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The mere name of Marilyn Monroe represents different images for different people. For some, it suggests the absolute standard of female sensuality. Beauty. Grace. Sophistication. For others, insecurity comes to mind. Misery. Tragedy. Florea started as a photographer for the San Francisco Examiner, then was signed onto the staff of LIFE in 1941, living in Hollywood and specializing in celebrity portraits of actresses, such as Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe....

There are over thirty different styles of amasunzu worn by both men and women and often symbolized their different roles and status in the community. For men, amasunzu would show one’s power, bravery, and nobility, as well as prestige. When worn by women, amasunzu was intrinsically linked to marital status and virginity and was only worn by teenage girls until they were married. After marriage, some women let their hair grow freely....

At 2.05am on 11 November 1918, after four years of conflict, a German delegation sat down in the railway carriage of Allied supreme commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch, a few hours’ north of Paris. Talks had gone on for three days, and the German delegates were close to accepting the terms for an armistice, a formal agreement to end the fighting. The Germans had been defeated after a brutal summer of attrition; over the past four months, Allied and American forces had overwhelmed the final line of German defences in the battles of the Hundred Days Offensive....

After he stumbled across a snapshot of someone dressed as a polar bear traipsing down a street in Berlin, he went on to spend 20 years hunting down photos of other bear impersonators, spanning four decades and originating from places across Germany. Now, his many found images are together in a book called TEDDYBÄR. While the photos certainly look silly and absurd, they transmit a strange feeling. The bear’s poses vary only slightly and he has a shaggy grin....

Other observers also thought he brought to the job the same bureaucratic, unemotional, form-filling attention to detail that he would have given to road maintenance, say, or food rationing. Eichmann joined the Nazi Party in April 1932 in Linz (Austria) and rose through the party hierarchy. In November 1932 he became a member of Heinrich Himmler’s SS, the Nazi paramilitary corps, and, on leaving Linz in 1933, he joined the school of the Austrian Legion at Lechfeld, Germany....

However, well into the 20th-century official duels were taking place, one of the last between French politicians Gaston Defferre and Rene Ribiere in 1967. Yes, at the same time the Vietnam War was raging, rock and roll were taking the world by storm, and men were exploring space, two Frenchmen decided to settle their differences with a good old-fashioned duel. The combat took place after Defferre yelled ‘Taisez-vous, abruti!‘ (‘Shut up, stupid!...

During the 12 years of National Socialist rule, it was not used for parliamentary sessions. Instead, the few times that the Reichstag convened at all, it did so in the Kroll Opera House, opposite the Reichstag building. The building, having never been fully repaired since the fire, was further damaged by air raids. During the Battle of Berlin in 1945, it became one of the central targets for the Red Army to capture due to its perceived symbolic significance....

In the early 1940s, the U.S. government authorized a top-secret program of nuclear testing and development, codenamed “The Manhattan Project”. Its goal was the development of the world’s first atomic bomb. Much of the research and development for the project occurred at a facility built in Los Alamos, New Mexico. In July 1945, Los Alamos scientists successfully exploded the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site, located in nearby Alamogordo....

Legendary writer Jules Verne wrote about vehicles that could serve as a car, boat, and aircraft all in one. The idea was little more than science fiction at that point, but it still intrigued engineers, designers, and manufacturers. During the Pan-American Aeronautic Exposition in the year 1917, innovators exhibited the Model 11 Autoplane. Although there is no record of that automobile ever taking flight, it was an interesting creation of an early 1900s automobile with wings....

This period’s prominence in the history of mourning attire is largely due to Queen Victoria, who famously wore mourning dress for forty years following the death of her husband, Prince Albert. In Victorian society, black clothing was a recognized symbol of mourning, but the customs surrounding it were far more intricate. Different stages of mourning required specific fabrics and styles, with each carefully selected to reflect the depth and progression of the mourner’s grief....

It was also a world that was looking brighter for women. And, as everyone knows, when things get better for women, things get better for everyone. After the revolution, the 70 years of advancements in Iranian women’s rights were rolled back virtually overnight. The 1979 revolution, which brought together Iranians across many different social groups, has its roots in Iran’s long history. These groups, which included clergy, landowners, intellectuals, and merchants, had previously come together in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11....

The Golden Age of arcade games is commonly referred to as the peak of the arcade game industry, due to the advances in technology and rapid popularity. Although the exact date range of this time period is unknown, many experts agree that the era occurred from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. In comparison to the video games we play today, the graphics and technology used in arcade games during the Golden Age were quite simplistic....

The LIFE magazine photographer Mark Kauffman was there to photograph the genuine reactions of French people trying the drink for the first time. Under the slogan “Drink Fresh,” vans toured the streets, and salesmen distributed samples to adults and children, in what Coke now calls “La révolution du froid” (The cold revolution). As these pictures show, the French didn’t initially find the ‘great taste of Coke’, all that great. Coca-Cola had been available in France since 1919 when Raymon Aaron Linton registered the brand in France and French infantry officer Georges Delcroix started importing and selling the drink in Bordeaux....