Historic Photos Blog Post Archive

Sunday, December 27, 2015

The Year in Review / 2015

Some of the past year's most intriguing photos...
Photos + Descriptions / NBC News Archives - 2015
Please Note: Some Images may be disturbing...

A Cal Fire firefighter is silhouetted by his headlamp as he monitors a backfire while battling the Rocky Fire on Aug. 3, near Clearlake, California.  Some 12,200 people were ordered or advised to evacuate as the wildfire that started July 29 chewed through nearly 109 square miles of dry brush burning about 100 miles north of San Francisco.  Photo by Justin Sullivan



Children cry as migrants waiting on the Greek side of the border break through a cordon of Macedonian special police forces to cross into Macedonia, near the southern city of Gevgelija, Macedonia, on Aug. 21. Macedonian police clashed with thousands of migrants attempting to break into the country after being stranded in no-man's land overnight, marking an escalation of the European refugee crisis for the Balkan country.  Photo by Georgi Licovski 



Clementa Pinckney, Emanuel AME Church pastor and South Carolina state senator, lies in state at the South Carolina State House in Columbia on June 24. Pinckney was one of nine black parishioners killed by a white gunman during a Bible study inside Emanuel AME church in Charleston.  Photo by Jim Watson



An Orioles runner, wearing white, races towards home plate during a game against the Chicago White Sox in Baltimore on April 29. In a first for Major League Baseball, the Orioles hosted the White Sox in a stadium closed to fans, as Baltimore coped with some of the worst U.S. urban rioting in years after the death of Freddie Gray.  Photo by Adrees Latif



Musa, a 25-year-old Kurdish marksman, stands atop a building as he looks at the destroyed Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on Jan. 30. Kurdish forces recaptured the town on the Turkish frontier on Jan. 26, in a symbolic blow to the jihadists who have seized large swathes of territory in their onslaught across Syria and Iraq.  Photo by Bulent Kilic



Fran Collings, 82, sits in the remains of her destroyed home in Tokai, Cape Town, South Africa, on March 4. A fire fanned by gale force winds raged over 7,000 acres around the Cape Town south peninsula. Photo by Nic Bothma 



Police officers salute as the coffin of officer Robert Wilson III arrives before a funeral procession on March 14 in Philadelphia. City officials said Wilson was shot and killed after he and his partner exchanged gunfire with two suspects trying to rob a video game store.  Photo by Matt Rourke



A police officer investigates the scene before carrying the lifeless body of 3-year-old refugee Aylan Kurdi from the beach near the resort-town of Bodrum, Turkey, on Sept. 2.  The pictures of the drowned toddler ricocheted across social media — hailed as emblematic of the desperate and deadly refugee struggle to reach Europe.  Photo Undocumented




Vice President Joe Biden, center, pauses his family as they to enter a visitation for his son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, on June 4 at Legislative Hall in Dover, Del. Standing with Biden are, from left, his son Hunter, granddaughter Natalie, daughter-in-law Hallie, grandson Hunter and wife Jill. Beau Biden died of brain cancer at age 46.  Photo by Patrick Semansky



A child rescued from Boko Haram in the Sambisa forest is attended to at a camp for the displaced in Yola, Nigeria, on May 3. Hundreds of traumatized Nigerian women and children rescued from the Islamist militant group were released into the care of authorities at the camp.  Photo by Afolabi Sotunde 



A large crowd gathers to lay flowers and candles in front of Le Carillon in Paris on Nov. 15. Le Carillon was one of the first restaurants hit in the multiple attacks across Paris by ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers that killed 130 people.  Photo by Ian Langsdon



The moon passes in front of the sun during a total solar eclipse witnessed from a plane over the Norwegian Sea on March 20.  Photo by Sergei Karpukhin




German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with President Barack Obama during the G-7 summit near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on June 8.  Photo by Michael Kappeler



A woman and child examine a vehicle swept away during a flash flood on Sept. 15 in Hilldale, Utah.
The little Utah town where at least eight people were killed in a flash flood is the home of a polygamist religious sect.  Photo by Michael Chow



Pope Francis is welcomed to the Speaker's Balcony at the U.S. Capitol by members of Congress on Sept. 24. After visiting Washington and New York City, Pope Francis concluded his U.S. tour with events in and around Philadelphia.  Photo by Doug Mills



Desert surrounds properties in Rancho Mirage, Calif., on April 3. The state's history as a frontier of prosperity and glamour faces an uncertain future as the fourth year of severe water shortages prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to mandate a 25 percent reduction in non-agricultural water use.  Photo by Damon Winter



 Demonstrators climb on a destroyed Baltimore Police car during protests following the funeral of Freddie Gray on April 27.  Gray sustained neck injuries following an April 12 foot chase with police which ended with his being charged with possession of a switchblade and placed into a police van. He sustained neck injuries while riding in the van, and died a week later.  Photo by Chip Somodevilla




