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With the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the American Army prepared with the creation of the Armored Force and headquartered it at Fort Knox in the summer of 1940. It was responsible for establishing armored formations, doctrine, and training in the use of armored vehicles. Selective Service was implemented and thousands of citizen soldiers were ordered to Fort Knox and introduced to the tank. The post was required to undergo a massive building boom and acquisition of land to support these troops....

Interesting how two of the girls are sharing one pair of skates. Factories weren’t churning out kids’ toys; they would have been producing war goods for some time and therefore probably targeted and destroyed. Even for some time after the war raw materials weren’t easy to get as it would be prioritized for other projects for infrastructure and essential items, toy factories weren’t high on the priority list. During World War II, the industrial town of Essen, especially the Krupp factory, was a target of Allied strategic bombing....

In an era characterized by political rigidity, the women of the Soviet Union found a remarkable way to infuse style with a distinct charm, creating a unique and surprisingly beautiful fashion. In previous generations, fashion had not been a focal point for Soviet ideologists and was often viewed as an “anomaly in socialism” by these circles. However, at the turn of the Second World War, during the Khrushchev Thaw, authorities became aware of fashion as a ‘natural force’ in society; particularly as more women became interested in dressing well....

During the ten years that de Gaulle occupied the presidency, France and Paris experienced rapid economic growth, which was accompanied by the building of new office buildings and housing, and the rehabilitation of historic neighborhoods in the center of the city. De Gaulle’s Minister of Culture, André Malraux, oversaw the reconstruction of the historic neighborhoods in the center, particularly Le Marais. In Le Marais and the other designated historic zones, the rehabilitation consisted of leaving the façade and walls intact, while rebuilding completely the interior of the building....

In this article, we’ve collected some retro computer ads to give you a hands-on look into what made the tech headlines before the age of smartphones, tablets, and high-end laptops. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. Do you know that your phone already has way more processing power than all the Apollo 11 computers in the Lunar Lander that put humankind on the moon? Do you know that the first HDD introduced in 1979 by Seagate was only 5 MB and was priced at $1500 USD?...

This photo collection shows color images of the lifestyle, windmills, canals, cities, and countryside of the late 1890s Netherlands. The pictures are created using the Photochrom process which is a technique that applies colors on black and white images. The Netherlands did not industrialize as rapidly as Belgium after 1830, but it was prosperous enough. Historians argue that certain government policies facilitated the emergence of a national economy in the 19th century....

And this makes this photo particularly poignant. This is a good man who has no idea that his role will ultimately make his gesture futile and starve them to death anyway. This photo was taken in 1941 by the photographer of the 291st Division of the Wehrmacht George Gundlach. One of the many, out of the photo album “Volkhov’s battle. Documents of horror 1941-1942″. The soldier in the picture was part of 291st Division of the Wehrmacht....

The year was 1942 and Mrs. Egbert was living in the building at the time – No. 497 Dean Street. But what made Mrs. Egbert go out onto the ledge? She was clearly distraught – but why? Mrs. Egbert, apparently, had a reason. In the past year her son, Fred, had gotten married, joined the army, and had not written to his mother a single time since. As any mother in this predicament would tell you, with the war raging on, she must have presumed her son was dead....

In terms of technological history, World War I is significant because it marked the debut of many new types of weapons and was the first major war to “benefit” from technological advances in radio, electrical power, and other technologies. From the onset, those involved in the war were aware that technology would make a critical impact on the outcome. In 1915 British Admiral Jacky Fisher wrote, “The war is going to be won by inventions....

The Nazis went to great extents on teaching the German youth to be proud of their race through biology teaching, the National Socialist Teachers League (NSLB) in particular taught in schools that they should be proud of their race and not to race mix. Race biology was meant to encourage the Germans to maintain their racial purity, the NSLB stressed that as early as primary schools Germans have to work on only the Nordic racial element of the German Volk (people) again and again and have to contrast this with the racial differences that foreign peoples such as the Jews represent....

