Sometimes, one simple picture can tell you more about history than any story you might read or any document you might analyze.
These photographs all tell stories about the historical figures or events that they represent. Once taken simply to document their present, they now help us witness the past. Many photographs only become iconic shots years later, once we understand their importance and historical context.
From historical landmarks and famous people to the basic daily routines of the past, these pictures portray the past in a way that we can empathize with and understand more intimately.
WE presents the 20 most remarkable images from the past that are absolutely magnificent.
A young Elvis Presley holding records, 1950
The Californian lumberjacks who cut down giant redwoods, 1915
Albert Einstein with Hopi Indians, 1922
Marina Shalyapina — the first ’’Miss Russia,’’ 1931
A mugshot of fortune tellers, New York, 1943
No time to explain! Donkey rescue, 1940s
Micheal Jordan vs Micheal Jackson playing basketball, 1992
Chester Macduffee next to his newly patented, 250 kg diving suit, 1911
The first Google team. The best is yet to come! 1999
Worker and supervisor at a car factory, Moscow, USSR, 1954
Yuri Gagarin, Aleksey Leonov, Boris Volynov and Victor Gorbatko having a picnic in Dolgopridny, 1963.
Carving George Washington’s face into Mount Rushmore, USA, 1932
The astronaut Charles Duke left his family picture on the moon before departing. ’’This is the family of Astronaut Duke from Planet Earth. Landed on the Moon, April 1972,’’ he wrote on the back of the picture, 1972
A ’’knocker-up,’’ who woke up sleeping people. The early 20th-century version of an alarm clock, Great Britain, 1900.
High school graduate Brian Hugh Warner — better known by the stage name Marilyn Manson, 1987
The Frisbee pioneers — Ken Westerfield and his dog, 1970
The First space selfie by Buzz Aldrin, 1966
5-year-old Sylvester Stallone, 1951
Steve Jobs dangling his daughter Eve in Foothills Park, Palo Alto, California, 2002