32 Unique and Interesting Historical Photos You Probably Haven’t Seen Before

Photography is one of the greatest inventions in history. With photographs, we can get a direct glimpse into the way things used to be in the past. Vintage photographs of famous events, historical figures, and slice-of-life moments help connect us to the past in a way that writing and painting simply can’t. We’re exploring the recent past with unique and interesting historical photos you probably haven’t seen before. From the earliest aerial photograph to a touching moments, these historical pictures will transport you back in time.

#1: Two Kids Playing in New York

This photo is a reminder to us all that childhood is a precious time. This black-and-white photo was taken on the streets of New York City in 1940. It shows a little boy and girl seemingly dancing and having a grand old time. This photo is notable because it was taken in the 1940s when segregation was still considered the norm.

Children don’t see color or difference the same way adults do. They don’t care what another kid looks like, as long as they want to play and have fun. This historical photograph just goes to show how adult prejudices and stereotypes can create so many societal problems. Maybe we need to get in touch with our inner child and be more accepting.

Many of us think of old black-and-white photographs when we think of the 1960s. However, that decade of major change and civil rights activism was not that long ago. This historical photograph is quite famous. It shows a young Ruby Bridges attending elementary school in the South. Ruby made history as the first African American student to attend an all-white, segregated school.

Ruby was only six when this photograph was taken. Her attendance at her new school was quite controversial, and Ruby’s family feared for her safety. Federal marshals escorted her as she walked to school every day of the school year. While some people like to think that our segregated past and racism are long gone, it is still very much present in our collective consciousness. Ruby Bridges is still alive and well today.

The Super Soaker might be one of the best toys in the world. Just ask any kid that grew up in the ‘90s. Everyone knows the Super Soaker, but not many people know about the man behind the invention. Meet Lonnie Johnson, the engineer who invented this amazing water gun toy.

Lonnie was working as an engineer when the thought up the idea for the Super Soaker. According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, he was designing an environmentally friendly heat pump when his prototype began to leak. He thought that the pressurized stream of water would make a great water gun, and the rest is history.

Would you believe us if we said this gorgeous library used to exist in the United States? This cavernous library looks like something out of Harry Potter or an incredibly old British manor. However, this library used to exist in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Old Main Library looks nothing like your average U.S. library. Sadly, it no longer exists.

The Old Main Library was originally built as an opera house in the 1860s. The story goes that the opera company went bankrupt before the building was completed, so it was sold to Cincinnati’s new library. Although the building looks beautiful in old photographs, patrons from the time said the building was very impractical for a library. Sadly, the Old Main Library was torn down in 1955. We wish they would have at least preserved it as a historical building!

Richard Nixon is the only U.S. president to ever resign from office. As we all know, the Watergate scandal was a huge motivating factor for his resignation. Nixon gave his famous resignation speech on live television on August 8, 1974. This historical moment was captured on film with this photograph, which is interesting in its own right.

This photo might look like two random men watching TV, but these men are actually the two reporters who exposed the Watergate scandal. Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein worked for The Washington Post when they uncovered details about the Watergate break-in. It must have been a surreal feeling to watch Nixon resign as a result of their investigative work. These two men changed the course of history.

George McLaurin might not be a household name for some families, but he sure should be. McLaurin was the first African American student admitted to the University of Oklahoma. This photograph shows McLaurin attending class with his white classmates. As you can see, he was forced to sit in the corner away from everyone else due to his race. Despite the racism he faced while attending the university, he did a lot to attend and change history.

McLaurin held a master’s degree and was a retired professor when he applied for a graduate program at the University of Oklahoma. The school denied his application, which he appealed in a series of cases that culminated in the Supreme Court case McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. Although he won the case and was admitted, he still faced extreme racism while attending classes. Some professors even made this highly accomplished, educated man sit outside the classroom, away from his white classmates. McLaurin made history for pushing against the racist “separate but equal” policy so many businesses relied on to maintain the status quo.

This historical photograph is rarely seen, but it should be more well-known in our opinion. This stoic photograph is of Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father. He is pictured standing in the attic where he and his family hid from Nazis during the Holocaust. Otto survived Auschwitz, only to discover that Anne and the rest of his family had not survived the horrific tragedies of World War II.

This photo was taken in the secret annex of the house the Frank family hid in. Otto revisited the house in 1960. This photograph is stark, raw, and emotional. Otto was the only surviving member of his family. Knowing that while looking at this photo makes it all the more haunting. We can only imagine the emotions he must have been feeling when this photo was taken years after those life-changing, traumatic events.

