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Its unique triangular shape and architectural significance have made it an icon of the city’s rich history and cultural heritage. In this article, we will take a journey back in time and explore the history of the Flatiron Building through a collection of old images and photographs that showcase its construction, development, and evolution over the years. Designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinkelberg, the Flatiron Building was completed in 1902 and originally contained 20 floors....

The surpluses included almost every conceivable article and commodity—some of little utility in a peaceful world; others in great demand by the civilian populations of the United States and other countries. During the war effort, the United States alone had manufactured approximately 294,000 aircraft. Of that number, 21,583 (7.34%) were lost in the United States in test flights, ferrying, training accidents, etc., and 43,581 were lost en route to the war and in overseas operations....

The first image shows American Lieutenant William Robertson and Soviet Lieutenant Alexander Silvashko with their arms around each other, smiling, in front of their national flags. The picture of Robertson and Silvashko was taken on April 26th, the day after the meeting. Other shots show soldiers shaking hands, exchanging souvenirs, and posing for photographs. This contact between the Soviets, advancing from the east, and the Americans, advancing from the west, meant that the two powers had effectively cut Germany in two....

The eye covers were metal, the mask was leather and there was a chainmail skirt to cover the mouth and chin. Various styles were worn by all sides. The helmet is a French Adrian helmet with an artillery badge on the front. The main reason for this mask’s existence was due to a terrible issue in the tanks during First World War called spalling. Basically, spalling occurs because the energy from the impacting round is transferred to the armor plate....

With a few exceptions, investment had slowed to a crawl and Vegas didn’t seem as exciting anymore, especially when it was forced to compete with the sparkling newness of Atlantic City, where gambling was legalized in 1976. There were some bright spots. In 1971, the 500-room Union Plaza opened at the head of Fremont Street on the site of the old Union Pacific Station. It had, at that time, the world’s largest casino, and its showroom specialized in Broadway productions....

It started around 1920 at aerial barnstorming shows and originally began as a demonstration of planes’ balance and stability, moved to in-the-air mechanical adjustments and fixes, and then to stunts. As the stunts became more complicated, these wing performers of the sky would attempt more difficult stunts such as handstands, hanging by one’s teeth, and transferring from one aircraft to another. The Wing Walkers of old would admit (sometimes proudly) that the point of their acts was to make money on the audience’s prospect of possibly watching someone die....

Even the ancient Egyptians themselves were puzzled by the remote antiquity and purpose of the Great Sphinx at Giza. Gathered in this article are various vintage photographs of the Sphinx throughout the past 170 years. The commonly used name “Sphinx” was given to it in classical antiquity, about 2,000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with the head of a woman, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle....

Their lives took a dramatic turn when they were plucked from a Virginia farm and thrust into the bright lights of the circus world. Their story is one of uniqueness, exploitation, and, ultimately, liberation. George and Willie Muse, the eldest of five siblings, were born to Harriett Muse in the small community of Truevine on the outskirts of Roanoke, Virginia. Born with albinism, a genetic condition that bestowed upon them pale skin, white hair, and striking blue eyes, they possessed features that set them apart from their peers....

How two former slave children from Louisiana ended up in a Broadway photographer’s studio in 1863 requires some explanation. For now, it is enough to know that both children had been the property of slaveholders in New Orleans not long before their image was printed on cartes-de-visite (a new format for photography in the mid-nineteenth century, allowing for more than one copy, on individual cards, made cheaply) and offered for sale....

They were mainly led by Beijing students and intellectuals. The protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of communist governments around the world. By the spring of 1989, there was growing sentiment among university students and others in China for political and economic reform. The country had experienced a decade of remarkable economic growth and liberalization, and many Chinese had been exposed to foreign ideas and standards of living....

As a nation of immigrants, The United States would have difficulty picking a side. Despite the obvious ties to Britain based on history and language, there were many United States citizens who claimed Germany and Austria-Hungary as their parent lands. Support of either the Allies or the Central Powers might prove divisive. In the early days of the war, as Britain and France struggled against Germany, American leaders decided it was in the national interest to continue trade with all sides as before....

This era saw an eclectic mix of styles and influences, reflecting the broader societal changes of the time. Weddings in the 1970s were influenced by various trends, including the hippie movement, rock-and-roll culture, and even the occasional appearance of pantsuits, rather than adhering to a single dominant style. This diversity in wedding aesthetics mirrored the spirit of individuality and experimentation that defined the decade. The traditional white wedding dress remained popular, but it was often accompanied by unconventional twists....

The leaflet above depicts a bare-breasted female in an inviting pose. The bearer of the present ticket is considered as “willing to surrender to the Japanese army”. The Japanese army will charge itself with ensuring his life in the condition that he shows this ticket to Japanese soldiers, with a white flag or raised arms, carrying his rifle stock upwards. The Japanese propaganda used against the Allied forces aimed to draw their attention away from the war effort and influence them to surrender or go home....

The concept for vertical parking garages was and is driven by two factors: a need for parking spaces and a scarcity of available land. The earliest use of the vertical parking solution was in Paris, France in 1905 at the Garage Rue de Ponthieu. The system consisted of a groundbreaking multi-story concrete structure with an internal car elevator to transport cars to upper levels where attendants parked the cars. In the 1920s, a Ferris wheel-like vertical system (for cars rather than people) called a paternoster system became popular as it could park eight cars in the ground space normally used for parking two cars....

For European colonizers ruling Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, zebras’ resistance to diseases carried by tsetse flies was something worth taking advantage of. Moreover, colonists tried to turn local fauna to their own use, often because imported European livestock didn’t thrive in the new conditions. Eventually, attempts to domesticate zebras were largely unsuccessful and there’s a reason why Africans never were able to domesticate them in the first place....

In March 1993 an Iveco tipper truck was stolen in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and repainted from white to dark blue. A 1 tonne ANFO bomb made by the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade had been smuggled into England and was placed in the truck disguised underneath a layer of tarmac. At approximately 9 am on 24 April, two volunteers from an IRA active service unit drove the truck containing the bomb onto Bishopsgate....

Each month’s photo shows the coca plant at a different stage of its transition to cocaine powder, from its source in the Andes to its destination as a Christmas gift, and of course, users enjoying it. The months are accompanied by quotes about cocaine from different sources. There’s also a Brief History of Cocaine and a Chronology of its history from 900 A.D. to 1979 on the front matter side....

These magnificent photographs, taken by Detroit Photographic Company in 1896, document the inside of the warship, its armament and features, and the everyday life of the sailors on board. USS Brooklyn had some French influence on her design with a lozenge armament arrangement and hull’s considerable tumblehome, clean lines, and decks. Weighing in at more than 9,000 tons, Brooklyn boasted eight 8-inch guns, 12 5-inch guns, and four 6-pounder guns....

Atget took up photography in the late 1880s and supplied studies for painters, architects, and stage designers. Atget began shooting Paris in 1898 using a large format view camera to capture the city in detail. His photographs, many of which were taken at dawn, are notable for their diffuse light and wide views that give a sense of space and ambience. The city’s urban landscape had been recently reshaped by the modernization campaign known as Haussmannization—a necessarily destructive process led by (and named after) Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann that saw Paris’s medieval neighborhoods razed and transformed into wide avenues and public parks....

When she noticed a grapefruit-sized rock lying on the floor and a ragged hole in the roof, she assumed children were the culprits. Her mother rushed outside and saw only a black cloud in the sky. Alabamians in and around the area saw the event from a different perspective, with many reporting that they had seen a fireball in the sky and heard a tremendous explosion that produced a white or brownish cloud....