While the War on Drugs was underway and cocaine was still very much illegal, selling and marketing coke equipment (with the fine print “Not intended for illegal use!”) was a legitimate and lucrative business. Here, we look at some of the advertising from the coke era between 1976 and 1981 (collected from various magazines by The World’s Best Ever blog). In the 1970s, cocaine emerged as the fashionable new drug for entertainers and businesspeople....

Tobacco marketers featured healthy, vigorous, fun-loving people in their ads. Often these were celebrity figures from sports and entertainment fields, other times they featured actors portraying physicians, dentists, or scientists. Some ads tapped into concerns about weight gain; some portrayed the middle-class comforts of home, holiday, recreation, or family pets. Lucky Strike led the effort to popularize smoking among women, mostly famously by the “Torches of Freedom” campaign carried out by Edward Bernays....

Cameras were not light and handy like today, typically had slow exposure times, and needed to be set up beforehand on tripods. Anyway, this photo is probably not faked. Keep in mind the shrapnel has already dispersed by the time you actually see the explosion and dust. So if this soldier got hit by that shell, the metal has already gone through his body when this photo was taken. Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions which carried a large number of individual bullets close to the target and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell’s trajectory and strike the target individually....

It is Arsenal’s second match ever to be played under Highbury’s floodlights (the first during a September 19 match against Hapoel Tel Aviv). Under these powerful new lamps, Arsenal would claim a 3-2 victory over Glasgow; conquest and stadium both immortalized in wide-format monochrome. These particular floodlights seemed to bring luck to Arsenal regardless of venue. In 1962 the lights were sold to Bohemian Football Club at a back-then cost of $24,500 and installed in Dublin’s Dalymount Park....

He took thousands of pictures over the years from the slums of London’s East End to the islands of the South Pacific. In 1902 Jack London visited his namesake city London where he took pictures of its people and their everyday life. In the book “The People of the Abyss”, London describes this first-hand account by living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets....

Actresses and models often take inspiration from Marilyn Monroe, but did Marilyn herself pay tribute to Hollywood legends of the past? In 1958, Marilyn Monroe teamed up with photographer Richard Avedon for a captivating project. They recreated iconic images of five celebrated actresses from different eras. These were Lillian Russell, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Jean Harlow, and Marlene Dietrich. Though Avedon was not completely happy with the photographs, the pictures appeared in the Christmas issue of Life....

The photo was connected to the St. Augustine Movement, named for the town in Florida where it took place. Lots of peaceful protests and demonstrations were responded to with violence, which led to more and more complicated protests. On June 11, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr was arrested for trespassing at the Monson Motor Lodge after being asked to leave its segregated restaurant. This (and other things) helped spur on a group of protesters, black and white, to jump into the pool as a strategically planned event to end segregation at motel pools....

The lantern slides are provided by Oregon State University Visual Instruction Department and offer a rare peek of the Holy Land in the last days under the Ottoman Empire. The Holy Land is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The area extends between the territories of Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, and Palestine. Many of the events in the history of the Jewish people, Christianity, and Islam took place in regions located in the Holy Land....

With her beguiling beauty, enchanting grace, and impeccable acting skills, Loy graced the silver screen for over four decades, leaving an indelible mark on cinema and securing her place as one of the most beloved and influential actresses of her era. Born on August 2, 1905, as Myrna Adele Williams in Helena, Montana, Loy’s journey to stardom began in the picturesque landscapes of the American West. Raised in a conservative and strict household, her dream of becoming a performer faced opposition....

Newsies were a group of street children who would purchase a set number of papers each morning from the different publishing companies. This number would have to be sold for each newspaper boy to make a profit. Each daily edition of the paper could only be sold that day because the news was constantly changing. Any paper that was left unsold would be wasting money because the newsies did not get reimbursed for unsold papers....