Awat Dhahir
People are living a fast life. Not many are aware of the past. The origins and history have always been fascinating. You can read books and materials that will feed you with information.
On the other hand, there are many sources where you can learn more about historical artifacts and the stories behind them.
Viral Strange has gathered 30 of the most interesting facts and pictures, shared by a Facebook page called “The World Of History“.
1. Knife grinders in France 1902, they worked lying down to save their backs and had dogs sit on their legs for warmth.
2. Berlin, Germany, 1985-2018
3. The moment when President Bush was informed about the 9/11 terrorist attack, in 2001
4. A photograph of a Filipino-American family taken more than a decade after the US colonization of the islands. The photo dates back to 1912.
5. An East German border guard offers a flower through a gap in the Berlin Wall on the morning it fell, 1989
6. A Serbian soldier sleeps with his father who came to visit him on the front line near Belgrade, 1914/1915
7. Noodle delivery boy in Tokyo, 1935
8. Residents of West Berlin show their children to their grandparents living in East Berlin, 1961
9. Meeting around a baguette. France 1950. Photo by: Robert Doisneau.
10. A native American mother and her child, 1900s
11. During WWII, Jews in Budapest were brought to the edge of the Danube, ordered to remove their shoes, and shot, falling into the water below. 60 pairs of iron shoes now line the river’s bank, a ghostly memorial to the victims. ‘Shoes on the Danube Promenade’ by Can Togay and Gyula Pauer.
12. A Victorian Couple Trying Not To Laugh While Getting Their Portraits Done, the 1890s.
13. “The Kiss of Life.”
On July 17, 1967, a Florida lineman named Randall Champion accidentally touched a high-voltage line — which sent 4,000 volts of electricity through his body and stopped his heart. Luckily, his friend and fellow lineman J.D. Thompson were close enough to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until paramedics arrived. Thanks to Thompson’s quick thinking, Champion survived the incident and even reported to work the following week.
Unbeknownst to Champion and Thompson, a photographer for the Jacksonville Journal was standing just below them to capture this daring rescue. From the ground, Rocco Morabito snapped one of the most moving images in history — “The Kiss of Life.”
14. Injured dog in an animal ambulance used during WW2
15. 3 people pose for a photo whilst wearing face masks during the second wave of the Spanish Flu in California; in 1918.
16. Father, son, grandfather, and great-grandfather, New Guinea, 1970.
17. Rejected designs for the Eiffel Tower.
18. Pope John Paul II talks with Mehmet Agca, the man who tried to assassinate him, in an Italian prison, in 1983.
19. “4 Children for Sale”, 1948
The photo first appeared in The Vidette-Messenger of Valparaiso, Indiana on August 5, 1948. The children looked posed and a bit confused as their pregnant mother hides in shame on her face from the photographer after putting her children up for sale. The caption read: “A big ‘For Sale’ sign in a Chicago yard mutely tells the tragic story of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Chalifoux, who face eviction from their apartment. With no place to turn, the jobless coal truck driver and his wife decide to sell their four children. Mrs. Lucille Chalifoux turns her head from the camera above while her children stare wonderingly. On the top step are Lana, 6, and Rae, 5. Below are Milton, 4, and Sue Ellen, 2”.
Family members accused the mother of being paid to stage the photo, which may have been part of the story, but unfortunately, she was dead serious about selling her children. Within two years all of the children’s pictures, as well as the baby she was carrying at the time, were sold off to different homes.
20. Children going to school having to cross a river by pulley, Modena, Italy, 1959
21. The Queen of England and her husband at the horse races in 1968
22. Tricycle of a 3-year-old boy named Shin, who died 1,500 meters from the hypocenter of Hiroshima atomic bombing, 1945
23. 2-year-old Elvis Presley with his parents, 1937
24. Double leg amputee railway signalman, James Wide, photographed working alongside his pet and assistant, Jack Baboon, in Cape Town during the 1880s.
James Wide purchased a chacma baboon in 1881 and trained him to push his wheelchair and operate the railway signals under supervision.
After initial skepticism, the railway decided to officially employ Jack once his job competency was verified. The baboon was paid twenty cents a day, and half a bottle of a beer each week. It is widely reported in his nine years of employment with the railway company, Jack never made a single mistake. That’s wild and he worked there for nine years.
25. 18th-century device that allowed researchers to work/read up to 8 open books at a time.
26. A British sailor removing the leg chains off an enslaved man who had worn them for three years.
The enslaved man, along with others, had escaped a slave-trading post off the coast of Oman when they heard the Royal Navy was nearby. (1907)
27. The image has become iconic and the woman in it, a then 28-year-old Marcy Borders, became known as the ‘dust lady’ in the days after 9/11.
This is about a victim, not about who is to blame. It would be lovely to honor her and others who lost their lives here, and debate specifics elsewhere.
The image has become iconic and the woman in it, a then 28-year-old Marcy Borders, became known as the ‘dust lady’ in the days after 9/11. She had been working in the North Tower of the World Trade Center for only a month, on the 81st floor only 12 stories down from where American Airlines Flight 11 made an impact. She made her way down the main stairwell of the tower, along with hundreds of others escaping. In the time it took her to reach the ground floor, the South Tower had just collapsed and an enormous dust cloud, visible from space, was rising. “I took chase from this cloud of dust and smoke that was following me,” Borders said. “Once it caught me it threw me on my hands and knees. Every time I inhaled my mouth filled up with it, and I was choking. I was saying to myself out loud, I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to die.” She was pulled from the dust and into a nearby lobby by a man, and that is where photographer Stan Honda snapped this haunting photo, seen around the world as a testament to the horrors of 9/11.
Marcy Borders passed away from stomach cancer in August 2015, cancer she believes was exacerbated by inhaling dust on that fateful day. The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund and the World Trade Center Health Program estimate that over 2,000 have died of illnesses related to the attack over the past 18 years.
28. The 2800-Year-Old Kiss
These human remains were unearthed in 1972 at the Teppe Hasanlu archaeological site, located in the Solduz Valley in the West Azerbaijan Province of Iran. The archaeologist who studied the skeletons confirms they were there since 2,800 years ago. The University of Pennsylvania has determined that the couple died together around 800 BC. The skeletons do appear like they are kissing each other before they died – as if to signify that love is eternal.
29. British soldier retrieving bandages from the kit of a dog during WWI, 1915
30. A Berlin boy sells lemonade using a portable lemonade dispenser, in 1931.
Did you know any of these? Which did you find more interesting? Tell us in the comments.