Annie Oakley is one of the most famous sharpshooters in American history. Most of us know about Annie Oakley thanks to the famous play Annie Get Your Gun, but she was a very real person. It might surprise some that there are photographs and film reels of Annie that still survive to this day. This 1899 photograph shows Annie Oakley shooting over her shoulder using a small hand mirror.

This over-the-shoulder trick was part of her act in the famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Annie was an extremely skilled sharpshooter who was the highest-paid performer in the show next to Buffalo Bill himself. She also offered marksman lessons to women because she strongly supported female self-defense. Overall, this fascinating and artistic photo is just as interesting as the woman herself.

It’s not every day you see a man in a full suit skateboarding down the sidewalk! This black-and-white photo shows a dapper man skateboarding through Central Park in the 1960s. As you can see, he has quite an audience. Skateboarding was originally popularized in Southern California, but it wasn’t commonplace in the ‘60s when this photo was taken.

This man was a trendsetter who wasn’t afraid to “sidewalk surf” in style. He’s even wearing stiff leather dress shoes and a hat! Skateboarding wouldn’t become all the rage until the 1970s, but we have a feeling this guy turned a lot of people on to the idea of hopping on one of these new-fangled skateboards. After all, he looks pretty cool, even after all these years.

This early 1900s photograph is of a truly remarkable man. Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis, born Oluale Kossola, was one of the last survivors of the Atlantic slave trade. Lewis was enslaved and forcibly transported aboard the Clotilda in 1860. He was born in West Africa around 1841 and was later captured and sold to an American businessman who ran the Clotilda ship.

After the Civil War, Lewis and his fellow enslaved Clotilda prisoners were emancipated and tried to raise enough funds to return home. When they were unable to raise enough money, they turned to Lewis to lead the charge in establishing Africatown near Mobile, Alabama. Africatown became a successful Black community and a safe haven for formerly enslaved people. Looking at Lewis in this photograph, we can only imagine what he saw, experienced, and felt over the course of his life.

Move over, Tesla! It looks like the electric vehicle is nothing new. This 1912 photograph shows a woman plugging in her electric car for a good old-fashioned charging session. Who knew electric cars were old news? It’s a little-known fact that electric cars were widely popular in the early 1900s. In fact, they were becoming more widespread than gasoline cars before Henry Ford made his Model T.

Electric cars were especially popular among women in the early 1900s. These electric cars were quiet, easy to maneuver, and didn’t spew smelly pollutants into the air. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Gasoline cars gained prominence because they were cheaper to produce and could travel farther distances than early electric cars. This early photograph goes to show that we’ve always had the technology to produce electric vehicles!

Any Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin fan will immediately recognize everyone in this photo. This group of famous men in front of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, is none other than The Rat Pack. The Rat Pack was a nickname for the group of friends comprised of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. All five men are posing in front of The Sands in this photo.

The Rat Pack were performers as well as friends. They eventually performed regular gigs in Vegas, appeared in movies together, and generally helped support each other’s careers. The Rat Pack is famous for a lot of things, but the original Ocean’s 11 movie is perhaps their most well-known project.

The term “greaser” is often associated with the popular, wonderfully cheesy film Grease from 1978. However, greasers were around way before the style became a mainstream part of popular culture. Greasers were a subculture that emerged in the 1950s and ‘60s. The greaser aesthetic and subculture arose as a result of post-war disillusionment among working class youth.

This group of greasers was photographed hanging out in Central Park, New York City, sometime in the 1950s. We have to admit that they look pretty darn cool, if not totally intimidating. The slicked-back hair, leather jackets, and cuffed jeans were always on the cutting edge of style. Interestingly, the term “greaser” is most likely a reclamation of a derogatory term used against Italian, Greek, and Hispanic men. This subculture stuck its nose up at stereotypes and turned them on their heads.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “Gee, I wonder what the oldest surviving aerial photograph is?” Well, we have the answer for you. This bird’s eye view of Boston was taken on October 13, 1860, and is the oldest surviving photograph of its kind. This photo was taken by James Wallace Black and is called “Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It.”

James Wallace Black took this photograph in a hot air balloon that was tethered 1200 feet above Boston, Massachusetts. Taking such a photograph was a challenge at the time because exposure times were quite long. Out of the eight photos Wallace Black took that day, this was the only one that didn’t come out blurry. It’s pretty wild to see how urban Boston was almost 200 years ago.

Don’t worry. This isn’t a photograph of the Hoover Dam during an extreme drought. This 1936 photograph is a rare glimpse at the Hoover Dam before it was filled with water. The Hoover Dam was built during the Great Depression and was completed in 1936. This Colorado dam was a technical feat at the time because a concrete structure of this size had never been built before.

