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It remained standing, said the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Administration, only “by force of habit.” The foundations were descending into the earth, the walls were falling away from the superstructure, and the entire second floor was so dilapidated as to be a fire hazard. Congress requested an inspection to get a formal opinion on how bad the damage was, and the report determined the White House was unsafe for the Truman family to live in, so temporarily they moved....

Among these moments were portraits of people with their feline companions, a delightful reminder that the bond between humans and cats is not just a modern trend but one with deep historical roots. These photos, now over a century old, reveal not only the affection people had for their pets but also offer a glimpse into the social values, fashion, and photographic customs of the time. At the turn of the 20th century, cats held a dual role in households....

The portraits of the Bergen-Belsen camp guards provide a haunting illustration of this concept. Despite their mundane and unremarkable appearance in photographs, these individuals played key roles in the execution of genocide, highlighting the chilling reality of how ordinary individuals can become instruments of profound evil. Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi German concentration camp located near the villages of Bergen and Belsen, approximately 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Celle, Germany....

A testament to the breastplate’s effectiveness, the young soldier had been shot three times in the chest and left unharmed. Image taken near Syskyjärvi, Karelia, Finland (now, Syuskyuyarvi, Republic of Karelia, Russia), July 15, 1944. SN-42 (Russian: Stalnoi Nagrudnik – Steel bib) is a type of body armor developed by the Red Army in World War II. The native Cyrillic abbreviation for the vest was “СН”. It consisted of two pressed steel plates that protected the front torso and groin....

The Chinese had initially come to California for the Gold Rush and later the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, but public sentiment quickly turned against them. Competition for jobs and depression in the 1870s all led to a racist backlash against the Chinese. Eventually, Chinese immigration was ended with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese in America found themselves a hated minority segregated in Chinatowns. The attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec....

Whether this rise was mainly due to an increase in psychotic illness or to a decrease in tolerance of the mentally ill in the community is unclear. Many patients were admitted under the Poor Law and Lunacy Acts. The Lunacy Act of 1845 was an important landmark in the treatment of the mentally ill, as it explicitly changed the status of mentally ill people to patients who required treatment. The act meant that counties were legally obliged to provide asylum for people with mental deficiencies....

By the late 19th century, these human computers became the unsung heroes of numerous scientific advancements. Alan Turing described the “human computer” as someone who is “supposed to be following fixed rules; he has no authority to deviate from them in any detail.” Teams of people were used to undertake long and often tedious calculations; the work was divided so that this could be done in parallel. The same calculations were frequently performed independently by separate teams to check the correctness of the results....

Allied forces led by the United States occupied the nation and started the rehabilitation of the Japanese state. Between 1945 and 1952, the U.S. occupying forces, led by General Douglas A. MacArthur, enacted widespread military, political, economic, and social reforms. The occupation, like the Taika Reform of the 7th century and the Meiji Restoration 80 years earlier, represented a period of rapid social and institutional change that was based on the borrowing and incorporation of foreign models....

The Landships Committee was set up in 1915 by Winston Churchill to develop designs. To conceal their true purpose from possible spies, they were called tanks, to give the impression of simple water tanks. The name stuck. The first offensive using tanks took place on 15 September 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. . The French and British armies built thousands of tanks, but the German army was unconvinced of their potential and built only 20....

Berlin in the 1920s was a city of many social contrasts. While a large part of the population continued to struggle with high unemployment and deprivations in the aftermath of World War I, the upper class of society, and a growing middle class, gradually rediscovered prosperity and turned Berlin into a cosmopolitan city. During this decade, Berlin became the intellectual and creative center of Europe, doing pioneering work in the modern movements of literature, theatre, and the arts, and also in the fields of psychoanalysis, sociology, and science....

In his book, Emmett carefully describes how babies need to be “aired”. “Fresh air is required to renew and purify the blood, and this is just as necessary for health and growth as proper food,” he wrote. “The appetite is improved, the digestion is better, the cheeks become red, and all signs of health are seen.” Essentially, the thinking was that this was part of a process to toughen up the babies, and make them better able to withstand common colds....

