“Undiscovered History”: 50 Interesting Pictures From The Past

The past can be quite fascinating. Those of us living in the present find it really interesting what life was like 50, 100, or even a 1,000 years ago. Luckily, we can go almost 200 years to the past thanks to photography, as the oldest surviving photograph is from 1826.

It’s even more interesting when old historical photos teach us something new. That’s the mission of the Undiscovered History Facebook page. It’s a popular account with over 540k followers that teaches its fans a bit of everything: history, aesthetics, and even interesting facts. So scroll down and explore history through the medium of pictures!

#1 An Officer Halts Traffic To Make Way For A Cat Carrying A Kitten Across The Street, 1925

RELATED: #2 Blackfoot Tribe In Glacier National Park, 1913

#3 Three Young Boys Sit In A Wagon In A Pittsburgh Neighborhood Street, 1920-1930

Undiscovered History is one of the few online accounts run by the folks atHistory Defined. It’s a blog that shares important and unusual historic facts and stories we probably don’t learn in a history class at school. Their content includes such interesting stories as why Christian monks had such weird haircuts and the fashion of the decades from the 1920s up to the 1990s.

Besides this Facebook page, you can find History Defined and their content onInstagram,X, andYouTube. We’ve actually covered their IG page a couple of times, and you can find the articlehereandhere. Their X page is currently the most popular with over 670k followers.

#4 1967-2018 Same Bike, Same Couple

#5 A Portrait Of Hollow Horn Bear, A Man From The Brulé Native American Tribe. 1907

#6 A Lovely Photo Of A Brother And Sister. I Love Their Fashions And Her Purse! Chicago,. 1945

The content channel describes their goal as “to create exciting content, whether you’re casually interested in history or an expert.” The Instagram page came first in October of 2021, and other social media accounts followed. They also accept contributions from their followers, asking them to reach out through theircontact page.

In May 2023, History Defined launched the Threads of HistoryFacebook group, taking their audience’s submissions even further. That’s where their followers and fans can share any fascinating stories and photos from the past they find interesting and worth sharing.

#7 A Kid’s Reaction To Meeting Andre The Giant (1970’s)

#8 A Man Posing With A Donkey In His Lap, 1910s

#9 Tricycle From 1936

Nowadays, we consume tons of visual media. Videos, photos, cinema, and TV can help us learn new things every day. However, they can just as easily misinform us. With the rise of AI-generated images and other means to doctor photographs, it’s hard to know when we can trust what we see as true. Interestingly, what we now consider historical images were sometimes altered even before the advent of Photoshop.

#10 Cats Wait For The Fisherman To Return, Istanbul, 1970s

#11 Three Female Students Walk In The City Of Kabul, Afghanistan, 1972

#12 Father And Son Take Silly Photos, 1910s

Perhaps the most iconic portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is actuallyfake. In the image, Lincoln is standing, but that’s not his body. Printmakers superimposed his head from a 1964portraitby Anthony Berger onto John Calhoun’s body. Hany Farid, a professor specializing in image analysis at Berkeley University,claimsit might’ve been because there were no “heroic style” portraits of Lincolns at the time.

#13 Richard White Bull, Oglala Sioux, 1899

#14 In 1960, David Latimer Planted A Spiderwort Sprout Inside Of A Large Glass Bottle, Added A Quarter Pint Of Water, And Then Sealed It Shut

He opened the bottle 12 years later in 1972 to add some water and then sealed it for good. The self contained ecosystem has flourished for more than 60 years. For those who are wondering how this is even possible: the garden is a perfectly balanced and self-sufficient ecosystem. The bacteria in the compost eats the dead plants and breaks down the oxygen that is released by the plants, turning it into carbon dioxide, which is needed for photosynthesis. The bottle is essentially a microcosm of earth.

#15 A Photograph Of A Little Boy Carrying A Newborn Lamb, In Scotland, 1932

Stalin was a big fan of removing his enemies and those who fell out of his favor from photographs. One example isa 1922 imagewhere the dictator is standing next to the Moscow canal. In the original photo, a secret police official Nikolai Yezhov is standing next to him. But in 1938, he fell out of Stalin’s favor and was secretly arrested, tried, and executed. Thus, the leader had photo retouchers remove him.

#16 A Mother And Her Eight Sons, All Served, All Came Home

#17 3 Beautiful Children From 1901. Hattie, Clarence, And James Harold Ward

#18 A Lady From High Society. Ottoman Empire, 1900s

The National Geographic is also a culprit when it comes to altering images. Their February issue cover in 1982featured the pyramids of Giza. However, in the image they used, the two pyramids are too close together than they are in reality.

The magazine later expressed their regrets and said: “We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we wouldn’t repeat that mistake today.”

#19 Jim Carrey, Christmas 1967

#20 A Sweet Photo Of A Brother And Sister. Charlottesville, Va, C. 1916

#21 Unbelievably Stunning Couple (Love How Their Hands Are Clasped Together), 1960s

Did you know the iconic album cover for The Beatles’Abbey Roadwas also altered? In the original, Paul McCartney was holding a cigarette in his right hand. In the United States, the poster companiesairbrushedthe images and removed the cigarette from his hand in 2001, 14 months after George Harrison passed away from cancer.

Apple Records later issued a statement, saying they never agreed to this. “It seems these poster companies got a little carried away. They shouldn’t have done what they have, but there isn’t much we can do about it now.”

#22 A Mountain Boy Fetches Water From A Spring, Great Smoky Mountains, Sevier County, Tennessee, Ca. 1950

#23 The Shape Of The Statue Of Liberty Is Formed By 18,000 Soldiers Standing In Formation. Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Ca. 1918

#24 A Stylish 1940s Group Portrait

A 1970 photograph by photojournalism student John Filo taken at a protest against the war in Vietnam was doctored as well. But not in an attempt to change history.The originalsimply broke the main aesthetic rule of photography: a fence post terminated on top of the subject’s head. The photograph won a Pulitzer prize, so, it was worth it, probably?

#25 Portrait Of A Mother And Her Daughter. Photographed In 1910

#26 King George Vi Bursting With Excitement On A Theme Park Ride – 1930s

#27 Country Store On A Dirt Road, North Carolina In 1939

And how can we forget to mention celebrities getting airbrushed on the covers of magazines? One of the earliest examples was a TV Guidecover of Oprah. The editors superimposed her head on the ’60s star Ann-Margaret’s body. Interestingly, the magazinedidn’t askeither woman’s permission before they chose to do that.

#28 American Woman Welders During World War II

#29 A Woman Churning Milk To Butter While Reading A Book, 1897

#30 Federico Caprilli Demonstrates The Skills Of His Horse As Part Of The Esteemed Italian Cavalry School, 1906

Photographs can be a great source of history. But, sometimes, we should take them with a healthy dose of skepticism. As David Levi Strausswritesfor TIME magazine, “Technical images have now become a form of information, to be consumed like all other bits and bytes. As we consume them, we should perhaps take a moment to reflect, not just on how we manipulate and change them, but also on how we are manipulated and changed by them.”

#31 Charlie Chaplin Meeting Helen Keller, 1919