The Hoover Dam was an architectural feat that diverted water from the Colorado River to supply Los Angeles and Southern California with more resources. This huge dam took almost a decade to build, and over 100 workers lost their lives during its construction. The Hoover Dam is still in use almost a century later, creating electricity and providing water to many communities.

In our day and age, most of us would take one look at this photo and think it was Photoshopped. However, it’s very real. This 1989 photo shows a woman standing near a tornado somewhere in the middle of the United States. Is this the safest way to deal with a tornado in your town? No, but it sure looks cool.

Anyone who lives in tornado territory can tell you that it’s easy to get desensitized to the potential dangers of tornadoes. A lot of people often go outside to take a peek as one rolls through. We will admit that we admire this woman’s dedication to getting the perfect shot.

It’s hard to believe now, but Las Vegas, Nevada, was once a barren desert with a very small population. This 1955 photograph shows a “For Sale” sign stuck in the middle of the desert without a person or car in sight. The abandoned and deteriorating piece of scrap metal by the sign isn’t exactly encouraging, either.

Believe it or not, the site of this “For Sale” sign would soon transform into one of the busiest urban strips in the country. The completion of the Hoover Dam and the U.S. interstate highway system contributed to the growth of Las Vegas. Whoever bought this parcel of land for a whopping $3 million probably went on to make a pretty penny.

This energetic photo looks like a good time. It was taken at the famous Storyville Jazz Club in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1952. Jazz is a staple of music history today, but back in the 1950s, it was still considered “risqué” and cutting-edge. As a result, jazz appealed to a lot of young people, like the people in this photo.

The woman in the photo isn’t actress Reese Witherspoon, although she certainly looks like her 1950s doppelganger! Some people believe this woman is none other than famous jazz singer Grethe Kemp. We’re not sure of the identities of any of the men in the photograph, but they all look like they’re having a grand time.

War is no laughing matter, but we have to admit that this Japanese propaganda photo is strangely humorous. This 1941 photograph shows two Japanese women holding their noses while looking at a photo of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Obviously, this photo was a piece of anti-British propaganda. It was released during World War II when Japan was a member of the Axis Powers in the conflict.

This photo adds insult to injury because “W.C.” can be interpreted as an acronym for “water closet,” which is another phrase used to describe a bathroom. This photograph is humorous because it is not at all subtle. These women think Winston Churchill stinks, both literally and figuratively. How rude!

There’s something glamorous about old photographs. This photograph was taken during the 1940s, and we can’t help but admire the effortlessly cool energy of these three friends. A U.S. soldier is seated between two women outside of an ice cream shop or general store. We can’t help but notice that the soldier is posing with his aviator sunglasses, looking off into the distance.

We often think of the 1940s as a far-off time. However, this candid photo shows that people who lived through one of the most extreme decades of American history were just like us. They were people who laughed, hung out with friends, and enjoyed lunch together on a warm summer day.

This slice-of-life photo shows a different side of America’s favorite pastime. Not everyone got tickets to the 1992 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in San Diego, California. However, that didn’t stop true fans from tuning in and having a good time. This group of friends set up a portable TV and watched the game right outside the stadium.

They’re so close, yet so far. At least they were able to get two views of the big game! Despite not getting tickets, we’re sure this group had a great time. The brews, picnic chairs, and makeshift TV set-up are perfect for a great summer evening. Who needs front-row seats when you have a tailgate? Not us!

Fads come and go, but motorized roller skates stay the same. Wait, no, they don’t! Gas-powered roller skates might not be around anymore, but this salesman was trying everything in his power to make them a thing. This strange photo was taken in 1961 at a gas station somewhere in Connecticut.

Apparently, this guy thought that motorized roller skates were the transportation of the future. He was zipping from house to house, selling his wares, all with the help of his super-fast skates. We can only imagine the smell of gasoline following him everywhere he went. It’s hard to imagine why these skates didn’t take off.

Unfortunately, this horrifying photograph isn’t fake. This photograph of a pregnant mother hiding her face while her four children sit on the stairs next to a “For Sale” sign was originally published in Indiana’s The Vidette-Messenger on August 5, 1948. The mother in this photo was named Lucille Chalifoux. She was dead serious about selling her children.

According to a quote from the paper provided by Rare Historical Photos, Lucille and her husband were being evicted from their apartment and had no jobs or prospects. Lucille sold her four children to different families over the next few years. Lana, Rae, Milton, and Sue Ellen were sold to different families, only to face continued trauma and hardships. Some of the siblings were able to reunite later in life thanks to social media.

