Last updated on May 22nd, 2024 at 04:54 pm
No one can predict the future, but we can better understand the present by looking back at history.
Here are 100 must-see historical moments – significant events that have shaped our world. From wars and revolutions to scientific discoveries and technological innovations, these are some of the most important moments in human progress.
Whether you’re a history buff or want to learn more about our fascinating past, check out this list!
A protestant husband and his catholic wife were not allowed to be buried together. Here are their headstones reaching across the two cemeteries in 1888.
Demonstrating how bulletproof vests work, 1923.
A family poses with their covered wagon in Kansas, 1908.
Building the hand and torch of the Statue of Liberty, Paris, 1876.
The tallest man to ever live, Robert Wadlow, poses with his family in 1935
Demonstrating how bulletproof vests work, 1923A family poses with their covered wagon in Kansas, 1908.Building the hand and torch of the Statue of Liberty, Paris, 1876.The tallest man to ever live, Robert Wadlow, poses with his family in 1935.
Workers building the Empire State building, c. 1930s
Two women, minutes after voting, London, 1929.
Mother and son pose for a photo, Ireland, 1890.
Henry Ford in the first car he ever built, 1896.
Two newsies, New York, 1896.
The absolutely massive chain for the Titanic’s anchor, c. 1909.
A woman plays a piano designed for people undergoing bedrest, 1935.
A photo by Berenice Abbot of a woman wiring an IBM computer, 1948.
A man repairs the antenna on the World Trade Center, NYC, 1979. Photo by Peter Kaplan.
Bottling ketchup at the Heinz factory, Pittsburgh, 1897
A meeting of the Mickey Mouse Club, California, c. 1930.
The Great Blizzard of 1888, New York City
A WWI-era German submarine washed ashore in Hasting, England, in 1919.
The intact seal on Tutankhamun’s Tomb, 1922. It went untouched for 3,424 years.
Lumberjacks take a photo with a Douglas fir tree, Washington, 1899.
A woman is ticketed for wearing a bikini, 1957
The employee cafeteria at Disneyland, 1961.
An unknown soldier, Vietnam, 1965
An Austrian child gets new shoes during WWI
Painting the Eiffel tower, 1932.
A girl tries to get a reaction from a royal guard. Stockholm, Sweden, 1970s.
Audrey Hepburn with her pet deer, 1958.
A hippie sells flowers on the road, Oklahoma, 1973
An East German soldier sneaks a little boy across the Berlin Wall, 1961.
Wojtek the bear, who fought in WW2.
“No dog biscuits today,” London, 1940s
Mom contains her baby with a trashcan while she crochets, 1969.
Mobsters hide from the camera during Al Capone’s trial, 1931.
Protesting against low pay for teachers, 1930
People stop to watch the “Seinfeld” finale in Times Square in 1998. Photo by Ken Murray.
Samurai pose in front of the Sphinx, 1864.
Monet with his wife Alice, 1908
Protesting in Miami Beach, Florida, 1980s.
Archaeologists dine in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses XI, 1923
Selling lemonade with a portable dispenser, Berlin, 1931.
A young Elvis with his parents, 1937.
Louis Armstrong plays for his wife in front of the Great Sphinx, 1961.
Loggers pose with a massive redwood, 1892.
Blackfoot tribe in Glacier National Park, 1913
The Titanic docked at Southampton, 1912.
Collecting golf balls, 1920s
Teaching the physics of surfing, California, 1970s.
Young German soldier after being captured, 1945. Getty Images
Lenin giving a speech in Moscow, 1920
Samurai in full armor and sword, c. 1860.
Photo of an ironworker during construction of the Columbia Tower, Seattle, 1984.
After Randall Champion touched a high-voltage line, electrocuting himself and stopping his heart, J.D. Thompson gave him CPR until help arrived, allowing Champion to survive. “The Kiss of Life.” (1967) by Rocco Morabito.
Three-year-old Robert Quigley smoking a cigar, 1928. Photo by Henry Miller
A father searches for his two sons who went missing during the Kosovo war in 1999.
Windows on the World. Restaurant on the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, 1976. Photo by Ezra Stoller
Disco Granny, a regular fixture at Studio 54.
A 17-year-old Fidel Castro playing basketball, 1943.
A baby cage, initially named a “health cage”, was essentially a bed encased in wire, dangling from the windows of city apartments.
During World War II, Steinway & Sons air-dropped pianos with large parachutes and complete tuning instructions into the battle for the American troops.
Anne Frank photographed with her sister Margot at the beach in Zandvoort, Netherlands, in 1940.
This photo from 1902 shows French knife grinders. They would work on their stomachs in order to save their backs from being hunched all day.
Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi (1915 – 1997) is emotionally overcome on his return to Tokyo on February 2nd, 1972.
The photo, taken by Irving Penn in 1947, shows Peter Freuchen, a Danish adventurer, writer, and scientist
Captain Lewis Nixon of Easy Company, suffering a hangover after celebrating V-E Day in 1945.
The Statue of Liberty as seen from the torch.
Three soldiers who lost their left leg in the New Georgia Campaign exercise the stump of their legs in preparation for using artificial limbs. McCloskey General Hospital, Texas, January 1944.
A young man unphased by his arrest for growing marijuana, 1970s.
This is the first image captured of Chernobyl, taken 14 hours after the explosion on April 26, 1986.
The old Cincinnati library before it was demolishedTwo Maori Women. New Zealand, 1902
Joe Biden withdraws from the 1988 presidential election
Father and son take silly photos, 1910s.
Flattening hills to build Seattle
A man records a concert in Poland, 1980s.
Princeton students after a snowball fight, 1893.
Gerald Ford plays Soccer with Pele, 1975.
The Endurance trapped in ice, 1915.
Prototype spacesuit for the Apollo mission. 1962.
Soviet Cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, who was stuck in space for 311 days, 1991
The Twin Towers from a wheat field in Manhattan.