History is one big treasure box full of unforgettable moments, incredible people, encounters, places, events, incidents, you name it. But with time flying at the pace of a hadron collider, they easily slip under the dusty blanket of time and oblivion.
Thanks to this incredibly entertaining Instagram page titled “Lost In History,” though, many of these rare moments that got captured on camera were dug up from the past and brought to the present time. Dedicated to 20th-century people and culture, the account is sharing pictures with its 1.2M followers that illuminate history in this entirely new perspective.
Psst! After you're done reading this one, don't forget to check out our previous feature with more "Lost In History" pics.
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#1 "My Parents On Their Wedding Day In 1964 And Then Again At Christmas 2021"
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#2 Simone Segouin, Mostly Known By Her Codename, Nicole Minet, Was Only 18-Years-Old When The Germans Invaded
Her first act of rebellion was to steal a bicycle from a German military administration, and to slice the tires of all of the other bikes and motorcycles so they couldn't pursue her. She found a pocket of the Resistance and joined the fight, using the stolen bike to deliver messages between Resistance groups. She was an extremely fast learner and quickly became an expert at tactics and explosives. She led teams of Resistance fighters to capture German troops, set traps, and sabotage German equipment. As the war dragged on, her deeds escalated to derailing German trains, blocking roads, blowing up bridges and helping to create a German-free path to help the Allied forces retake France from the inside. She was never caught. Segouin was present at the liberation of Chartres on August 23, 1944, and then the liberation of Paris two days later. She was promoted to lieutenant and awarded several medals, including the Croix de Guerre. After the war, she studied medicine and became a pediatric nurse. She is still going strong at 96.
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#3 Hattie Mcdaniel Accepting Her Oscar In A Segregated "No Blacks" Hotel In Los Angeles For Her Role In Gone With The Wind
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“Photographs bring history to life in an immediate and visceral way,” Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech, where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures, told Bored Panda in a previous interview.
Yaszek explained how it’s different from exploring history through written sources. “When we read books, we get lots of detailed information about historical events: who was involved, where the event happened, what factors led to and resulted from it, and so on.”
#4 German Anti-Nazi Political Activist, Sophie Scholl, Was Executed In 1943 For Leading Non-Violent Student Resistance Against Hitler
She was 21 years old. Her last words: "How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"
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#5 This Is A Photo Of Dr. Eugene Lazowski, A Polish Doctor Who Saved 8,000 Jews By Creating A Fake Typhus Epidemic In Stalowa Wola (Nazi Occupied Poland), 1943
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#6 Holocaust Survivor And The Soldier Who Rescued Her In 1944
During World War 2, John Mackay was part of the Scottish commando unit that rescued a group of prisoners from the Nazis as they were being marched from Auschwitz to another concentration camp. Little did he know that amongst the prisoners was a young Hungarian woman by the name of Edith Steiner. He would see her again at a dance, which was organized to celebrate the liberation. John asked a friend to ask Edith if she would dance with him, but she sent his friend back with the message that she would only do so if he asked her out himself. So John worked up the courage to go up to her and ask her in person, and she accepted. In 1946, they married and returned to Scotland where they owned and operated a small hotel in Pitlochry before retiring in Dundee. After celebrating their 71st Valentine's Day together, Edith passed away in June of 2017, just three weeks before their wedding anniversary. She was 92 years old.
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“Sometimes such information can be vividly detailed and prompt us to imagine what historical events might have looked like in ways that make us feel more connected to them, but sometimes we are so overwhelmed with dry or technical details that we actually feel more removed from the event than ever before,” the professor explained.
#7 An Iconic Image Showing Aboriginal Rights Activist, Gary Foley With A Sign Reading, “Pardon Me For Being Born Into A Nation Of Racists”, 1971
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#8 This Is Shavarsh Karapetyan, A Retired Armenian Swimmer. In 1976, He Had Just Completed A 26 Km (16 Mile) Run When He Heard A Loud Crash
A trolleybus had lost control and had fallen into a reservoir. It was 25 meters (82 ft) off-shore and had sunk to a depth of 10 meters (33 ft). Karapetyan immediately dived into the sewage-infested waters and managed to kick the back window of the trolleybus with his legs, despite zero visibility from the silt that had risen from the bottom. Of the 92 passengers onboard, Karapetyan pulled out 46 people. 20 of whom survived. The combination of cold water and the multiple lacerations from glass shards led him to be hospitalized for 45 days. He developed pneumonia and sepsis. While he was able to recover, damage to his lungs prevented him from continuing his career as a swimmer.