This photograph is one of a series of photos taken for LOOK Magazine in 1947. The photo series follows a day in the life of Mickey, and 12-year-old shoeshine boy who shined shoes in and around Brooklyn to help support this family. You will never guess who took this beautifully composed street photograph.

This photo was taken by none other than Stanley Kubrick. Yes, that Stanley Kubrick. Before becoming a famous director, Kubrick was a young photographer working for LOOK. A then-teenage Kubrick followed Mickey and photographed his day in the city. Even at an early age, you can see Kubrick’s eye for composition. No one knows for sure what happened to Mickey the shoeshine boy, but we hope he got to see these photos.

This photo is not from an old horror movie. This 1930s-era photo was taken at some sort of Disney-themed party or something. However, the little boy sandwiched between a terrifying Mickey and Minnie Mouse doesn’t look too thrilled. We wouldn’t be too thrilled either if two performers showed up in these scary makeshift costumes!

Mickey and Minnie Mouse were pretty popular characters in the 1930s, but Disney hadn’t come out with a standard look for licensed products yet. As a result, plenty of real-world Mickeys and Minnies looked less than appealing. To make matters worse, the person who took this photo made the poor kid kneel down on the sidewalk while wearing shorts. We have a feeling this poor kid had nightmares for life.

Car accidents are nothing new. People have been crashing into things and causing accidents since cars were invented. Some people call it human error. Others call it recklessness. Whatever you call it, there’s no denying the looky-loo factor. People have always congregated around disaster. Take this colorized 1921 photograph of a car crash in Washington, D.C.

Everyone is standing around to observe the scene of the crime. This photograph is so visceral that most of us can imagine walking onto a scene like this while out and about in the city. The driver is still seated in the car, which seems dangerous from a modern perspective. Other than that, this slice-of-life photo looks like something any of us would see on an average day.

This looks like an average photo of an average guy. However, when you learn the backstory of this photograph, the cheerfulness on the man’s face becomes quite jarring. This is a 1945 image of Manhattan Project physicist Harold Agnew holding the plutonium core of the atomic bomb that eventually killed 80,000 people in Nagasaki, Japan.

We weren’t joking when we said the smile on Agnew’s face would become jarring. It’s a strange image to see someone so cheerfully holding something that would devastate an entire country and drastically change the course of history. We guess you could say that this photograph did not age well.

If you think this image looks mismatched, that’s because it was intentionally posed that way. This photo, taken in 1932, shows Jack Wilson on the right and an unidentified man on the left playing chess. Jack Wilson was considered the most obese man in the world at the time and had gained fame for his out-of-the-ordinary size.

Jack Wilson’s size was not common back in the 1920s and ‘30s. His size became a sideshow circus attraction that people were morbidly interested in visiting. We have no idea who the skinny man is in this photo, but we’re sure it was staged to be ironic and humorous for the time. Times certainly have changed.

The children in this 1938 photograph are not extra-small. The building is extra-large! This photograph was taken in front of the largest log cabin in the world, located in Portland, Oregon. This larger-than-life log cabin was constructed for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition of 1905. It measured 206 feet long, 102 feet wide, and about seven stories high.

This giant cabin was constructed from old-growth trees that were cut down in Columbia County, Oregon. The cabin, formally called the Forestry Building, was a tourist attraction for many years until it burned down in 1964. They could do nothing to stop the flames from destroying this historic building. The only evidence we have left of this spectacle is vintage photos like this one.

Who remembers the days of internet cafes? It’s wild to think of now, but the internet was not widely available to everyone back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Internet cafes were all the rage because people could congregate, eat food, and surf the World Wide Web. This photo from 1998 was taken at a Burger King that also offered computer access.

This young man is enjoying a side of Microsoft Word and Ask Jeeves with his Whopper. The computer-focused Burger King was pretty popular. All of those computers are occupied by happy customers. We can only imagine how greasy and nasty those computer keyboards got over the course of a day.

Nowadays, people have their eyes glued to their phones whenever they’re out in public. This 1955 photo of a drug store in Detroit, Michigan, is a reminder of a time long past. Everyone is crammed at the front counter, eating their lunch with just each other and their thoughts. This famous photograph was taken by Robert Frank, a Swiss photographer who became famous for his nuanced photos of American life.

On a lighter note, this drugstore counter is really pushing those 10-cent orange whips. There are no less than ten ads for the delicious drink in this photo! It brings to mind the famous John Candy scene from the movie Blues Brothers. “Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips!”