It’s every photographer’s dream to take a picture so powerful that it ends up being enjoyed by future generations. The deeper you delve into the past, the more you realize how many wonderful photos have been taken, but perhaps haven’t been given the time in the spotlight that they deserve. They’re full of character, and just as good—if not better than—some of the most iconic pics we know from textbooks and the internet.
The ‘Photos From History’ Instagram page does exactly what it says on the tin and features aesthetic pics from the past. We’ve collected some of the top ones to share with you, Pandas, and some of them are bound to change the way you view history. Don’t forget to upvote the ones that impressed you the most!
Bored Panda reached out to professional photographer Dominic Sberna, from Ohio, for a chat about high-quality photos, how photography has become more accessible over time, and how AI might affect the art form in the future. Read on for our full interview with him.
#1 August 23, 1989: 2 Million People Form A Human Chain Through Latvia, Estonia, And Lithuania, Uniting All 3 Countries To Show The World Their Desire To Escape The Soviet Union
Image source: photos.from.history
#2 The Couple On The Woodstock Album Cover Is Still Together 50 Years Later In 2019
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#3 Family Friend Went Camping 30 Years Ago And Heard A Noise. She Stuck Her Camera Outside Her Tent And Snapped This Picture
Image source: photos.from.history
#4 The Swedish Warship Vasa Sank In 1628 Less Than A Mile Into Its Maiden Voyage And Was Recovered From The Sea Floor After 333 Years Almost Completely Intact
Image source: photos.from.history
#5 East German Soldier Helps A Little Boy Sneak Across The Berlin Wall The Day It Was Erected In 1961
Image source: photos.from.history
#6 King Arthur’s Statue Overlooking The Atlantic Ocean On The Cliffs Of Tintagel In Cornwall, England
Image source: photos.from.history
#7 Helen Mirren, 1967
Image source: photos.from.history
#8 The Last Public Appearance Of Laurel & Hardy In 1956
Oliver Hardy passed away the following year due to heart complications. Due to his own ill health at the time Stan Laurel was unable to go to his dear friend’s funeral, famously saying ‘Babe would understand.” Laurel would never recover from Hardy’s death. He refused to perform in any capacity afterwards, turning down interviews, stage and screen roles. Instead, Laurel decided to dedicate the remainder of his life to his fans and offering tips to up and coming comedians. His address to his small Santa Monica apartment and phone number where published in the phonebook. He eagerly greeted fans and guests that would show up unannounced. Fans were surprised that Laurel, himself, would answer the phone. Much of his free time was dedicated to answering his fan mail. He insisted that each and every letter be answered personally. Amongst the up and coming Comedians that often visited Stan Laurel were Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke. The advice they received from Laurel was invaluable to the later success of their careers. Stan Laurel out lived Oliver Hardy by eight years. As his health continued to decline, he remained out of the public eye, fearing that children would be horrified by his current old appearance. In 1965, he suffered a final heart attack and four days later passed away. At his funeral, Dick Van Dyke gave the eulogy and among the attendees were Hal Roach Sr and silent film comedian Buster Keaton who remarked “Chaplin wasn’t the funniest, I wasn’t the funniest, he was the funniest”
Image source: photos.from.history
#9 Archeologists Unearth 2,200 Year Old Mosaics In An Ancient Greek City Named Zeugma In Gaziantep Province, Turkey
They have given us the opportunity to witness the unveiling of Greek and Roman art that hasn’t been seen in thousands of years. Three new mosaics have been discovered. They are exceptionally well preserved mosaics, dating back to the 2nd century BCE.
