the region before, but photographs from his 1911 trip are some of the only surviving images of that place and time....

It commemorated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492. Located in Jackson Park, the fair’s focal point was a grand water basin symbolizing Columbus’s historic voyage. The exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on American architecture, the arts, American industrial optimism, and Chicago’s image. The layout of the Chicago Columbian Exposition was masterfully crafted by notable figures such as John Wellborn Root, Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Charles B....

The children featured in these photographs drew attention to the fact that slavery was not solely a matter of color. If a child’s mother was a slave, then he or she was a slave as well. The images included children with predominantly European features photographed alongside dark-skinned adult slaves with typically African features. It was intended to shock the viewing audiences with a reminder that slaves shared their humanity, and evidence that slaves did not belong in the category of the “Other”....

The origin of this distinctive hood is a topic of debate. Some historians suggest that Flemish settlers introduced it. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Azores saw an influx of settlers not only from Flanders but also from Genoa, Britain, and France, alongside those from mainland Portugal. This blend of cultures contributed to the unique traditions and customs of the Azores islands. The Azorean Hood features a long, dark cloak combined with a large, hooded cape, creating a dramatic silhouette....

The magazine was founded by the League of Militant Atheists, an organization of the Soviet Communist Party members, members of its youth league, workers, and veterans, and technically it was not state-sponsored satire. The publication included works by cartoonists N. F. Denisovsky, M. M. Cheremnykh, D. S. Moor, K. S. Eliseev, and others. The circulation of “Bezbozhnik” reached 200 thousand copies in 1932. The magazine actively denounced all religions, hence, rabbis and priests were a basic target for attacking....