The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 marked the third phase of the history of the trade, for it opened to the industry the communities of the Atlantic, especially the seaboard of the United States and the important United Kingdom market. Despite the rugged and difficult terrain, the abundance of towering cedar and Douglas Fir trees made the area an attractive source for ships’ masts and other lumber products....

It was agreed to form the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). It later emerged that Lenin had provided at least £55,000 (over £1 million in today’s money) to help fund the CPGB. Prior to the 1926 British General Strike, large numbers of the CPGB’s leaders were put in prison under the charge of “seditious conspiracy”. But the CPGB’s support for the strike swelled its membership, particularly in Glasgow, East London and Wales, parts of which became known as “Little Moscow”....

In August 1961 Washington and its British and French allies had failed to prevent the Soviets from building the Berlin Wall. On October 27, after several days of escalating U.S. rebuffs to East German attempts to get American officials to show identification documents before entering East Berlin (thus indirectly acknowledging East German sovereignty, rather than Soviet occupation authority) ten U.S. M-48 tanks took up position at Checkpoint Charlie. There they stood, some 50 meters from the border, noisily racing their engines and sending plumes of black smoke into the night air....

Within this period of great change, we find ourselves drawn to the kitchens of the time. These kitchens, captured in color snapshots, show how they looked like during those transformative years. It wasn’t solely about functionality anymore; kitchens began to embody a new sense of purpose and significance. They transitioned from being purely utilitarian workspaces to becoming vibrant centers of the household. This shift was a direct result of the cultural revolution that was sweeping across society....

She began her career on stage in the mid-1950s before landing her breakthrough role in 1958 drama film God’s Little Acre for which she received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. Tina was born in New York City to a fashion model mother and a candy store owner father. She grew up in a diverse environment, exposed to various cultures due to her Russian, Italian, and Irish heritage....

Entrepreneurs selling products designed to increase a farmer’s production were anxious to get their brands in front of these new rural customers. Thus the proliferation of farm signage and advertising from this period. Vintage farm and agriculture signs ran the gamut from tasteful or humorous notices on lithographed paper to bold proclamations on embossed tin and porcelain enamel. Some advertisers, like feed supplier American Stock Food, used patriotic symbols like Uncle Sam to sell their goods, while Monarch Poultry Feeds used a wooden cutout of a rooster....

Many years before European explorers came to the New World, the Maya people were building huge cities, studying astrology, creating complex written language in the jungles and coastal plains of Mesoamerica ━ a cultural region including both Mexico and parts of Central America. Spanish conquerors did not arrive until the 1500s, but by that time the Maya cities were already abandoned and in a state of ruin. The Spanish conquest stripped away most of the defining features of Maya civilization....

These teenagers, often from working-class backgrounds, were known for their bold, rebellious behavior, making a statement in a world grappling with change. The term “Halbstarke” literally translates to “the half-strong” and has fascinating roots. It originates from a manufacturing process called Walken, meaning to tumble or mill, and its synonym Halbgewalkte, or “half-tumbleds.” This association lends a somewhat derogatory connotation, implying these youths were “unformed” or “premature.” The photographs displayed here were taken in the 1950s in Switzerland by Zürich photographer Karlheinz Weinberger (his book can be purchased here, other credits are linked at the end of the article)....

The wave killed young Pasquale Iantosca, smashing a railroad car into the ten-year-old. It pinned Walter Merrithew, a railroad clerk on the Commercial Street wharf, against the wall of a freight shed, his feet 3 ft off the floor. He hung there as he watched a horse drowning nearby. The wave broke steel girders of the Boston Elevated Railway, almost swept a train off its tracks, knocked buildings off their foundations, and toppled electrical poles, the wires hissing and sparking as they fell into the brown flood....