Image source: photos.from.history
#10 David Bowie Performs To A Huge Crowd At Milton Keynes Bowl In 1983
Image source: photos.from.history
#11 Leonardo Dicaprio, Johnny Depp & Brad Pitt In The Flush Of Youth
Image source: photos.from.history
#12 Ornithologist Jerry Mcgahan Holding A 6-Month-Old Andean Condor In 1971
Image source: photos.from.history
#13 A Girl Watches Her Father Perform Acrobatics
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#14 Grace Jones By Jean-Paul Goude, 1981
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#15 Barbra Streisand By Cecil Beaton, 1969
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#16 David Bowie And Wife Iman
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#17 Sigourney Weaver And Rick Moranis On Set Of The First Ghostbusters In 1984
Image source: photos.from.history
#18 In A 1996 Incident At An Illinois Zoo, A Female Gorilla Cradled A 3-Year-Old Boy Who Fell Nearly 20 Feet Into Her Enclosure An 8-Year-Old Gorilla Named Binti Jua Made Worldwide Headlines When She Carried A Boy To Safety After He Slipped Away From His Mother And Climbed Through A Barrier At The Western Lowland Gorilla Pit At The Brookfield Zoo On Aug. 19, 1996
Image source: photos.from.history
#19 Harvey Ball And The Smiley Face He Created In The 1960s
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#20 The Discovery Of An Ancient Maya Statue In The Jungles Of Honduras, 1885
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#21 Pink Floyd Concert In Venice In 1989
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#22 Carolyn Jones’ Morticia Addams Wishes You A Ghoulishly Good Weekend
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#23 Ava Gardner, Age 19. Photo From Her Mgm Employment Questionnaire In 1942
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#24 Ukrainian Refugees In Germany In 1945
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#25 The Face Of War By Salvador Dali In 1941
Dali had spent the years 1936-1939 in Paris, throughout the Spanish Civil War. During the beginning of the Second World War (1940), Dali fled to California with his wife, due to the Fall of France, in which Germany had invaded and captured France. This experience, along with then recent horrors of the Spanish Civil War, inspired Dali to express the misery of Europe through this painting
Image source: photos.from.history
#26 Jacques Cousteau And His Crew Relax In A Submersible After Work During The Conshelf Two Expedition, 1963
Continental Shelf Station Two was an attempt at creating an environment in which humans could live and work on the sea floor. Dix oceanauts lived 10 metres down in the Red Sea, at Sha’ab Rumi off Sudan, in a starfish-shaped house for 30 days.
Image source: photos.from.history
#27 Björk By Laura Levine In 1991
Image source: photos.from.history
#28 Anthony Bourdain On Dublin – “If You’ve Got Any Kind Of A Heart, A Soul, An Appreciation For Your Fellow Man, Or Any Kind Of Appreciation For The Written Word, Or Simply A Love Of A Perfectly Poured Beverage, Then There’s No Way You Could Avoid Loving This City.”
Image source: photos.from.history
#29 Croatians Ira And Marijan Kiss Near The End Of The Croatian War Of Independence In 1995
Marijan Horvat was coming back from the frontline after military operation ‘Storm’, and Ira was waiting near the road to see if he was on one of the trucks. This was the moment when she saw him and ran to him. “I was looking forward to see if he would be on a truck and suddenly I saw him. The truck was passing, they were not allowed to stop, so Marijan just leaned over to kiss me”, Ira explains. The couple married not long after this photo was taken and are still together today (swipe for image above). Photo by Lea Krivošić. Coincidentally, this photo was taken 50 years to the day after Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous Life Magazine photo of a kiss between a sailor and a nurse in New York’s Times Square on August 14, 1945, just after the end of World War II
Image source: photos.from.history
#30 Nancy Sinatra Pictured With Her Father Frank And Family Friend Yul Brynner At The Sands Hotel In Las Vegas, 1965
Image source: photos.from.history
#31 Casting Polaroid Of Salma Hayek In 1995
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#32 The Rolling Stones’ First Photo Shoot 4 May, 1963
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#33 Young Couple Kissing Before The Fall Of The Berlin Wall In 1989
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#34 A Bank Robber Shooting His Pistol At The Surveillance Camera, Cleveland, Ohio, 1977
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#35 Esso Hibernia Tanker Under Construction, Wallsend, England, 1970
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#36 Audrey Tautou On The Set Of Amélie In 2001
Image source: photos.from.history
#37 Iggy Pop Raised By The Crowd In A Messianic Pose Live In Cincinnati In 1970
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#38 (1980) Punk Legend Viv Albertine Of The Slits Performs At Alexandra Palace In London
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#39 (Studio 54) Ballet Icon, Rudolf Nureyev, Initiates Nine-Year-Old Actor Ricky Schroder Into The Delights Of Disco Dancing At Studio 54 In New York On Sunday, April 2, 1979
Image source: photos.from.history
#40 Andy Fletcher From Depeche Mode At The Hill 16 Pub, Dublin, 1983
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