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#9 This Is Franca Viola, An Italian Woman Who Became Famous In The 1960s For Publicly Refusing To Accept The Twisted Tradition Of Marrying Her Rapist
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Yaszek argues that even when shot by the most amateur of photographers, these images have a unique effect on our modern minds. “These images of people living in and through various moments in history provide a sense of immediate emotional connection—we think, ‘wow, so that’s what it would feel like to experience that moment of history!’” Yaszek explained.
#10 This Is Margaret Ann Neve At Age 110 In 1902. She Was Born In 1792 And Died In 1903, Making Her The First Proven Person In Recorded History To Have Lived In 3 Different Centuries
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#11 Lena Baker Was A Black Maid That Was Put On Trial For The Killing Of Her White Employer Earnest Knight For Trying To Rape Her
Though she claimed self defense, she was sentenced to death by an all white male jury. Her trial only lasted one day! Sitting in the electric chair, this is what she said: "What I done, I did in self defense or I would've been killed myself. Where I was, I could not overcome it. I am ready to meet my God''. She was executed on March 5, 1945 as the only woman ever executed in Georgia. She left behind 3 children. Her last words, along side with her picture are displayed near the now-retired electric chair at a museum at Georgia state prison in Reidsville. She was Pardon 60 years after her Murder.
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Interestingly, by looking at historical images, viewers may develop an emotional bond. “Once we feel an emotional bond with the people in historical photos and perhaps even begin to imaginatively empathize with them—we forge new intellectual connections to history itself, asking ourselves: ‘Why are the people in this photograph in this situation in the first place? What happened leading up to this photo—and what happened afterward?’,” Yaszek told us.
#13 This Is 18-Year-Old Alice Roosevelt And Her Long-Haired Chihuahua Named Leo In 1902
She also had a pet snake named Emily Spinach who she would wrap around on one arm and take to parties. Alice was extremely independent and unlike many women of her time, she was known to wear pants, drive cars, smoke cigarettes, place bets with bookies, dance on rooftops, and party all night. In a span of 15 months, she managed to attend 300 parties, 350 balls and 407 dinners. A friend of Alice’s stepmom once remarked that she was “like a young wild animal that had been put into good clothes.” Her stepmom went a step further and described her as a “guttersnipe” that went “uncontrolled with every boy in town.” William Howard Taft banned her from the White House after Alice buried a voodoo doll (of Taft’s wife) in the front yard. Woodrow Wilson also banned her after she told a very dirty joke (sadly no record of the joke exists) about him in public. Her father, Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.” Alice once told President Lyndon B. Johnson that she specifically wore wide-brimmed hats around him so that he could not kiss her. During an interview in 1974, Alice described herself as a “hedonist.” She died in 1980 at the age of 96.
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#16 In 1948, A Man Wore 30-Pound, Three-Toed Lead Shoes And Stomped Around A Florida Beach During The Night
The footprints lead people to believe that a 15-foot tall penguin was roaming their lands. He kept up the prank for 10 years, visiting various beaches. The hoax wasn't revealed until 40 years later.
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#17 The Indigenous People Known As The Huichol First Appeared In The High Highlands Of Central Mexico Some 15,000 Years Ago
According to their ancient traditions, both men and women would experience the pain of childbirth. This is how it would be done, the father would position himself on the rafters with rope tied around his scrotum while the mother would pull on it while giving birth.
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#18 Facial Prosthesis For A Wounded Soldier Of The First World War, 1916
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#19 A Lion Walks Alone In The Desert
This is a 1925 photo of possibly the last Barbary lion in the wild before its extinction. It was taken by French photographer Marcelin Flandrin while he was onboard a flight on the Casablanca-Dakar air route.
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#20 86-Year-Old Lao Huang, A Cormorant Fisherman Living In Yangshuo, China
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