Crumpled containers are scattered at the site of explosions at the port in Tianjin, China, on Aug. 16. Huge blasts at a warehouse storing hazardous materials forced the evacuation of thousands and killed 173, many of them firefighters.  Photo by China Stringer Network




Several wild horses escape as a helicopter is used to herd them into a trap along Highway 21 near the Sulphur Herd Management Area south of Garrison, Utah, on Feb. 26. Citing public safety concerns, 100 horses were rounded-up after three confirmed automobile collisions with horses in the last year. The captured horses were made available for adoption through the bureau's Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Program.  Photo by Jim Urquhart 



Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters after his rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Aug. 21 in Mobile, Alabama.  Photo by Mark Wallheiser



A column of migrants moves through fields in Rigonce, Slovenia, after crossing from Croatia on Oct. 25th. Tens of thousands of migrants and refugees are coming from Syria and beyond and marching across the Balkans toward the European Union's heartland.  Photo by Darko Bandic



Dollar bills flutter around the head President Sepp Blatter, head of the world soccer governing body known as FIFA, as he arrives for a news conference at FIFA headquarters in Zurich on July 20th. The shower of cash was tossed by a British prankster.  FIFA is reeling from the worst corruption scandal in its more than 100-year history, with 41 people including national soccer bosses as well as entities charged by U.S. prosecutors.  Photo by Arnd Wiegmann 



A Ukrainian coal miner waits for a bus after helping in the search for colleagues following an explosion in Donetsk in war-torn eastern Ukraine, killing more than 30 people. on March 4th - Photo by Vadim Ghirda.


See the full photo gallery of 50 Images at...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/year-pictures-2015-n485456  






Thursday, December 17, 2015

Historic Photos / Set # 61

Please Note: The art of photography has the ability to expose brutality and provide evidence of the utter failure of humanity.  Some Images may be disturbing...

An old woman tearfully bids farewell to a relative as she escapes the besieged city of Bosnia, Sarajevo, 1993.


Eight hours after its closest approach to Saturn, Voyager 1 took this picture of the planet’s ring system. November 12, 1980.



A bread line to feed people following the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906.



Amish children in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania – Colorized Photo – 1937.



View of Midtown Manhattan, New York City, Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt –1939.



Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man in history, with his parents and siblings in Alton, Illinois, 1935 he continued to grow until his death at 22 when he was 8'11" tall.



Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin., Jr takes a selfie while in space on Gemini 12 – November 1966.



Jennie Churchill with her sons John & Winston (the future Prime Minister), 1889.



Two performers of the Bertram Mills Circus walk head-to-head down a city street in London, England to promote the show. 1953.



Main Street, Richmond, Virginia, Circa 1905.



Portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II at Nottingham's Council House. 



Exhausted US Navy pilots catching a few winks in the Ready Room, November 1944.      



Buffy, Jody & Mrs. Beasley from the television show Family Affair, 1967.



Robin Williams street performing in New York City, 1979.



The ship HMS Legion moves alongside the damaged and listing HMS Ark Royal in order to take off survivors. The aircraft carrier was torpedoed by the German U-boat U 81 off Gibraltar. November 13, 1941.



 The style of United States Secret Service uniforms under President Nixon, 1970-74.



Family portrait of an African American Union Soldier in Uniform with his wife and daughters - Circa 1860s.



The Grand Dragon of the Fulton County, Georgia, Ku Klux Klan, an Atlanta doctor named Samuel Green, surrounded by his assistants, May 1946.



British troops march past the Great Pyramids in Egypt, 1940. Photo By Margaret Bourke-White.



The last prisoners to leave Alcatraz Prison in 1963.



The Arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald outside theater in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963.



 Lonely woodsmen in Montana frontier put out an advertisement, 1901.



Richard M. Nixon celebrating at the GOP convention in Chicago. Photo by George Skadding, 1952.



Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog drop in to visit Yoda and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) of planet Dagobah during his training on the on the film set of the Empire Strikes Back - 1980.



Then British Airship R33 preparing for launch, Barlow, Yorkshire. March, 1919.



Heinrich Himmler and his daughter, Gudrun in 1941. Gudrun, who lives in Munich, is to this day an unapologetic Nazi. Since 1951, she has been an active member of Stille Hilfe, an organization supporting arrested, condemned or fugitive former SS members.



Children. They are the most vulnerable victims of war and genocide. Between 1933 and 1945, millions of children were displaced as a result of persecution by the Nazis and their collaborators. After World War II, relief agencies photographed some of the children who survived to help find their families. Now, more than 65 years later, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is working to discover what became of these young survivors.   


Additional References____________________________________ 
Special thanks to the following additional online collection sources and archives... Tumblr, Pinterest, Shorpy, Life Magazine, Historical Times, Reddit,  Histoire-fanatique, Getty Images, Harris & Ewing, The Nifty Fifties, Farm Security Administration, Classicland, History Wars, Historic Photo, Houk Gallery, Mundovigilia, Those Old Times, The Story in Pictures, National Photo Company, Office of War Information, United States Armed Forces, NASA, Detroit Publishing Company...